The Best of 2019: Wanted: Blunt Roller ($40-50K plus Benefits!)

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I’m on a holiday break. Boys are home, we’re going on a trip. So, I’ve put together a Best of 2019 post list for you to enjoy. I’ll be back after the holidays with new stuff and some cool announcements for 2020! 

In case you didn’t see the job posting by Snoop Dogg, on his staff (yes, giant mogul rapper/entertainers have staffs) he has a person whose sole job is to role blunts (for the Baby Boomers in the crowd – a blunt is joint, a marijuana cigarette, if you will). What’s the quote? Do a job you love and you’ll never work another day in your life.

From the article:

“If you’re great at something I need, I’m hiring you,” said Snoop.

The gentlemen staffer in question is allowed as much marijuana as he would like, travels with Snoop, has all his expenses paid, and gets free swag whenever his boss receives it. In exchange, he keeps a well-organized box full of impeccably rolled blunts and waits for his services to be required.

“Motherf*cker like Lurch from the Addams Family. ‘You rang?’”  said Snoop, who might have had the Addams on his mind since contributing the song “My Family” to the new movie.

Why is Snoop Dogg successful?

Oh, well it must be his talent. There’s a ton of folks in the music game more talented than Snoop. Don’t get me wrong, he’s massively talented, but did you catch the first line from the article? “If you’re great at something I need, I’m hiring you”.

Now you and I, and many others might not need a blunt. Snoop has made it pretty clear he smokes like every day, multiple times a day, and he’s decided a great blunt is something he needs, so he’s hired a dude who’s great at what he does. Successful people in life surround themselves with people who are successful at what they do, period.

It makes me start to wonder who I need to surround myself with if I… (Click here to go and read the rest of the original post, and because the comments left by stoned readers trying to get this job are remarkable! It might be the greatest thing on the blog in 2019!)

The Best of 2019! What’s the most luxurious Benefit you can offer your employees in 2019?

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I’m on a holiday break. Boys are home, we’re going on a trip. So, I’ve put together a Best of 2019 post list for you to enjoy. I’ll be back after the holidays with new stuff and some cool announcements for 2020!

I read a bunch of articles about what’s the next greatest benefit to offer employees. I read one the other day that tried to make it seem like now offering food at work is normal like everyone is giving away breakfast and lunches like you give away health insurance.

It’s the one thing I hate about reading mainstream media HR articles. Apparently, the only employers in America are located in the 50 square miles around Silicon Valley. Do you really think I believe that the majority of companies in America are giving away free food to their employees?

Come on, that’s not happening!

If you are lucky enough to work for a place that feeds you, great you won the job lottery, enjoy it! If they offer you Kombucha as well, then I’m just sorry for you, because that means they hate you.

What’s the #1 luxury benefit to offer in 2019?

It’s Time.

Time is the one thing every single one of us needs more of. For many, it doesn’t even have to be paid time off! Just allow me some time to do some of the stuff that impacting my life, so I can better focus on work when I’m at work.

But of course, Paid Time is always appreciated.

I know some employers have gone to unlimited paid time off and studies have shown that when organizations go to this their overall use of paid time off actually goes down. This is a sad commentary on our society.

I know a lot of HR friends of mine argue this can’t be the case because it seems so contrarian to what you would think would happen. “If I had unlimited time off I would never come in and just be on vacation every day!” Okay, Betty, and you would be fired!

The reality is unlimited time off isn’t the answer because psychology doesn’t work. Some have the self-control enough to use it appropriately, but most people fear that taking time off will somehow impact their performance, so even when they do take their unlimited time off, they still are connected, working in some way.

I know of a few organizations that completely shut down for a week or two completely. Notice out to clients – “hey, it’s our annual refresh the batteries, 100% of us will be off and not connected, we can’t wait to come back fully recharged to rock your world”. I like the idea but get it probably impractical for so many organizations.

I think the best thing we can do as leaders is to ensure our people are actually taking their paid time off and when they do they know that it’s okay to completely disconnect. That we’ll have their back and to enjoy themselves.

I wonder how many of your leaders pull quarterly or annual reports of PTO to see if their team is taking time for themselves?

 

The One Thing that Correlates to High Employee Happiness in Your Office!

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Oh, I bet its 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 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. So, now you can figure out what that looks like over the next decade!

If you think GenZs are Entitled Snowflakes, You’re an Idiot!

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I made this joke on Twitter recently:

This has been a frustration of so many of my peers in Human Resources over the past couple of years. We have leaders, usually Gen X or Boomers, who think anyone younger than them are called “Millennials”. It’s uninformed at best, and just a bad look for leaders in our organizations.

The crazy part is it’s not just about getting the generational names correct, it’s also about how we tag a generation. I’m not a fan of “generational” training programs, but they are hugely popular. I get requests to come and talk about generational differences to organizations monthly, and I’ve never spoken about generational differences!

For some reason, we are fascinated by the concept of having multiple generations working together in the workplace. We want to know all the broad differences between the generations, knowing as soon as we throw out one of those stereotypes, we immediately look like idiots.

I’m particularly triggered by older leaders who feel Gen Z’s are just a bunch of kids you are entitled snowflakes on their phone all of the time. I’m this way because I have three Gen Z sons and see who they, and their friends, are becoming and in so many ways they will outshine my Gen X generation over the same period of time, by a mile!

CNN did an article highlighting four GenZs who are doing amazing things:

  • One is teaching swimming to people with disabilities.
  • One started a movement to cheer up kids going through difficult times.
  • One is helping Vets in need.
  • One is making and delivering “Blessing Bags” for the needy.

What all of these GenZ people have in common is what I see from my own GenZ connections. GenZ grew up during the Great Recession and saw what hard times do to people. In turn, that experienced shaped them into young people who want to help others, are willing to do the work to help others, and do it in a way that is modern and digital.

Yes, they are on their phones a lot. So, are we all. But, they use this digital world to do things a speed we could have never comprehended when we were their age. They are consuming information at a rate far exceeding every generation before them, which makes them better informed than most before them.

I wouldn’t call them entitled or snowflakes. They are not delicate or looking for a handout. They were raised in hard times and they are giving back as much as any before them. You might call me a fan of this generation. I have so much hope for what they will bring to the world. As a parent, I guess we probably all feel that way about our kids.

As we get ready to go into 2020, I would love to see all leaders embrace this growing younger workforce in a way that is positive and hopeful for the future. I think we are in good hands with GenZ!

This isn’t about “Fit”, it’s about your Bias is showing!

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“We’re big on CULTURE and fit!” We’re looking for the “right” person, not just skills!” “We just kind of know if they’ll fit or not…”

Of course, it’s not The Project if we don’t have some sports analogies that I tie back to some HR topic! That’s how this puppy was founded, probably won’t change. So, you might have missed a great sports-HR topic that popped last week!

LSU is the top college football program in the land and their head coach is Ed Orgeron. He’s beloved by a lot of people and has a great coaching pedigree. It’s surprising, with all of his success at LSU, that USC could have had him as their head coach, but he was passed over. And last week the truth of why he was passed overcame out!

“Specifically, Feldman said certain people in the Pat Haden administration “couldn’t get past what Ed Orgeron sounded like.”

“They didn’t listen to the players. They didn’t listen to the staff,” Feldman explained. “Ed Orgeron’s not a country club guy. I think he can relate to just about anybody…I think he can read people very well. I don’t think Pat Haden, who was the decision-maker at the time, that’s just not kind of guy he wanted. And I don’t think he could get past it.”

USC as an institution is elitist. They have graduates like Matt Charney and Neil Armstrong and George Lucas and OJ Simpson. Pat Haden, himself a USC graduate and Rhodes scholar, was the Athletic Director at the time Ed Orgeron was the interim head coach.

Can you imagine one of your hiring managers coming to you and saying, “Yeah, the resume is awesome, the references are awesome, but you know the candidate sounds dumb, so I’m going to pass!” That’s culture and fit. “We’re great” and we need someone who is going to “represent” us in a way where he makes us believe we are still great.

Pat had a bias. I want a head coach who ‘looks’ and ‘sounds’ like a head coach of USC. What does that mean? Looks good in a suit. Sounds like an educated person, probably white (at least sounds white). Heterosexual with a pretty wife. It was a look, an image. It wasn’t about results.

Pat Haden and USC were just doing what most organizations constantly do. They were hiring for fit. For “culture”. Believing somehow they had it figured out. Turns out, for Ed’s sake, they made the right call, because he is in a position where he is valued and they actually like his accent!

If you find yourself in an interview debrief and the conversation starts going down a path of “Fit” understand you’re about to hear someone’s bias coming out! Maybe you’ll even catch yourself and your own bias. We all have some and they mostly come out when we really can’t determine a real reason of why we don’t want to hire someone!

DisruptHR Lansing! March 19th – Call for Speakers is Open!

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Lansing, MI is about to get all Disrupted and Stuff!

Everyone already knows I’m a big believer in DisruptHR events. I’ve spoken at many, I’ve been on the team running DisruptHR Detroit from the beginning, and I decided to start DisruptHR Lansing in my own backyard!

Our first event, DisruptHR Lansing 1.0 will take place in Downtown Lansing on March 19th in the evening (more details to follow) at The Exchange. Great speakers, free food and drinks, and disruptive HR talks throughout the night!

What is DisruptHR?

  • 5-minute hr-based micro-talks. Might be HR, talent, employee experience, leadership, rap music, who knows!
  • Each talk has a very specific format – 20 slides and each slide moves automatically every 15 seconds.
  • The goal is to be fast and challenge the status quo of the people side of the business!

CALL for SPEAKERS is NOW OPEN! 

We’ll be selecting a great group of speakers. I encourage HR pros and Leaders from the Mid-Michigan area to throw your names into the hat for speaking spots!!! It’s a great way to get yourself on stage with a group of fellow HR peers who’ll support you and laugh at our bad HR jokes!

Speakers also get a professionally recorded version of your talk. This is an awesome parting gift for your own development, and to show other conferences, etc. if you decide you want to speak in a longer format in the future. Almost every conference I know now asks for some proof of your ability to speak, as such, this becomes a very valuable piece of content!

Why Speak at DisruptHR Lansing 1.0? 

1. Well, I’ll be there!

2. Lansing, MI is the capital of Michigan. The epicenter of all things people in our state. It’s also might be the one place in Michigan that needs the most HR disruption!

3. HR pros need a network. We need to support each other. This is a great event to make that happen!

4. Cocktails & Hugs! (which ironically is the name of one of my upcoming future books!)

5. I’ll owe you!

Let’s face it. It’s March 19, 2020. We’ve just spent the last 120 days in pure grayness. We need to get out and do something! The event space will be intimate, the energy will be high, and we’re going to have some fun! Come join us! Tickets will go on sale after the holidays. We wanted to open up the Call for Speakers first!

If you want to get an email when tickets go on sale, leave your email on the comments below and I”ll make sure you’re the first to know!

AI 4 HR! Understanding the most Misunderstood Concept in HR!

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Jeanne Meister, Forbes 2020 Workplace Columnist, and HR executive brought together this incredible team of great HR pros/minds and developed an entire curriculum around using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in every single aspect of HR! What Jeanne and the team know is that AI is currently the most misunderstood concept in human resources, but it has the ability to become the biggest advantage to HR leaders and pros over anything we’ve ever seen! 

AI 4 HR is the one of its kind 5-week online course that will share the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and how 12 HR experts are using AI to completely re-imagine the employee experience. The course showcases specific use cases of how AI can and is already being used across HR for good in:

  • Talent Acquisition
  • Employee Onboarding
  • Internal Talent Mobility (my #1 trend for 2020!) 
  • Learning and career development
  • Performance Management (the single thing every manager needs!) 
  • Coaching

So, yeah, it’s an online, self-paced course of five modules that utilizes great video content from real HR pros/leaders from: IBM, Cisco, TIAA, Davita, GE, Schneider Electric, Hilton, Brigham Women’s Hospital, and more! So, pretty much every industry is represented with real-world case studies and actions. Jeanne made sure to get the SHRM/HRCI credits for you – 8 hours worth! 

What I like about the design of this course is that it goes live on January 20 and runs through February 21. One new module released each week for five weeks. This kind of forces us to be a bit more ‘self-directed’ in getting the content done, unlike other self-directed courses. If you miss a week, you can definitely go back and catch up, but I like that the design of AI 4 HR is set up to get all of us to get it done in a timely way! 

So, what’s the catch! 

It does cost money. Turns out all good things do! The full fee for the course is currently $499  (about half that of one national conference) and if you use the super-secret Tim Sackett code: AINOW – you’ll get $100 off at registration making it $399 (when you check out, go to “Show Order Summary” and you can input the code!). 

It’s a super deal for the content and learning around AI, and for the SHRM/HRCI credits. Go check out the site! I love that you’re hearing from actual real HR people who are using the tech and how they are using it, and not vendors, etc. There’s a big difference between what really happens in our organizations versus what vendors are telling us will happen, many times. 

Register Today! 

For those who go through this, please come back and comment and let the rest of the group know what you thought! I’m impressed with what is being presented, but I would love to get some feedback from others as well! 

Corporate Gigs aren’t All that Bad!

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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 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 your 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 a 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 later, 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 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!

 

 

The One Gift I Wish I Could Get in HR for the Holidays!

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So, what would it be? If you could have one thing in HR for whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year, what would you ask for?

And don’t be lame, “Oh Tim, I would just ask for world peace and have Snapple bring back Compassion Berry” No you wouldn’t! Not if it was real, I mean really real!

I’m sure a bunch of HR Pros would ask for a new HRIS System. I mean that’s what we do during the holidays, we want the biggest baddest fastest new electronic device that will make our lives easier and make us look 10 pounds thinner!   Maybe just an add-on system like a new CRM, or employee referral automation, or mobile employee feedback app, they are all cool and hip!  Who wouldn’t like one of those!?

I’m sure a bunch of HR Pros would ask for the ability to Hire more HR staff!  What a gift that would be.  Not only for the people getting hired but for your overworked staff and hiring managers who have worked double and triple duty because your cheap boss won’t open up headcount.  HR never has the staff it wants!

I’m sure a bunch of HR Pros would ask for a new Employment Brand!  Oh to be as sexy as Google, or Facebook, or Tesla, wouldn’t that be a wonderful environment to work in HR. Life just seems easier when you work for a sexy brand. It isn’t actually but that’s what great branding does, it makes some idiot like me think it must be easy to work in a great place like that and they should hire me!

I’m sure a bunch of HR Pros would ask for better Talent for their organizations (which is technically way more than one gift but let’s face it, some of us HR Pros don’t follow directions well!). This is the freaking holy grail, right!  If we only had the top talent (instead of saying we only hire top talent, then hire those who respond to our posts) our lives would be so much easier!

There are so many things we could ask for in HR, but this is why I love HR, for all those gifts I listed above, and for so many more you and I could come up with. We work in a profession where we have the ability to deliver each and every one of those to our organizations. With enough time, patience, influence, strategy and luck, not one of those things I couldn’t give my organization.  Maybe that’s the best gift of all.

For the record, mine? It would be a ‘Visionary Leader’. That’s the one gift I would ask for.

Those are rare, those are hard to find. Not many of us ever get the opportunity to work with a true visionary. Great managers, strong leaders, charismatic personalities, yes; But a Visionary Leader, that is something few get the opportunity to experience. Think Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sanberg, Elon Musk, Oprah, Sergey Brin, Marissa Mayer, Larry Page, Bill Gates, etc.

What would be your One gift you want for HR this holiday season?

Do you want to work with Tim Sackett? This video will answer that question!

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I’m a big fan of DisruptHR and the format! I’ve been part of the team that has run the first three DisruptHR Detroits and in 2020 we’ll do our first DisruptHR Lansing. Five minutes, 20 slides, each slide moves automatically every 15 seconds. Simple, yet so hard to pull off effectively!

There are now well over a hundred DisruptHR cities and hundreds of events worldwide taking place each year. My friend, Jennifer McClure, is the co-Founder of DisruptHR and it might the single best thing that’s happened to HR this decade! Truly. To get HR leaders and pros out of the office and stretch our minds, have a little fun, push the envelope of what HR could become. Give me something better than that in the last ten years!

You can start your own DisruptHR (input city name here) for $500! It’s easy, just contact Jennifer through the DisruptHR website. It’s fun. It really engages the HR community in your city. It’s fairly easy to get a few sponsors to throw some bucks at you to help with the cost. And even bad DisruptHR talks are some of the best DisruptHR talks!

I was fortunate enough to be chosen to speak at DisruptHR Grand Rapids this past fall and I went with a topic that started on my blog as a series – Rap Lyrics that have shaped my leadership style over time. On my blog, I think I counted down twenty-five in the series a number of years ago. I even once did a presentation for the local SHRM chapter in Jackson, MI on the concept and watched 40 mostly white HR ladies look at me in horror! 😉 Actually, they asked me to do it! Which shows how disruptive they are!

In the comments hit me with your best Rap Lyric that shaped your leadership style!

Let’s face it. If you hate the video, you probably don’t want to work with me, and I probably wouldn’t have much fun working with you! But, if you like the video – we can probably be fast friends! Let’s talk!