You Are No Longer Fit For Duty…in Recruiting!

Posted on by
1

I’ve been hearing a lot of “Fit-for-duty” stuff in the news lately and it got me thinking. Are any of us really fit for duty for the jobs we have!?

Fit-For-Duty, according to OSHA, means that an individual is in a physical, mental, and emotional state which enables the employee to perform the essential tasks of his or her work assignment in a manner that does not threaten the safety or health of yourself, your co-workers, your company’s property, or the public at large.

That’s a lot, right!? I mean, on a day-to-day basis I might make one or two of three of those, but being physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared each day!? Get out of here!

As recruiters being physically ready probably isn’t our biggest hurdle. I mean, let’s face it, we sit in front of a computer. If we can physically type and make some calls, it’s not the most demanding job from a physical standpoint. Also, mentally, is recruiting really challenging anyone day-to-day? We aren’t trying to figure out how to put puppies on the moon, we are just trying to talk someone into accepting a job we have open.

Are recruiters fit for duty?

The problem is the emotional side of fit for duty. You see, Recruiters face rejection all day, every day. An average recruiter will face more rejection in one week than an ugly, short dude gets on Tinder all year. That’s to say, it’s a lot!

The recruiter also has to constantly placate dumb hiring managers that believe they are way better than they are and that believe they know how to recruit talent better than the recruiters they work with. On top of that, we have the serial repeat candidates who are awful but can’t take “no” for an answer. So, each week we spend hours with candidates whose own mother wouldn’t give them a job, but somehow they believe they should be the next executive VP at our company!

Let’s not forget our HR brothers and sisters who secretly, and not so secretly hate us, because they ain’t us! It’s hard being this sexy, smart, and cool. We get it, but let’s just be friends! And still, somehow we take the blame for our organization’s lack of talent when we have psychopath leaders who turnover people like there’s an endless supply of warm bodies just craving our average pay, average benefits, and average, cold, work location.

Emotionally, there’s no way, most recruiters are fit for duty!

And, yet, we show up, pick up the phones, and keep finding fresh suckers every day to fill the jobs of our organizations.

When is a Recruiter no longer fit for duty?

Here’s the real deal, because, for all the joking above, there is actually a time when a recruiter is no longer fit for duty in your company. The time they are no longer fit for duty is the exact time they stop believing.

That moment when they stop believing your company is a good company.

That moment when they stop believing that the job they are working on is a good job.

The moment when they stop believing that the hiring manager they are working with has the ability to be someone good to work for.

Now, I get it, we all have a bad hiring manager here and there. a bad job here and there, but overall, the majority is good. The moment we no longer believe this is the exact moment you can no longer recruit for your company.

You are no longer fit for duty, because “believing” can’t be faked. It shows up. It shows up in the bad candidates you let go on to the next step. How you sell your company to the world. How you allow a partner to make a bad decision and just walk away.

As a recruiter, you are no longer fit for duty the moment you stop believing. That is the moment you must leave. Maybe not the company, but certainly your job as a recruiter.

I think a lot of CEOs would like to believe this is a fit for duty criteria for every role in their company, but that just isn’t true. I don’t need Ted in IT to believe in the company, I just need to make sure he keeps the network up. Do I want him to believe? Heck, yes! But, I desperately must have my recruiters who believe!

Take a good long look in the mirror today. Are you fit for duty?

My favorite quote of 2021! #Yellowstone

Posted on by
2

I love titles and quotes. As a writer (oh, aren’t you special!), a great quote or title often lays the foundation for whatever it is I’m writing. When I wrote my book (oh, brother here we go…) I actually came up with my chapter titles before I even wrote the chapters!

I’m a big fan of the hit TV series Yellowstone, but for some reason, I always call it “Sundance”, a strange mental block! One of the best characters on the show is “Rip Wheeler”, played by Cole Hauser. If you haven’t checked out the show, it’s must-see TV for sure. And my top quote of last year comes from Rip.

I’ll set the stage. Rip is dating the daughter (Beth) of the lead character, John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner. Beth is a wild one and constantly causing trouble and Rip seems to be wise beyond his years. She’s getting ready to stir it up once again and he says:

“Life is hard, you don’t need to help it.”

Rip is a man of few words as well! But this is freaking awesome because it’s so true! It’s even a better quote if you say it with a cowboy accent.

How many people do you know in your life that seem to purposely try and make life harder!? On a daily basis, I see folks trying to make their lives harder.

Most people are struggling on the daily to just get through life and then will go out of their way to get upset over stuff they have no control over. Or push issues that are none of their business or they have nothing to do with.

I get it, I’m passionate about a lot of stuff, but at some point, we need to understand that life is hard and we can make it harder or we can use that energy to make it a bit easier on ourselves and others. I’m the first to admit that I’ve made it harder on myself and others way too often so in 2022 one of my resolutions is to try and not make life so hard. Both for myself and others.

Thanks for the advice, Rip! Now go back to being your sexy self!

What is your “Save” strategy for 2022?

Posted on by
Reply

I’m calling 2022 the “Great Retention“! Primarily because I was sick of hearing “Great Resignation” when it wasn’t really the great resignation, it was more reshuffling. A ton of openings allowed workers to upgrade jobs and salaries in 2021, so yes, folks “resigned” but then immediately accepted a job somewhere else they felt was better for their life choices.

We are facing some major challenges in 2022 and beyond. Most of which can be traced back to simple demographics. The reality is, we are going to see more jobs than workers for a long time. This means a few things:

  1. Yes, we can be and must be getter at acquiring talent.
  2. We need to be more flexible with our workforces, if we want to keep and attract talent.
  3. We need the government to open up immigration in new and innovative ways, for both skilled and unskilled workers.

How are you going to Save talent in 2022?

Your recruiting strategy can not only be to actually go recruit more talent in 2022. There must be a simultaneous strategy to retain talent and save talent. What’s the difference between retaining and saving?

Retaining talent is about a systematic, ongoing strategy to improve and change pieces within your work world that helps create an environment where your current employees want to stay longer with your company.

Saving talent is about having a systematic strategy that is designed to talk someone out of leaving your company for another opportunity. A save strategy goes into effect the moment you believe someone is going to leave you. That might be when they put their notice in, or maybe you start to hear about someone interviewing, etc. The reality is, there’s a good chance they are looking to leave your employment.

What does a save strategy look like?

Most save strategies are designed around critically hard-to-fill and/or revenue-focused roles. Roles that will have the most impact by keeping well-performing talent versus having to go out and try to hire new talent.

When you engage a save strategy, there must be concrete steps you take to try and talk the employee out of leaving. This might, and usually, includes multiple people, including senior executives up to the CEO. In a traditional notice situation, you have two weeks or so to work your strategy. While the person is in your employ you can have them travel, meet, and pretty much pay them to do what you need before they leave.

Traditionally, let’s face it, most of us waste these two weeks. We let the employee dictate what they will do and not do. This usually ends up being pretty much useless as the current employee just makes sure people know what they have going on before they leave.

What if you designed those two weeks around trying to do whatever it would take to keep that employee with your company? You might have them meet with the leadership team and discuss why they are leaving and what it would take to keep them. You might have them go try a different job they are interested in to see if they would be opening to transfer to another role or location.

I’ve worked with organizations that when a certain level of an employee put their notice in, they were immediately scheduled for a flight out to meet with the company executive team to discuss why they decided to leave and what the executive team could do to keep them. The success rate was 40%. Not perfect, but instead of hiring ten new employees for every ten that put their notice in, we only had to hire six! That made a huge difference for a stretched TA team!

The best recruit you’ll ever make is the one you don’t have to!

How do you get promoted to the job you want?

Posted on by
Reply

I read an article recently where a “former” Google HR executive shared his wisdom. (editor side note – are all Google HR executives “Former”? Have you ever heard from a “current” Google HR executive? Why does Google have a hard time keeping HR execs?)

The dude’s name is Justin Angsuwat and he’s the current VP of People at Thumbtack, which not ironically does not make thumbtacks but it would awesome if they did. And he give his inside Google advice to Business Insider on how to get promoted. Are you ready?

Why is this promotion important to you?

JUSTIN ANGSUWAT

Um, what?!

Seriously, that’s your advice Justin?

Okay, I’m sure Justin is brilliant, he’s Australian and worked for PwC and Google, and let’s face it, American’s will hire any idiot with an Australian accent, but I’m sure Justin is not an idiot, but I hate the “I’m going to answer your question with a question” because that’s how ‘real’ leaders do it.

What Justin is saying is most people have no idea why someone wants to be promoted. We just get this idea in our head that’s what we are supposed to do, so as leaders we need to figure out why, because most don’t really care if they get promoted, they just want you to pay attention to them!

Okay, Justin, I’ll agree with that. Now tell me why there are so many former Google HR executives!?

What do you really need to do if you want to get promoted?

  • Tell you current boss you want to get promoted and why.
  • Tell the boss that you’ll be under when you get promoted that you want to get promoted and why. This is a must-do if your current boss is a tool and won’t raise you up to the organization.
  • Get a specific development plan around what the organization needs to see from you to get promoted. If you can, try to get some realistic timing around the plan. Understand, 90 days, is not realistic. 3 years, might be. I find most people who want to get promoted believe they have already put in the work, but those above them don’t see it that way.
  • Do the work and be patient.
  • Be a positive advocate for your boss and for the company. Yes, you might even cheerlead a little. Don’t ever underestimate the power of positivity on your ability to get promoted. Executives hate promoting assholes. Right, Justin?

I teasing Justin, but I actually really like his question. Way too many people chase titles but don’t really know why they’re chasing it. They get there and it feels unsatisfying because the reality is it’s not what they expect it to be.

Getting promoted because you want more money, probably isn’t the reason you really want. It’s legitimate, but you won’t be happy. Wanting to lead teams or functions is better, wanting to help others reach their goals is even better, wanting to help the company reach its mission and you’re all in on the company is probably the best.

Most of us don’t even think about those things, though.

Can work culture be defined by everyone wearing a baseball cap? #HRFamous

Posted on by
Reply

On episode 90 of the HR Famous podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee, and Kris Dunn come together to discuss characters on HBO’s Succession, wearing company-branded apparel on Zoom calls to attempt to build culture, and increases in health-insurance costs.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights

2:45 – JLee had a call with her chief legal counsel and she forgot she had a hoodie on and felt underdressed.

4:15 – JLee is late to the Succession game but now she is obsessed. Tim and KD are longtime fans. JLee asks, “Who is the least worst of the Succession siblings?”

9:40 – Tim didn’t realize while watching Schitt’s Creek that Catherine O’Hara (Moira Rose) was the mom in Home Alone.

11:30 – A recent Business Insider article reported that a CEO of an established company expects all employees to wear baseball caps/hats on Zoom calls to represent being a part of the company.

16:45 – Tim mentioned that when he worked at Applebee’s, they loved when their employees wore their logo on the clothes they wore to work and often gave out clothing with the logo.

19:30 – JLee just realized she’s a perpetrator of this because she bought every member of her team the same hat on a team outing.

26:00 – JLee has noticed that benefits rates are going up and she’s curious about how companies are communicating to their employees why the rates are increasing. Tim said his rates were going to go up by 34%.

28:00 – Tim says that during the pandemic, health-insurance companies had really low utilization and so it looks like this is a cash grab.

32:00 – Tim has often run into a problem with Blue Cross where they always try to make you pay more than you actually need to and then employees need to fight back against the insurance company.

35:00 – JLee is a brand loyalist, even when it comes to medicine!

Is your corporate gig really that bad?

Posted on by
2

Have you noticed it’s become super fashionable to dump on corporate jobs? The ‘super cool’ thing today is to be an entrepreneur or work for a start-up, get a solo gig, etc. The last thing that is cool is to work in a large, stable, profitable corporation. I mean, the humanity of it all!

Inc. online recently had an article from a GenXer, corporate leader-type, Scott Mautz, who decided to step away from the corporate world and become a “Life Coach” and “Professional Speaker”, so basically unemployed. But he does have advice on why we also should step away from corporate America and go out on our own:

– Two things will be the death of us: Death and Meetings. (Okay, I hate meetings, this is mostly true)

– I miss the people, but none of the processes. (Yeah, that’s because “processes” are the actual work!)

– It’s less about being impressive, and more about making an imprint. (An imprint to whom? Your cat?)

– All the little stuff is really little stuff. (Gawd, I love Life Coaches!)

– Flexibility is intoxicating. (Yep, and so is a regular paycheck you can count on!)

– My presence is more of a present. (I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

– There’s no greater pick me up than feeling challenged and growing again. (You couldn’t do that in your job at Proctor & Gamble? Sounds like a “you problem”.)

– Your health belongs on a pedestal. Period. (Life Coach advice 101, use “Period” at the end of a sentence to show it’s really, really important!)

I don’t know Scott, I’m just having fun. I’m sure he’s super nice and is loving his life. Good for him!

I don’t like that he believes the best advice to reach all of his points is to walk away from working at a corporation. I think there are two types of people: ‘corporate’ employee types, and there are people who are unemployable in the real world. By the way, I fit much closer to the latter, and Scott sounds like he probably struggled in corporate America as well.

I’ve got very close friends who love working for giant corporations and brands. Doing so comes with some cachet for sure! Plus, the pay and benefits are usually really great. You also have to be high on the political savvy side of things, and you probably hold your tongue more often than you wish to. But, the perks are pretty freaking good!

Almost everything Scott said above is controllable no matter what size organization you work for. Do you want more flexibility? Be a great performer. Turns out, great performance gets flexibility. Want to be more healthy? Okay, then focus on your health and find balance. I find most giant companies do a much better job focusing on the health of their employees than small companies. Good health costs a lot!

Want to be challenged and grow? Take some freaking initiative and do some stretch assignments. I’ve never been told not to challenge myself in an enterprise corporate environment. In fact, it was the one thing that propelled my career in a large company.

The problem isn’t corporate America. Corporate America is great for millions of people. The problem is probably you just don’t fit in that environment, because the reality is corporate gigs can be pretty awesome!

Tracking Remote Employees is an Amateur Move!

Posted on by
1

I continue to see more and more technology being released by tech companies targeting c-suite executives who are paranoid their employees who are working remotely aren’t working! Mouse tracking software, keystroke tracking software, login/logout tracking, etc. It’s become a billion-dollar industry to track you while you work at home, just in case you’re not working at home and just screwing around!

The most ingenious employee is the one who is trying to get paid without doing any work! Check out this TikTok:

@leahova

It’s called mental health, Janice. Look it up. #wfh #workfromhome #corporatetiktok #worklifebalance

♬ original sound – Leah

Now, I don’t think Lea is trying to get away with not working. She’s a good one, she’s paranoid in the other direction. If I try and go to the bathroom may be the A.I. will tell my boss I’m not working and I’ll get fired! None of this software really works like this, but it’s all a slippery slope!

A better idea for tracking employees!

How about building measurable performance goals and just managing those!? OMG! How f’ing brilliant am I!?! I just gave you an idea from 1979 that actually works perfectly and you don’t have to make your employees feel like they are being micromanaged and tracked by Big Brother!

Seriously! How lame are you that you think you need to track an employee at home by how often they move their mouse!? If you’re an executive and you believe this is the cure to your corporate ills, it’s time to hang it up, Hank!

It’s the 21st century, we can now treat employees like adults and place goals and expectations on them, that we’ve sat down and worked with them on coming up with so that we all feel like we are getting a fair deal on this little employment contract we’ve put together. We give “X”, You give us “Y”, and we are all happy with “Z”! If you don’t give us “Y”, let’s dig in and find out why that is, and if you continue to not give us “Y”, we’ll stop giving you “X”.

Okay, for those bad at Algebra, I’m talking about you do your damn job and we pay you. If you decide to sit at home and watch Netflix and not do your job, we stop paying you.

A better idea than buying a “mouse mover”!

Quite that stupid job who thinks measuring your mouse movements is equal to work. Seriously, there are more jobs open than people alive right now. Leave! There are great companies that are waiting to hire you that will let you go to the bathroom as much as you want.

If you bought a mouse mover to sit at home and watch Netflix and get paid, but not work. Congratulations, you’ll eventually be fired and/or your company will go out of business. You win, I guess, for the time being. Just know the world hates people like you.

The Point is Finality

Posted on by
1

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.

Candidate Experience is Free!

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Great candidate experience shouldn’t be a luxury.

Letting Every Employee Hire & Helping Your Kids Negotiate Job Offers!

Posted on by
Reply

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. 

Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

2:30 – Shoutout to JLee’s brother-in-law, Eugene!

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%. 

—————Jessica Lee, Kris Dunn, and Tim Sackett

Kinetix

HRU Tech

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series