E7 – The HR Famous Podcast – #COVID19 Work from Home strategies!

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In Episode 7 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn (Jessica Lee on break) get together to with Dawn Burke (Senior Writer at Fistful of Talent, Sr. Consultant at Recruiting Toolbox) to talk about Work From Home, as tens of millions of American workers have been told to stay home, keep working and figure it out on the fly.

Dawn shares her advice and background from a recent Fistful of Talent feature, focusing on the need to maintain work rituals (eating lunch in your car and watching Netflix rather than in the house) as well as thoughts on productivity expectations, print cartridges, PETS, kids, laundry, etc. Tim and Kris weigh in with stories about day drinking (not them, other people) and the psychology behind work from home productivity and the need to stop texting and emailing everyone ALL THE TIME from your bunker.

If you’re new to work from home or managing people who are, this is the podcast for you.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!!! Listen on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:30 – Tim discloses he’s not working from home since he owns his building at work, which is really just another form of working from home. Dawn Burke, a longtime HR leader, Senior Writer at Fistful of Talent, Sr. Consultant for Recruiting Toolbox introduces herself.

4:25 – Dawn breaks down a post she wrote at Fistful of Talent entitled “Working from Home Can Be Awful! Unless You Do These Things”, in which she provides great advice on how to set yourself to work from home, especially if you haven’t done It before.  It’s harder than it looks, as she details her transition to work from home and where she struggled as a result. Dawn also talks about people around her – like her sister – struggling over the last few days as they transition from no WFH to full-time WFH with zero planning and prep.

11:20 – Dawn, Kris, and Tim get into Dawn’s advice for people transitioning to full-time work from home – focused on the needs to maintain “rituals”. Kris goes right to one of the sizzle parts of Dawn’s article/advice, which is the disclosure that just like when she used to try and get out of the corporate office mid-day, she also has a history of trying to get out of the home office mid-day – BY EATING LUNCH IN HER CAR AND WATCHING NETFLIX. Fascinating and scary all at the same time. The gang ends up loving the idea for new folks doing the WFH thing. It’s actually brilliant.  Other references – Magic Mike, etc.

17:23 – Speaking of work rituals, Tim and Kris share alcohol-related stories from their time as trench HR pros.

21:00 – Dawn breaks down her top advice for folks moving to 100% work from home. Making appearances in the discussion – print cartridges, PETS, kids, laundry, etc. Tim talks about the productivity bump/burnout function that’s coming for new WFH people.

27:00– The gang talks about the need to stop messaging via Text and Slack when you’re a new WFH person and pick up the phone and talk to people (or via video) – to get human interaction. Interaction is going to be important to prevent isolation.

28:50 – TOP ADVICE FROM THE GANG RELATED TO WORK FROM HOME – Tim and Dawn break down their biggest pieces of advice for folks who are new to work from home. Tim shares his view that things get lost in translation, and you have to pick up the phone, facetime or hop on a video call rather than try to resolve something through 23 emails.  Dawn talks about her background and lighting in her WFH set up, and points to exercise/wellness/mindfulness platforms as a huge help to mental and physical health. KD feels like the key to WTH is find a way to reconnect with someone who’s important in your life  – personal and/or professional – at least a couple of times a week.

NOTE – We’ll be back mid-week with a pod focused on nothing but ZOOM and the art of the video meeting!

Who are your “Essential” employees!?

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Karen in Payroll – can you come to the CEO’s office!

In Michigan, we got the governor’s executive order to work from home for all nonessential companies. Basically, the only companies that should still be working at the office are those saving or sustaining life.

The order was like 18 pages. One of the bullet points directed that HR professionals responsible for ensuring payroll checks were processed and benefits administration continued were considered essential!

Eat that you other HR and Talent Pros!

Payroll and Benefits are Essential!!! You’re all non-essential! If fact, why are you still here? Get out, let the pros work in peace and safety, you dirty, virus-carrying waste of space wannabes!

It’s true. If our folks don’t get their paychecks, it’s a problem! Right now, more than ever we need access to our benefits, and for many people, who rarely use their benefits, they’ll have questions and be in a panic! So, feel yourself right now Karen in Payroll! We salute you as a first responder!

Have you ever wondered if you were an “Essential” employee? 

Many of us are finding this out for the first time right now. For those who worked through 9/11 and the Great Recession, you’ve probably experienced this. At some point in crisis situations and terrible economies, organizations go through a strategy talk about who is essential and who is non-essential to the business.

A great example of being an “Essential” employee is I heard a story from one of our Utility clients recently where they have certain employees who will be locked in the power plants during the pandemic. They have beds, and food stores, etc. But, the utility has to ensure these employees don’t get sick or the power grid could come down!

I’ve been in the unenviable task, many times in my career, where an executive has said, “Tim I need a list of employees we can cut, and still deliver our critical services, products, etc.” Big spreadsheets, a lot of conversations with leaders, and ultimately the list of death.

It’s not fun. It’s not exciting. You go home each night and drink.

Almost every time I’ve put these lists together I did the one thing I thought was responsible, which was I put my own name on that list with all the other names. After making sure we have all these talks, and make the moves we need to make, the last move will be me locking my door and leaving as well.

Every single time, and CEO, CHRO, etc., who I was reporting to saw the list and said, “Take your name off the list” you are essential and here’s why. Now, I didn’t think I wasn’t essential, but it’s a great test to find out, because if they accepted the list with me on it, then I know for sure!

The thing is we always want to be essential. If you think about your current role and you can ask a few questions to determine if your role is essential:

  1. If you don’t come to work, your customers can’t get your products and services?
  2. If you don’t come to work, a system or process doesn’t get done that ensures your product or services function in the way they should?
  3. If you don’t come to work, and your work doesn’t get done, something catastrophic will happen to your organization?
  4. You are the only one in your organization that does what you do?
  5. Someone else makes decisions on what you do and has the ability to do what you do?

Non-essential doesn’t mean you’re not important. It just means you might not be critical to keeping the lights on and making the donuts. When it comes to career security, being “essential” is truly the ultimate security.

 

Leaders Aren’t Best Judged in Crisis, No Matter What You’ve Heard

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We are in a crisis. Everyone would agree with this.

It’s been popular since the beginning of time to judge people based on their best moment. Stand up tall, when others are small and you are destined for greatness in history. No matter when you did before or after.

Rudy Giuliani, by most, is considered a great leader of our time for his leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He was in charge when the towers came down. He said and did the right things during that time. He will be forever remembered for that time in his legacy.

The reality is, leaders are not best judged in times of crisis.

Great leaders should not be judged by how they reacted in a once in a lifetime event, but how they act every day. On good days, average days, bad days, and very rarely on crisis days. The problem is we aren’t paying attention on normal days. We don’t see the greatest. So, we judge them on the few times we see them, which are either celebrations or catastrophes.

Crisis management is incredibly difficult by leadership teams at organizations. You try with all of your might to put your own situation aside, but it’s always there in the background, while you try and do what’s best for all involved. The hardest thing a leader will ever do is make the decision that some will have to lose their job, so the majority can keep their job. Even putting your own name on that list of cuts, isn’t as difficult.

Nobody wants to be judged by his or her worst moment. In crisis management, we tend to have a lot of worst moments because we are often making quick decisions with limited information that in hindsight looks foolish.

As we are all going through some level of crisis management currently, I wanted to share Professor Scott Galloway’s three steps of crisis management from his NYU class he teaches on the same subject:

  1. Top Guy or Gal Takes Responsibility
  2. Acknowledge the Issue
  3. Overcorrect

Overcorrect is the key. Well, I’m not sure if we should do this, let’s just wait a little while longer and see what happens. NO! Overcorrect. Make the safest choice possible. Make the best choice possible for your people. Act swiftly.

If we watch, we will see great leadership moments in any crisis. Some of these moments will be by great leaders doing great leader stuff. Some of these moments will be done by idiots who just happen to be in the right place and make the right decision. Don’t confuse a moment of leadership competence with being a great leader.

Great leaders don’t just show up for a crisis, they show up every day.

 

What’s Wrong with Virtual Conferences? #Covid19 #Coronavirus

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My Spring is usually filled with travel. This year because of the “Great Outbreak’ (I used this on Twitter before everyone, once you start to see it everywhere, just know, you and I, will know where it truly came from!) I’m not traveling at all, but I’m still doing a few conferences, virtually.

Virtual conferences have been around for a long time. Almost every organization I know has tried them at least once. Most of these were free events and while most have fairly high numbers organizations go back to the “real’ thing. Most of us tend to not like virtual conferences over the in-person conferences. Why?

I have an opinion that most virtual conferences fail to prosper is because we try and take the in-person experience and we just transfer it to online. Here’s everything we did at the in-person show, now it’s online and just via video. The thing is, an in-person presentation is quite different from an online presentation. It’s one reason so many people hate webinars! It’s just some person talking at you through your speakers with a deck in place of their actual face.

The reality is, these two experiences, in-person vs. virtual are truly two extremely different experiences. Just throwing content up online doesn’t make it the same. In fact, it kind of sucks for most attendees!

So, how could we make virtual conferences better? Big question! One no one has really figured out. We just keep throwing the same garbage up thinking it’s the future of conferences. It’s not, in its current format. Here are some things I think we should be doing to make virtual conferences something people will want to attend and pay for:

– Live interaction with the community attending. One way to make this something people will remember is to get them more involved. I once did a “live” virtual event, which wasn’t really live. My presentation was recorded and then ran at a specific time and date, but I actually went into the chat while I was presenting and started asking questions and responding, etc. The chat blew up and everyone was interacting.

– Live video feed of the presenter, not just the slides. We know people are more likely to watch a live person speak versus just watch a static slide for two minutes while you tell some story or make your point. Virtual conferences need to find out how to put the real person on screen.

– Full professional production. You know what we love, all of us? Watching a well-produced TV show. If I’m running a virtual conference I’m not renting out a hotel ballroom and stage, I’m renting out a production studio and I’m going to make sure I’ve got great sound and lighting, etc. If you want someone to pay $1,000 or $2,000 to attend a virtual event, I better be entertained and it better look and sounds amazing. In the middle of the presentations give me live “anchors” talking about what we just saw and what we are about to see. Bring on a guest to talk shop, etc.

This will cost some money. It will cost way less money than an actual in-person conference, but if you want to make money doing virtual events, you need to up the production value a million times more than it is right now. No one is going to pay you big money to jump on a pseudo-Zoom conference call!

The Tim Sackett #CoronaDiaries – Work from Home Advice!

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Hey gang! How are we all doing today!?! Since so much of the audience is impacted by COVID-19 I thought it would be a good time to talk shop and do some videos that I’m going to call the CoronaDiaries! I hope you enjoy – make sure to hit me up in the comments with your best advice, tips, and tricks for all of us working from home!

One additional tip: Don’t neglect your exercise and diet! For me, I’m a big workout at lunch person, so moving into a work from home situation totally throws me off my routine and I have to make sure I figure that out!

Add your ideas in the comments!

E6 – The HR Famous Podcast – Pay Equity or Pay Fairness with US Women’s Soccer Team?

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In Episode 6 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Kris Dunn, and I get together to talk discuss pay equity issues for women, focusing on the recent court briefing filed by the US Soccer Federation that claimed the US Women’s National Team earns less than the Men’s National Team due to (among other things) “men having more ability, strength and speed” (yikes).  All the issues you would expect are discussed, including horrible communications/PR strategies, the impact of Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) and more.

KD, JLee, and Sacks also discuss a related issue – the efforts a couple of years back from Salesforce.com to tag its D&I focus on equality rather than diversity, and why that move was made and how it’s worked out for Salesforce, as well as ongoing challenges with the strategy.

Show hIghlights:

1:20 – KD asks JLee and Tim about their work from home strategy in the coming weeks.

4:30 – KD talks about his cord cutting that happened right before the need to work from home more, his move to YouTubeTV and the millennial who sold him on the merits of the solution. Tim talks about the fact his first Netflix password was actually from the girlfriend of one of his sons.

7:40 – The gang breaks down the recent news from the legal proceedings between the US Soccer Federation and the US Women’s Soccer Team – a recent court brief from the Federation that outlined one of the reasons men’s national team members get paid more than women’s national team members – “men have more ability, strength and speed, therefore they should be paid more”. Wow.

9:52 -JLee takes on the president of the US Soccer Federation (the one that resigned) for not reading the press briefing from the US Soccer Federation. JLee also breaks down the math between the speed gap vs the pay gap.

11:50 – Tim Sackett HAS READ THE ENTIRE COURT BRIEFING. It’s 30 pages according to Tim – double-spaced!  Not hard to read through. Tim take a shot at the Federation board that called for the president to resign, stating they didn’t read it either. WTF.  Tim talks about the fact that pay and benefits for the women’s team is collectively bargained (CBA) as part of a union contract and the court will be unlikely to overturn the agreement.

20:05 – JLee disagrees with the fact that the court briefing is a breakdown of communications strategy, instead of pointing out the fact that given the depth of the comments in the briefing, it’s pure sexism and misogyny – it’s what the US Soccer Federations actually believes.

20:45 – The gang talks about the fact that they like watching the Women’s National Team in soccer over the Men’s National Team.

21:40 – JLee and KD talk about the Salesforce pivot from solely D&I focus to more of an “Equality” focus. JLee talks about the Asian influence in diversity hiring for tech companies in the Bay area and points out that closing the gender pay gap is great, but the results can slip over time.

28:05 – Tim and JLee break down what they’re going to get caught up on as the world slows down a bit based on Covid-19.

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

My Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19) and other Comms You Don’t Want to Read!

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No one cares!

I had an HR peer send me a note this past week. They were a little frustrated with all the COVID communications that have been coming out from everyone. She was a bit snippy with me. The basis of her message was like, “Stop it! We get it! You’re doing something! We are all doing something! Do I really need to know what you’re doing!?!”

Here’s the list of places I need to know what you’re doing in regards to COVID:

  • Hospitals and other medical facilities I might have to use. Tell me what I should do in case of…
  • Grocery stores – when the F is the toilet paper going to be back in stock!?
  • My work – Do you want to come in, stay home, am I getting paid, etc. (I don’t care if you’re paying your employees, that’s up to you and your employees. OH! Wait! You’re doing the humblebrag thing…okay, good for you, you’re paying your employees currently and are constantly evaluating the situation…)
  • Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Xfinity, etc. – we’re still good right because I’ve got 500 channels on cable and nothing is ON!!!!!!!!
  • diet Mt. Dew factory – I’m ready when you need me, just pick up the bat phone and I’m there. Need to keep the lines running No. Matter. What.

Seriously, is it just me, or did every organization in the free world lose their minds when it comes to communications, PR, and marketing over the last seven days!?!

I can just imagine the comms war rooms as everyone nitpicked every single word that was going to be used in the most important communication that would ever be sent in history of mankind, around what you were doing to ensure your customers dry cleaning didn’t fall through the cracks and you didn’t kill your employees to ensure said customer had clean, crisp shirts while sitting at home watching Love is Blind during the apocalypse!

My lawn service sent out communication! Thanks, Jimmy for letting me know you won’t lick the kids and old people while continuing my lawn service during these trying times.

The best/worst of this is the marketing that is happening right now. I sent out a tweet condemning the HR Tech world for their crappy marketing during this time and hundreds of people liked it and three people (all of whom had crappy marketing go out) said I wasn’t being fair and if we have products that can help, we should be letting people know right now.

Oh, that’s why you are giving a 20% discount with the coupon code #CoughFreeWorkFromHome for your work-from-home job board! I get it, you have a business to run and you need to sell your product. The problem is, your buyer (HR and TA pros) are in the biggest firefight of their life right now and your sales pitch looks cold and heartless, and the timing sucks. Give them a week and then pimp away.

But, all that being said I thought it was vital I inform all of you about my Coronavirus (COVID-19) plan:

Dear Readers, 

As a shared service that this community relies on daily, ‘we’ here at the Tim Sackett Project are deeply committed to the health and wellness of our readers during this time. We plan to keep you updated on our ongoing efforts to ensure the well-being of this community. 

All of our blog posts are currently open, and we do not expect a lapse in service, unless Tim drinks too much while working from home and misses a deadline, in which, we will guarantee to re-run some crappy post of his from four years ago. 

We are closely monitoring updates from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Grammar Society of America, and local public health offices. If anything changes, we’ll immediately notify every single person in the world. 

What are ‘we’ doing:

– Increasing the frequency with which we clean our blog posts. Every time some reads a blog post, we quickly pull it down, scrub it clean of your dirty internet germs using a space-age disinfectant that is designed for internet use only. The normal reader should not see any difference in your reading experience. 

– All employees of the TSP are required to wear gloves while typing each blog post. 

– To ensure that ‘all’ of our employees of the TSP are fully taken care of during this challenging and trying time, we will be sending ‘all’ employees on a fully paid trip to the Cayman Islands upon clearance from the proper government agencies that it is once again safe to travel to the Cayman Islands. 

How to Keep Yourself Safe: 

– Wipe down and disinfect your keyboard before clicking on any TSP post or before reading said post. 

– Use hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol or wash your hands until they bleed with soap before entering any hot tubs to read the TSP. 

– Consider gloves and face masks as an extreme preventative measure as you actually aren’t coming into contact with anything, except ideas, when reading a blog post. 

‘We’ will continue to keep you updated with thrice-daily emails. If you have any questions please forward them to tim@timsackett.com email address because it’s the one I don’t monitor. 

Momma always said, “Stupid is as stupid does”

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Do you think we, Americans, will be able to self-quarantine?

I don’t. Let me give you two examples of why not:

  1. It’s this past Saturday. We are getting ready to hunker down at Casa de Sackett. Part of our nesting process is to get some projects done which means a quick trip to the Container Store to get some materials. The Container Store is very close to the Cheesecake Factory. In my mind, “No one is going to be out, let’s just slip into the Cheesecake and get the last supper in before the big shut in!” We arrive at the Cheesecake Factory to find a 30-minute wait to get in. A giant gathering of people inside around the host stand all squished together. Breathing on each other and acting like none of us are really sick.
  2. Pictures have been circulating (like the one below) from this past week in Florida as Spring Breakers are just out doing Spring Break stuff, during a global pandemic. By the way, similar pictures were spreading about 3-4 weeks ago from Italy before they had to shut down the entire country and start making death bed decisions on who gets care and who dies.

There is a line in the musical Hamilton from the second Cabinet Rap Battle where Hamilton says to Jefferson:

“You must be out of your god damn mind!”

Most of us, right now, are out of our god damn minds. The fact is the vast majority of us, around 97% will survive the 19 without much issue at all. So, we think what the hell, extra Spring Break suckers! I’m outta school!

The reality that will soon hit home is when we are attending virtual funerals for our Mom’s and Dads, and Grandparents, and aunts and uncles, the little boy down the street who has asthma but I thought it was a great idea to bring him a stuffed turtle from Clearwater Beach and kill him.

For all those folks who think the flu is worse and we are just overblowing this entire thing, answer me this – if I gave you one hundred Skittles in your hand and said, no, they taste great, only three of them will kill you, would you eat any of them?

Apparently I would, because I thought going to Cheesecake Factory for one last meal was important enough to put myself and my family at risk, and I’m the average American right now…

But god damn are those sweet potato fries are amazing!

See? We’re all Fucked! Keep safe out there my friends, and for the love of Saint Pete stay away from people! And stop buying all of the toilet paper!

Should the US Women Soccer Team be Paid the Same as Men? No!

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How’s that for a clickbait headline! “I knew it the SOB Tim Sackett is a Sexist!” Slow down, read the post, you might be surprised on my take…

The US Women’s Soccer team should not be paid the same as the US Men’s Soccer team. They should be paid more!

Okay, let’s dig into this issue.

The media coverage on this issue is rightly pro-US Women’s Soccer. The US Soccer’s legal team continues to make ridiculous statements in an attempt to fight for their client. That’s what you pay lawyers to do, win your case. The men have more responsibility!? What is this, 1935!?! I’m not even sure how the US Soccer’s in house council even allowed that language to be released!

Here’s the full read of the US Soccer Federation’s legal argument. It’s worth a read if you truly care about this issue.

My first reaction to this case when it first got hot last year was this entire thing is ridiculous. If the women want the same as the men, why not just do straight revenue share that is equal. Both men and women get the exact same percentage of revenue they bring and can split it up in whatever way they deem appropriate for their teams. Seem fair? I thought so.

You bring in more money, you get more money. You bring in less, you get less, but don’t bitch, you brought in less.

My thought process on this issue has changed considerably since my first reaction. I love the logic behind revenue share because the Capitalist in me seems like that is equitable and fair. You make more, you get more. But the reality is, the women, in this case, have not had the same advantages of the men for decades, maybe a century, when it comes to this issue.

Let me break down some points:

– You don’t want to hear this but if the US Women’s Soccer team had the same contract as the US Men’s soccer team, they would actually make less money than their current contract. The US Men would argue and are currently renegotiating, they would make more if they had the women’s contract! From US Soccer, the women actually make more than the men, but the men make more overall because of professional money and non-US Soccer tournaments.

– Men’s soccer has been funded and supported at such a different level for so long, it has given them a giant, one could argue, an unsurpassable advantage in player development, infrastructure, marketing, etc. This is why the US Men don’t require have compensation to play on the national team because they make exponentially more than the women playing professional soccer.

– If we pay the US Women equally to the US Men, the women will actually make less overall, because they don’t have this advantage of time and resources the men have gotten for so long. I don’t think pay equality is what is needed, it’s pay fairness. By the way, if you take a few minutes and actually read the legal documents, this also what the US Women are saying. But, in the media, it wouldn’t play well to say “we want more”! But, what they are actually trying to get, would, in fact, pay them more than the men, when it comes to US Soccer compensation, but not total overall compensation.

– Carli Lloyd, the famous US Soccer women’s player, admitted in her testimony that the US Men actually do have more “skill” when it comes to speed and strength. The use of the word “skill” is really what the media pulled out. The actually tactical and strategic soccer skills, ballhandling, passing, etc. Is way too subjective to argue that men have more skill than women.

– “Women’s Soccer and Men’s Soccer are not the same game.” This was a statement from my wife, a former D1 college athlete and a national team invitee. The name is the same, but we have to get over this fact that men and women playing a similar game is the same. It’s different! I love to watch women’s volleyball. Men’s volleyball is boring. I would rather watch men’s basketball over women’s basketball. If I love “basketball” why don’t I love watching both? Because I actually love watching “Men’s basketball”. Different games.

– The legal argument that US men soccer team members have more responsibility is just an ignorant statement. Again, based on history, awareness, resources, etc. US citizens get super pissed if US “men” lose at anything to other countries because we’ve been conditioned by mostly media, that this is how we should react. If the women lose, we tend to not be as upset. “Oh, they played their butts off! Next time!”  Again, we’ve been conditioned to this response. If we would have been conditioned that losing, men or women in a national team competition, is awful and unacceptable for decades, we would all truly believe this responsibility is equal, which it is, but we tend to think differently about, because of how we’ve been conditioned.

– These are all union bargained terms. This is why the US women have taken their argument public because legally this win will be hard. They bargained fairly and agreed to these terms. Courts love to uphold bargained agreements. You signed the contract and now you think it sucks. Okay, go back to the bargaining table. Isn’t that why you joined a union?

I hear your argument right now. “Tim, more people want to watch men over women, the TV viewership, ticket sales, etc., show this!” The reason women don’t have the same resources is because it’s not the entertainment people want. Well, for decades, men were the only entertainment option we’ve been given! “Tim, men’s football and men’s basketball pay for all those Title 9 scholarships for women!” And every other men’s sport as well. Again, historically we didn’t support women’s athletics even close to men’s. So, if we did, from the beginning, would we even need Title 9? We won’t know, we are where we are right now.

Also, I don’t give a crap that one team was more successful than another. In the world of national teams, that doesn’t really matter. In the US, our best male athletes usually gravitate to the sport that pays them the most money (basketball, American football, baseball, even hockey). Women, again, don’t have those same avenues. The highest NBA player salary in 2019 was $34,000,000 per season. The highest WNBA player salary was $127,000.

The US Women’s Soccer team should not be paid equal to the US Men’s team. They should be paid more. Paying them the same would just be another injustice to female soccer players. We have systematically put women athletes at a disadvantage for so long in the US. Not pay equity, pay fairness.

Google Leading the Way on #COVID19 Gig Worker Response! #Coronavirus

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Google has more contractors (gig workers) than actual full-time employees. Did you know this? I didn’t. Google employs roughly 120,000 contractors and has about 100,000 regular full-time employees. Welcome to 2020!

Here’s what most people don’t understand about the contracting world (it just happens to be my world at HRUTech.com!)

  • Most contractors (gig workers) want to make as much money as possible, as such, most will choose to take the highest dollar offer in lieu of medical insurance and paid time off (PTO). Some states require a certain amount of PTO.
  • Running a contract staffing firm, our contractors are our product. If our ‘product’ doesn’t work, we have zero revenue. So, it’s not like we can just have contractors stay home for 14 days and pay them their full-time wage. It’s simple economics, zero revenue in means no money to pay out, plus most large enterprise clients, like Google, are usually out 30-90 days in paying their contract staff invoices.
  • Of course, every contract and temp staffing firm wants to do what’s best. They also want to stay in business.

Google understands this simple dynamic and they stepped up big time this week in making this announcement:

“As we’re in a transition period in the U.S.—and to cover any gaps elsewhere in the world—Google is establishing a COVID-19 fund that will enable all our temporary staff and vendors, globally, to take paid sick leave if they have potential symptoms of COVID-19, or can’t come into work because they’re quarantined,” the post read.

Google relies on approximately 120,000 temps and contractors on top of its 100,000 full-time employees, and not all of them have paid sick leave currently. Google’s post seemed to indicate that the fund would cover expenses for those not already able to take sick leave under current employment arrangements.”

That message right there is coming from a huge place of understanding from Google! We rely incredibly on this pool of talent, our contractors, and we have to find a way to make sure that the suppliers of this talent are taken care of so they can take care of their employees.

Uber and Lyft also came out this week and told drivers that tested positive for COVID-19 they would also pay them their average week’s wage to stay home and not drive. Another giant cost for these companies, but when you rely on gig workers as your business model, you better find ways to take help these folks out when a crisis hits.

Most organizations don’t consider “Total Employment” when a crisis happens. They circle the wagons around their own FTEs and not much else. I’ve spoken to multiple giant enterprise HR leaders this past week and this concept wasn’t even a blip on their radar! They could care less about their contractors and their partners for talent when it comes to COVID-19.

This is ultimately a much bigger problem for these organizations. I preach constantly to organizational TA and HR leaders they should be owning all talent in their barn. Total employment (FTEs, Contractors, Temps, Consultants, etc.). This is who really gets your work done, and if you don’t have awareness of all aspects, you are truly missing the boat.

What do you think? Do you feel your organization should be paying attention to contract and temporary workers during this public health crisis?