Most work becomes a series of urgent events and tasks. We run from one urgency to the next, constantly fixing things to make them work better at the moment. Solving these urgencies gives us a great feeling of satisfaction. That was broken and I fixed it! Oh wait, there’s another one…
This might be the biggest cancer in organizations.
Quick fixes don’t ever really solve the underlying problem of why something isn’t working the way it should. We rarely work to solve the core issue and put a permanent solution in place. The time that does happen is usually after someone gets fired and the entire process has collapsed under a mountain of urgent fixes that have been cobbled together over months and years.
I see this on a monthly basis with leaders I speak with. I’m lucky to be on the front side of many of these conversations with leaders new in position who are working on building it the ‘right’ way. Finally, trying to get away from urgent fixes and put permanent solutions into play. To jump off the treadmill and add some finality to the process.
“We have always done it this way“.
That statement has gotten a bad reputation. We make fun of people who say it. When in reality, we should all be striving to say this statement. We’ve always done it this way because it freaking works amazingly! We had a problem. We worked our butts off to find the right solution for the long term, and unsurprisingly, it works and we kept doing it.
Jumping from one shiny new thing to the next, adding in stuff to cover up something that stopped working for now, because we don’t have time to truly fix the root cause, has become the norm for almost every department and function we have in organizations.
We’ve lost the view of “oh, I might have to live what I’m building here for the next twenty years, so I should probably make it work properly.” Instead, it’s “yeah, our process sucks, but we (add in excuse here), so we’ll just have to deal with it for now”. “For now” means until I either find a new job, or I get fired, or I move to another job or department.
I hate workarounds.
When someone tells me they are going to do something as a workaround I immediately have anxiety. Because what I hear is, “I don’t want to fix this the right way” I would rather fix it temporarily so it can be someone else’s issue down the road.
We have this belief that we can’t stop and fix things the way they should be. We don’t have the time, we can’t stop what we are doing. Until of course you get fired or leave, then someone ‘magically’ has the time to fix it the right way.
The worse spot you can be in is a cobbled mess of systems, processes, and people who don’t give a shit. If you find yourself in this spot there are only two options: 1. Leave; 2. Stop everything and fix it the right way.
This week on Tuesday Best Buy was supposed to deliver to my house a new clothes dryer. I had scheduled the dryer to be delivered. Best Buy sent an email confirming the date and time slot of my delivery. I waited for the delivery. The dryer never came. You know the drill, call customer service.
So, I did, and probably like most of you, it wasn’t a call I wanted to make because by now we all know the drill. I’m going to get someone who has no idea why or what happened, fake apology, we’ll have to reschedule.
To my surprise, I ran into a dude answering Best Buy customer service calls in Guatemala, named Mateo. The dude seemed more upset than I was about what happened. He questioned why wouldn’t the local delivery people send me a note or text message telling me it wasn’t going to happen. He chastised his own company and then he went to work fixing the problem and getting our delivery rescheduled. He apologized so many times I felt sorry for him! He made zero excuses. I wanted to hire Mateo!
Great customer service is so rare, it seems like a luxury!
We’ve spent the better part of a decade focusing on candidate experience, which is really just another form of “customer service” to our candidates who apply to our jobs. In a very real way, our candidates are our customers. Too often we confuse this with our hiring managers being our customers, but in fact, our hiring managers are our peers, who also need to deliver great customer service to candidates.
The reality is delivering an exceptional candidate experience is completely free and it’s almost always dependent on us as individual recruiters. Yes, I get it, I understand we all have capacity issues, and it can be really difficult to deliver the same level of experience to every candidate. Still, the best recruiters find ways to deliver an exceptional experience enough times that it’s definitely recognized.
I’m not naive to think my guy, Mateo, delivers the same customer experience to every single person. In fact, he even made mention to this fact, that sometimes customers can be quite rude to him. It was a combination of me not being overly worked up about the issue and him being ready to help someone who needed help. The reality is the dude is good at customer service and the few bad ones he most likely has, doesn’t cover up all the good ones he has on a normal basis.
Candidate experience can definitely be aided by technology and process. All of the stuff we have at our disposal can make it easier. Ultimately, though, true candidate experience will fall into the hands of the individual recruiter working the req that is having contact with the candidates. We have the ability to be our own Mateo. To have a personality. To be real. To care more. To show the candidate that yeah, we probably messed up, but that we care that something went wrong and we want to fix it.
On episode 89 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett,Jessica Lee, and Kris Dunn come together to discuss gifted book recommendations, letting employees hire for new roles, and helping your children negotiate job offers.
5:00 – Tim is on yet another vacation with his wife and family to Hawaii! He bought a few books for this trip and he asked the crew if they were going to give a book to someone for the holidays, what book would they give?
6:30 – KD’s recommendations include Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday and American Kingpin by Nick Bilton.
8:00 – JLee recommends Plant Therapy for the Plant Lovers and Act Like a Leader, Think like a leader by Herminia Ibarra for the business folk. Tim recommends Living, Loving, and Learning by Leo Buscaglia.
13:00 – Lots of great book recs this episode! KD recommends fiction writer Douglas Copeland
14:20 – Tim recently wrote a blog post asking “what if we let our normal employees make a hire?”. This would involve almost none of the normal application process; no interview, no resumes, no filler.
17:00 – KD says that to an extent, companies already do this with the adage “everyone’s a recruiter”.
19:45 – Tim thinks that small orgs can test this hiring practice and do it on a much smaller scale rather than a huge scale at a major corporation.
23:45 – JLee tells a story about her first interview at Marriott. JLee wasn’t a typical hire since she didn’t come from a huge brand and a prestigious university.
26:00 – Tim says you have to be careful on who you hand this hiring responsibility to but notes that some companies that are struggling to find employees have nothing to lose.
27:00 – Tim’s son and podcast producer, Cam, just recently accepted a new job offer. He asked Tim if he should negotiate his job offer and Tim said of course. Tim was super nervous that as soon as he negotiated, that his offer would get pulled.
31:30 – KD asks JLee about how many managers would step away from an offer if someone tried to negotiate with them. JLee thinks less than 10%.
Let’s start with I’m not a travel blogger, but I like to travel and I like to think I can vacation with the best of them! I spent the last two weeks in Maui, part family trip with the boys, part anniversary trip (with no boys) with my wife and eye. I’ve traveled all over the world, but for some reason never went to Hawaii.
First, I spent all two weeks in Maui, don’t @ me! I get Kauai is “way” better and Oahu is your favorite and Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t do the big island. Shut it! After flying 10 hours, I wasn’t looking for more stupid flights during Covid! It’s a nightmare flying right now between Covid, low staffing levels, etc. I wanted two weeks of fun and relaxation and fish tacos.
Shoutout to the twenty+ folks who gave me ideas of what to do. Too many to mention, but I think 95% of the stuff folks shared with me was awesome!
Okay, let’s breakdown Maui according to Sackett
1. We stayed the first week in Kannapali (west Maui) big resorts – Marriott, Hyatt, Westin, etc. Easy for families, big pools, average hotel food, good golfing. If you like big giant hotels and a lot of people west Maui is for you. Everything is right there, it’s simple. It was good. Great weather, lighter winds. Easy to get out and spend time on the beach.
2. We stayed the second week in Wailea (South-west Maui). Wailea is higher end. Fancy resorts, way better restaurants, higher daily trade winds, great beaches, better snorkeling, felt way less busy than Kannapali. Tremendous sunsets. Whale watching right off our balcony.
Things I did on a 5 Star scale – 1 Star = Never do this; 5 Stars = Must do.
– Snorkel Trips with Trilogy. We loved this so much we did it twice! Once out of Kannapali and once out of Kihei. These guys were amazing and you have a lot of options for these types of trips. Trilogy costs more than most, but it was worth it. Great newer boats, very clean, great staff, great food (not joking! one of the better lunches we had on the island!), great drinks. I actually would have done more of these they were so enjoyable! I also did Snuba on one of these trips and it was amazing! (5 Stars)
– Ultimate Whale Watch was cool. We were a bit early for great whale watching but we still saw five whales in two hours. They have small boats, so everyone is basically in the front row. The crew would call around and find whales and were knowledgeable. The small boats make it easier to zip around and find more whales. (4 Stars, but only because we were early in the season, better in late January, early February, but we did see whales both weeks – 2 breaches which are unheard of)
– Kapalua Golf, Plantation Course – Super expensive, but it’s always rated the number one course in Hawaii and one of the top courses in the world, and it was amazing! The views are outrageous, it’s difficult but playable. If you’re a serious golfer this is a must-do when you go to Maui. I only golfed twice in Maui and both courses had great rental clubs. (5 Stars)
– Helicopter ride around Maui – we went with Pacific Helicopter Tour and it was awesome. Now, we were hoping to do the entire island, including the north shore, Road to Hana, but the weather kept us on the west and northwest side, and it was still one of the most amazing things I’ve done and seen. You see parts of Maui no one can see and it will remind you of Jurassic Park! thousand-foot waterfalls, rain forest, coastline crashing waves, etc. Plus, flying on a helicopter with the doors off is just fun! (5 Stars)
– Surf Lessons – We used Maui Wave Riders and it was good. Look, I get it, most people aren’t going to take surf lessons, but I’ve got three boys (err. men) and we like to try adventurous stuff. I’ve now taken three surf lessons: Sydney, Hermosa Beach, and now Maui. It’s hard and tiring, but it’s so much fun! You fall a lot and it can be frustrating trying to get up, but a great instructor is a key to getting you up on a board, and then you get addicted. (4 Stars – waves were good, but it’s a packed place in Lahania where you can catch them, but great for beginners)
– Haleakalā Sunrise Tour – We used Skyline and they were good. So, this is very weather-dependent on how great it can be, we had a lot of clouds, but still got some good sunrise views, but not awesome. Understand, they pick you up at 2:45 am to get there and when you get there an hour early it’s 30-40 degrees, so you freeze! I definitely would not take kids on this! It’s a long day, cold, and you are hoping to get a view of an amazing sunrise that lasts like 20 minutes. Then a long ride back. The positive was the tour gives you a ton of information and history, plus they gave us warm coats, but when they tell you to dress warm, they are not kidding! (3 Stars)
– Road to Hana – this one will be the hardest to rate, it almost needs multiple ratings because there are pieces of the Road to Hana that are 5 stars and some that are 1 or 2 stars. We bought an app to guide us and it was super helpful (Gypsy Guide – $10). FYI – you will need hiking shoes or shoes you don’t mind getting dirty, and most likely they’ll get wet, so bring a change of clothes as you’ll most likely want to swim as well. We left Wailea at 6:30 am, skipped Ho’okipa Beach because we had already been there, and pretty much beat the traffic out on the road, we made Hana by 1:30 pm and that was with 90 minutes at Wai’anapanapa State Park.
Here’s what we saw on the Road to Hana with star ratings:
Ho’okipa Beach – (5 Stars) – great surfing beach, turtles, huge shore breaks. This is like 10 minutes from the airport and is at the start of Road to Hana. Really an amazing site to see being so close to the airport.
Town of Paia – (3 Star) cool little north shore surf town, if you want to stop to grab something to eat, etc. But not that different than most small towns on Maui.
Twin Falls – about a mile walk to a fairly decent fall into a muddy pool. Private land, so you pay $10 to park. (3 stars – but after the Jurassic Park Helicopter falls my ratings are probably skewed)
Rainbow Eucalyptus Trees (5 stars) so cool, you get a view of some from the road, but you can also stop at Ke’anae Arboretum to get some up close pics. They are so cool.
Ke’anae Peninsula – (5 Stars – must stop) first Aunt Sandy’s Banana Bread is here, and you have to get some, but the coast line here is breath taking and little ocean front town is very cool.
Wai’anapanapa Black Sand Beach – (6 Stars) we spent an hour and half here exploring the cliffs and could have spent all day. Sure the black sand is cool, but that’s only the half of it. You must buy a pass here before you go for a certain time period. You can not buy the day of. DO THIS! We got ours for 12:30pm and actually had to drag our feet a little because we got there a bit early.
We didn’t even stop in Hana, there isn’t much to see, but took off for what we were told was must see things past Hana – 7 Sacred Pool and Pipiwai Trail, which both basically sucked. Plus it cost $30 bucks to do it and it was on the worse stops of they day, primarily because the water wasn’t running, so not much to see, but you don’t know that until you get there. (2 Stars – but I think that is time of the year specific)
At this point, most people turn around at Oheo Gulch – 7 Pools and go back, but we kept going around the Reverse side and it was really cool! Extremely narrow road, puts you a few feet from the ocean for some magical views. I would only do this with a four wheel drive vehicle, even though we saw some normal rental cars doing it slowly. It’s about the same distance getting back to the beginning but you get so much cool shore line to check out. (5 Stars) FYI – Watch out for the wild goats on the road and local drivers coming at you super fast with very little room.
There are a ton of road-side water falls you see on the Road to Hana and it’s probably worth stopping at a few and taking pics.
– Snorkeling at local beaches – Bring, rent, or buy snorkel gear, you can see awesome stuff every day at local beaches for free. We snorkeled almost every day and spent hours swimming with sea turtles and all kinds of stuff. I don’t think there was one time I went out snorkeling that I didn’t run into a sea turtle no matter where we went.
– Sunsets – Wailea has way better sunsets than Kannapali, so if you’re into amazing sunsets, spend some time over in Wailea/Kihei. Kannapali sunsets aren’t bad, but you are usually blocked by another island, so you’re getting the sunset over an island, whereas in Wailea you get full ocean sunsets.
What we didn’t get about Hawaii
Tourist bring their kids! Like a lot of kids! I’ve been on flights to Orlando home of Disney World with fewer kids! I’m not sure why people spend all that money to bring kids to Hawaii. It’s perplexing. First, it’s a miserable flight from the mainland, basically an international flight. It absolutely makes no sense! We saw non-stop meltdowns by kids and parents.
Meals basically come in two price points if you’re eating out: $50 per person and $100 per person (includes alcohol drinks). $50 per person is a basic bar food meal, think Applebee’s but in Hawaii with fish tacos. No matter where we went, after tip, it was about $50 a person. Good meals, fresh fish, steaks, etc. at a nice place push it to $100 per person. Everything on islands is expensive, but this seems strange.
Nowhere on the island is the speed limit greater than 55 mph, and it’s usually 45 mph and under. Don’t be in a hurry, you get nowhere fast on Maui.
Pictures do none of this justice! We took pics of everything and nothing really comes close to capturing the beauty of it all.
HR Blogger Turned Maui Travel Blogger Insider Pro Tip:
We had the world’s best cinnamon roles at a place in Kehei called: The Cinnamon Roll Place. I kid you not, these were to die for and I’ve had cinnamon rolls all over the world! For $5 it’s by far the best deal on the island. It’s in some little strip mall behind a staircase being guarded by a wild rooster. You can’t make this stuff up!
Okay, friends, what did I miss? Hit me in the comments!
I think we try and deliver a message to organizations that all employees need and want to be developed. This is a lie. Many of our employees do want and need development. Some don’t need it, they’re better than you. Some don’t want it, just give me my check. Too many of our leaders truly believe they can develop and make their employees better than they already are. This is a lot tougher than it sounds, and something most leaders actually fail at moving the needle on.
Now, let’s add in we don’t get the luxury of seeing and spending a bunch of one-on-one, face-to-face time with many of our employees who are now working remotely!
Here are some things I like to share with my leaders in developing their remote employees:
1. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” -Maya Angelou. I see too many leaders trying to change adult employees. Adult behaviors are basically locked. If they show you they don’t want to work. They don’t want to work. Part of developing a strong relationship is spending time with people who are not a waste of time.
2. People only change behavior they want to change, and even then, sometimes they’re not capable of it. See above. When I was young in my career, I was very ‘passionate’. That’s what I liked calling it “passionate.” I think the leaders I worked with called it “career derailer.” It took a lot for me to understand what I thought was a strength, was really a major weakness. Some people never will gain this insight. They’ll continue to believe they’re just passionate when in reality they’re just really an asshole. When you work remotely, it’s way easier to have these personality ticks. Great developers of talent find ways to help folks realize these and diminish them.
3. Don’t invest more in a person than they are willing to invest in themselves. I want you to be great. I want you to be the best employee we have ever had work here. You need to be a part of that. I’m willing to invest an immense amount of time and resources to help you reach your goals, but you have to meet me halfway, at least. Don’t think this means a class costs $2,000, so you should be willing to pay half. It doesn’t. Financial investment is easier for organizations to put in than for employees, but if you pay for the class and it’s on a Saturday and the employee turns their nose up to it, they’re not willing to ‘invest’ their share.
4. It’s usually never the situation that’s pissing you off, it’s the mindset behind the situation that’s pissing you off. Rarely do I get upset over a certain situation. Frequently, I get upset over how someone has decided to handle that situation. Getting your employees to understand your level of importance in a situation is key to getting you both on the same page towards a solution. Failure to do this goes down a really disastrous path.
5, Endeavor to look at disappointment with broader strokes. It’s all going to work out in the end. It’s hard for leaders to act disappointed. We are supposed to be strong and not show our disappointment. This often makes our employees feel like we aren’t human. The best leaders I’ve ever had showed disappointment, but with this great level of resolve that I admired. This sucks. We are all going to make it through this and be better. Disappointment might be the strongest developmental opportunity you’ll ever get as a leader, with your people. When you are showing disappointment over a Zoom call it’s way to easy for this to get misinterpreted as well. Try to have these conversations face-to-face if possible.
I think most employment brands are completely fake. The reason I feel this way is because HR and Executives approve the messaging. We, HR and Executives, are the last people who really know what our employment brand truly is.
So, we end up with stuff like this:
Seems really cool! Makes us feel good about ourselves and our organization. But for the most part, it’s one big lie.
That’s marketing. It’s not marketing’s job to tell you the truth. It’s marketing’s job to get you to buy something. Sometimes it’s just some crappy product or service. Sometimes it’s the church down the street with the cool young pastor and rock band. Sometimes it’s working for your organization.
Many HR Pros and Executives get really pissed off when I say something like this.
That’s because they drink their own Kool-aid. They truly believe the messages brought forth are the truth. Those messages are what they hope and dream the organization to become, so they’re all bought in on making it happen. I actually really like these people. I like people who are bought into making their organizations what their commercials are telling us they are, even when they aren’t.
Who wants to go work for an organization that puts up a commercial of some manager unable to communicate what needs to be done, and Bobby down in the accounting bitching he only got a 14 lb. turkey from the company when last year he got a 15 lb. turkey?
No one!
But that’s truly your organization. Organizations are like families. You have some folks in your family you don’t want the rest of the world to see, but when you take the family photo it looks like everyone is fairly normal and well adjusted.
So, how fake is your employment brand? On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Goldman Sachs and 10 being Google, where does your organization fall?
Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died at 52 from inoperable esophageal cancer. Turns out Linds didn’t really like his old job and made hours he spent creating a successful career. Here is what Linds wrote before he died:
“I think you’re all f—— mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f—— TV commercial. Nobody gives a s—.
This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.
Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals, and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. It would all be worth it in the long run…
This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be? We were just shifting products. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast as I called it on my more cynical days.
So was it worth it?
Well of course not. It turns out it was just advertising. There was no higher calling.”
When faced with death, I wonder how many of us will look back on all the time and effort we put into our careers and will feel the same?
That all being said, sometimes I think a job might be worth it as well. Here’s the other side of the coin. I frequently see articles and blog posts, recently, written by people who have given up their careers to travel the world. It all seems so glamorous and adventurous. Until you realize you had a career and job to pay for all those glamorous adventures! From Adweek, “The Couple Who Quit Their Ad Jobs to Travel the World Ended Up Poor and Scrubbing ToiletsThe uglier side of a year-long creative journey”:
But halfway through their year-long odyssey, they posted a reality check on their blog—a post titled “Why We Quit Our Jobs In Advertising To Scrub Toilets”—in which they share “the uglier side of our trip.” It turns out that following one’s dream—while working odd jobs in exchange for room and board—involves a lot of dirty work, and more than a few tears.
“The budget is really tight, and we are definitely forced to use creativity (and small pep talks) to solve most of our problems (and the mild crying fits),” Cartell writes. “Don’t let the bank of gorgeous photography fool you. Nuh uh. So far, I think we’ve tallied 135 toilets scrubbed, 250 kilos of cow dung spread, 2 tons of rocks shoveled, 60 meters of pathway laid, 57 beds made, and I cannot even remember how many wine glasses we’ve polished.
“You see, to come from the luxuries we left behind in Johannesburg … we are now on the opposite end of the scale. We’re toilet cleaners, dog poop scoopers, grocery store merchandisers, and rock shovelers.”
We work for a reason. Your reasons might be vastly different than my reasons, but we all have reasons. I hope if I look death in the face I won’t regret my choices to work and create a successful career. I’ve missed my fair share of school events and sporting events that my kids have participated in. I’ve missed many of their most joyful and sad moments. Those I already regret. What I won’t regret is that I work to allow my family to have so many of these moments.
I’ve lived poor. I lived with a single mother who wasn’t quite sure how she was going to put dinner on the table that night. I work because I never wanted my family to feel this anxiety. Sometimes a job is worth it, sometimes it isn’t. It’s all up to you to decide, though.
Oh, I bet it’s working for a great boss! Or, maybe it’s having a best friend at work! No, it must be dog-friendly! Puppies make me happy! I wonder if it’s money or free tacos or something like that!?
No, you’re all wrong!
In fact, the one thing that correlates to high employee happiness at the office is the one thing you’re destroying! Isn’t that great! We’ve got one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything our employees ever wanted, but in that moment we let it slip…
There was a study done recently that asked about their modern workplaces. What was it in their office that made them the happiest? Turns out 90% of us want a private office. Yet, on the flip side, in all of our brilliance over 54% of us are converting our offices to open floor plans! Why? Because we’re stupid!
Also, because employees are kind of stupid in answering these kinds of surveys! They will tell you they want one of those cool, open office concepts with the bean bag chairs and picnic tables in a big room because look at those pictures of all the smiling faces of those employees. Also, is it just me, or do those smiling faces seem really attractive as well!? You know what? If we had open offices we would be more attractive!
For a decade, idiots like me and every media outlet known to man as talked about how Millennials just want open, collaborative spaces. We’ll be more productive, and have better teamwork, and make faster decisions, and be more collaborative, and we’ll solve global warming! The reality is much different. Turns out, working in a big, loud room with a bunch of fellow idiots employees makes you less productive.
Oh, great I get to sit in the middle of a giant room, across a giant table, and watch Steven pick his nose.
Here’s what happy productive employees actually want in an office:
Private.
Great WiFi and up to date technology.
Quiet.
Comfortable.
Cool design (which doesn’t equal ‘open concept’).
Well lighted.
Professional.
Clean, but not sterile.
Do we really hate cubes? Well, we hate cube farms that remind us of the 1979 Soviet Union. I don’t think most hate cubes that are designed for modern workspaces. The problem is we tend to not think about how we can use cubes in a modern design that lets people have a private space, but also open space for times they want that as well. It’s either cube farm or giant open warehouse, we tend to not think in between.
Ultimately, our employees want privacy and cool if you’re working for an organization that has made the decision that coming into the office is important to the success of the organization. I’m also going to guess if this study was done today, employees would also add “Flexibility” to the mix of what would make them most happy at work!
Data is amazing! It can also be funny and sad. Take a recent data analysis of names on resumes and salaries put together by Adzuna who put together a tool that allows you to search your own first name and find your own value (ValueMyResume).
It turns out the amount of money you make based on your name is vastly different on average. Meaning, my average salary for “Tim” is around $103,723. Now, my friend “Jessica” Lee her first name gets her on average $50,571.
Seems weird, right?
My other friend, “Kris” Dunn, gets $0 because as it turns out, not too many dudes have the name “Kris” or “Kristian” with a “K”, but when I put in the traditional spelling of “Chris” he gets $98,257, while “Christopher” only gets $77,554.
From the data here are the top-paying Men and Women names:
Top Paying Women NamesTop Paying Men Names
So, immediately you see top women getting paid way less than top men names. Interestingly, you’ll also notice a bunch more “ethic” derived names on the men’s list. So, this is where data sometimes doesn’t give us the full story. The study found 16,000 unique names on 40,000 resumes. So, “Murat” might be the only “Murat” found and thus if he’s got a great job, his salary is going to be very high.
On the flip side, they might have had hundreds of “Kari’s” and now the overall salary is going to come down because of the extra data available.
Let’s look at the lowest paid Names on average:
Lowest paid female namesLowest paid male names
Again, males on average make more on the low end than females on the low end. We don’t get specific data points to determine or occupations, so it’s hard to really make any true inferences about what this says.
Do the names on the low end have anything in common or different from the high end? The only real difference I can tell is really on the high-end males seem to have non-traditional American names. Names are derived from Arabic, Indian, and Chinese/Vietnamese. So, we could assume these males are most likely in STEM careers that are on the high end of the salary scale on average, based on college graduation programs correlated to names. You also see a few of these names on the high-end female names as well.
The other part of this data is based on “resume” data. Who has a resume? Usually professional, white-collar folks. So, overall you are going to see a higher overall pay rate on the high and low end than the national average.
You can go to the site and search on your own name and see where you fall. In terms of my own “high” salary average for “Tim”, I’m again going to assume there weren’t many “Tim’s” in the data set, so the ones they got had good jobs! Also, “Tim” is a very GenX name, meaning the Tim’s in the data set were probably late-career and in their prime earning years, so also more likely to have a higher than average salary.
Does this data show a larger problem in America when it comes to Pay Equity?
It might.
The hard part is that with only salary and name data you are going to make a gigantic jump to correlate pay equity issues based on those two data points. There are so many other factors at play that we don’t know from the resumes. Maybe the resumes that were gathered were heavy on males in the IT fields and the female resumes were heavy on non-technical careers. Maybe the male resumes had a higher overall average of experience and female resumes tended to be less experienced. Etc.
But, you can’t not see what you see. And what you see is what we already know to be true, on average, men make more than women, and pay equity is still a major issue that we must fix.
Over the past seven years, I estimate that I’ve listened to roughly 1,000 different HR and TA Technology pitches. As you can imagine, some of these have been super successful and many have failed and were never heard from again. I remember meeting Eightfold’s President, Kamal Ahluwalia, in a bar in Vegas when they probably had eight employees and angel funding and he was telling what this new company was all about and I’m like, yeah, that’s going to do well! Unfortunately, he didn’t offer me founder’s stock!
I’ve got a bunch of those stories, it’s amazing to see technology being born, and down the road thousands of companies using it!
Here’s how about 90%+ of new HR and TA technology startups pitch:
Act like they are the next unicorn and have something no one else does.
Listen to way too many people
Build something they believe their potential buyer wants because they had a potential buyer tell them this is what I want.
Keep building.
Keep building.
Try to sell a little.
Blow it up and build something else, but mostly the same with a new user interface.
Add on, build some more.
Run out of money.
Here’s the winning formula:
Don’t act like a unicorn, but get very curious about real problems organizations are having.
Don’t listen to what HR or Talent pros want.
Listen to what HR and Talent pros can’t get done and if they could get it done what impact would that have to the organization.
Build a working product.
Sell the sh*t out of that product. Get users using it. Sell more of it! No, more!
Go back and make the product better and add on stuff users aren’t asking for because they don’t even know what is possible, but you do.
The single biggest fail of technology startups in the HR ecosystem is they don’t sell and market their product. They just keep hiring engineers and they keep building, mostly without a proof of concept. Or, even worse, they have one proof of concept with one company, and everything they are building is based on what one company wants.
The second biggest mistake startups make is believing they don’t need to be profitable. That’s what VC money is for. We just keep building and gaining users and one day this thing will magically be profitable. You can’t give your tech away for free because “real” users won’t value it. You see, we are willing to pay for stuff we’ll actually use. If I’m not willing to pay you, I probably don’t find very much value in what you built.
The final mistake is HR technology startups underfund sales and marketing by a factor of a hundred! Almost any technology you can build, someone probably has something similar in this space that is around 80-90% of what you do. In fact, there are probably at least ten companies selling something similar to what you’re building. So, you aren’t as unique as you feel you are, but those who market and sell their stuff the best, almost always win.
I see great technology every year that doesn’t make it to the next year, not because the technology doesn’t work, because the founder and the team they’ve assembled, well-meaning, smart, caring folks who want to be successful, don’t know how to sell or market their product. Yes, it’s that simple, and that hard!
How can an HR Tech startup win?
If you get $10 Million in funding, spend $1 million on engineering and $9 million on selling your product. You can shop your engineering out to the Ukraine or India or where ever in the world development is cheaper. You can not shop out sales when selling to the US market.
“Well, if we make great tech, people will find it!” Nope! No, they won’t! Because someone making a good product will be sitting in the office of your buyer and your buyer won’t know who the hell you are.
Tech folks hate this concept. They just want to build great tech. These are the same folks who hate iPhones but love the Google phone. “The iPhone sucks, the Google phones have better technology by a factor of a thousand!” Yeah, but Apple is a genius at marketing and sales. So, we all have iPhones and you have the best phone, congratulations, I hate that I have to text you with a green bubble.
Careerbuilder survived way longer than Monster in the job board wars not because they were better. They were virtually the same! Monster had a bigger brand! CB sold the crap out of their clients! Take a look on LinkedIn and see where most of Indeed’s sales force came from!
The average HR buyer couldn’t name more than a handful of HR Technology companies. There are over 10,000 worldwide. No. One. Knows. Who. You. Are! So, it doesn’t matter what your tech does or doesn’t do if no one knows you!
This isn’t just an HR functional issue. Finance, operations, sales, marketing, IT, etc., we all buy what is sold to us. There might be twenty potential technologies to solve the thing I need solving, but if I only know of three, guess what? I’m buying one of those three! And, all three of those I know, might suck! Why do you think we constantly complain about our technology!?
I sat with an ATS out of Australia that no one has ever heard of. They are awful. Literally, ATS technology from the early 2000s. They found out how to sell to the US government and now have over $500M in US gov’t contracts to provide ATS technology to a number of US agencies. They are still awful, but they figured out how to sell and they are making stupid money delivering an inferior product.
I’m not telling you to make bad technology. Make good technology and be proud of it, and then sell it like it’s the antidote for Covid!
