Inflexion Point
6 Ways To Destroy Your New Hire
Although the economy shows signs of improvement, it can still be quite difficult to gain approval for that all-important new hire requisition. But despite these challenges, you’ve secured the req and you’re prepared to expand your mini empire. And after reviewing hundreds of resumes and interviewing dozens of candidates, you’ve managed to lock down a top notch professional that exceeds all your selection criteria. This fresh-faced new hire is ready to hit the ground running, but are you prepared?
Congratulations – you’re about to ruin someone’s life:
- Rainbows And Unicorns – Competition for truly talented individuals can still be quite fierce, so maybe you painted just a smidge of an aspirational picture of the company. The backstabbing, self-promoting, fiercely protectionist, meat grinder of an organization you call home might have been presented as a collaborative, high energy, entrepreneurial, work/life balanced utopia. Hey, you just needed to get her in the door, right?
- Welcome Aboard! – Because you have a busy schedule you neglected to tell your promising upstart about the back-asswards way she’ll be spending her first week on the job. Onboarding is a real pain and you neglected to order her computer, aren’t quite sure where she is going to sit, don’t know when she’ll get badged and are completely unprepared for her arrival. You’re largely indifferent toward her plight since “it’s just the way things are around here“.
2011: The Year of Reactionary HR
Gearing up your 2010 reflective engines, you may let your mind soar over your personal and professional landscape in an attempt to observe and report from a dispassionate distance. There are moments you’ll be proud of, those which make you cringe and others whose outcome and impact are still somewhat clouded and unresolved.
As you float above the fray and attempt to make sense of it all, a distant object approaches at high speed. Suddenly buzzing past you are the 2011 wing-walking fools who squint their eyes into the blinding sun and pretend to see what’s ahead, often misinterpreting the smallest of clues as a means of preparing a seemingly interested world for what is most assuredly an uncertain future.
I am one of those fools.
But before I crash into the future, let’s take a quick journey back to December of 2009, a time when I predicted that 2010 would be the “Year of the HR Truism“:
2010 Scorecard
The Best Company I’ve Ever Worked For
It was 95 degrees in the shade when we arrived. The picnic area boasted the usual grouping of wooden tables surrounding a central grill, all (thankfully) shaded by a long-faded overhang. Greeting us were the warm smiles of colleagues I haven’t seen in well over ten years. Sure, the lines on our faces were a little deeper (time is unkind) but the memories flooded back quickly, with hugs, cheek kisses and “remember when” dominating the atmosphere.
This was the twenty-year reunion of the founding of the best company I’ve ever worked for. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Morons Win
In the fall of 1997 we were working on final negotiations with a Fortune 1000 firm. This was an extremely large opportunity and the relationship was absolutely critical to our success. As a condition of closing we had to brief their president and I was extremely nervous. Did we have all our ducks in a row? Was there some consideration we hadn’t controlled for? Would he balk at the final pricing? As a young professional my mind was reeling with doubt and uncertainty.
As you’ll see, my concerns was completely unfounded.
When I entered the conference room I was met by a disheveled middle-aged man who was bowled over in laughter. I smiled (to fit in) and he just kept waving me away as he stomped the ground repeatedly, wracked by the pleasure of (I found out later) his own joke. His team smirked apologetically and we eventually got him settled down, although the occasional burst of popcorn laughter would slip out unexpectedly.
Yes, this was their glorious leader.
He didn’t really listen to anything we said. Once he picked up the phone in the conference room and couldn’t remember how to dial out, punching numbers whac-a-mole style with a furrowed brow, spitting, “Why – can’t – I – get – this – damn – thing – to – work!“. When it came to the pricing, I accidentally presented the wrong numbers and he didn’t even notice. “Fine, fine…whatever“, was his somewhat annoyed response as he rolled his chair around the room like a two-year-old. And he was a one man band – belching, clearing his throat, clicking his pen, tapping on the table. It was painful. So yes, we secured the deal, but this was the moment I realized that smart people don’t always win.
A Systemic Problem
Winning The War On Talent
When I think about winners in the ill-defined “war on talent”, a few attributes come to mind. First, you’re not apologetic about who you are and what makes your organization tick, so aspirational employee branding efforts are counter-culture and somewhat abhorrent. Second, you use research, data and analytics to study the real actions and resulting outcomes of your candidates and employees. Numbers aren’t scary but instead empower your thinking, decision making or overarching strategic plans. Finally, you are fully transparent about your goals and aspirations. You are running a business and can concisely convey your objectives and how each employee’s cog fits into your wheel of commerce.A few weeks ago Bill Kutik and several other industry representatives (including yours truly) were invited out to Philadelphia to attend a fairly standard analyst briefing with Kenexa’s leadership team. My expectations for these events are fairly straight forward – you meet with the executive staff, hear their predictions for the coming year and gather information on product releases, feature specifications, client successes, revenues, etc. It’s a fairly prescribed event and some leave more cynical, others more enlightened, and yet others indifferent to what they saw or heard.
The Shiny Object Problem
Like you, my weekdays typically consist of an endless series of conference calls and meetings. I run from place to place and call to call with barely time to breathe, clear my head and shift focus to the matter at hand. Days turn into weeks and before you know it a month has passed. You end up feeling like a shark — if you’re not moving you’re dead.
I’ve come to realize that due to this phrenetic activity, workers are becoming increasingly frenzied and highly inefficient. And while we stay in constant motion for different reasons, most suffer from what I call ”the shiny object problem”.
Are we becoming raccoons…
5 Tips For Great Facilitation
With HRevolution right around the corner, I have been asked by several presenters to comment on the “unconference” setting.
The easiest way to explain what’s different is that every session is intended to be a facilitated conversation. But what if you’re not comfortable or proficient in engaging an audience that is largely used to a traditional conference setting? Here are five tips that should help both facilitators and attendees get the most out of their sessions:
Tip #1 – Silence is Golden
I will tell you that I still struggle with this one (since I’m a big talker) but a key to good facilitation is developing a healthy respect for silence. The silence can feel unbearably long and your mind starts racing with doubt – “Did they understand my question? Is anyone interested in this topic?” To cover, we often try rephrasing the question or asking a different (hopefully, more interesting!) question altogether. Meanwhile, the audience was still thinking about your first question… now they’re totally confused. Which question do you want them to answer?
HR West – An “Altered” State
Showtime’s popular program The United States of Tara tracks a seemingly normal American mom who suffers from multiple personality disorder. In the show, her alternate personalities (or “alters”) take complete control of Tara and she often transitions without warning, living in her fully altered state until a final return to normalcy. The alters each have amazingly distinct points of view and awareness of each other, yet sometimes find themselves in conflict.
This is the best analogy I can attribute to this week’s annual HR West conference in South San Francisco. We are experiencing a very interesting time in our profession and unfortunately for you, all the HR alters show up at different times. Join me on a quick review and let me know which sounds most like you or your HR team. (Given HR’s current state, it may be all of them.)
HR Week 2010 – Focus on What Matters
When I plan to cover a show, I try to go in with an open mind to ensure my prior bias doesn’t taint the coverage for those who are unable to attend. This one was particularly difficult for me as the sheer act of walking into the New York Hilton lobby floods me with memories of so much wasted time, money and space. You see this show used to be known as “HRO World”, the armpit of the trade show circuit that was sold to publication and conference juggernaut LRP in 2006. To say LRP was sold an empty promise is an understatement, but I have to hand it to them this year – they finally changed the format and content into a show I’d actually want to attend.
And although LRP is sun-setting New York HR Week, they themselves embody the spirit and theme of this year’s event. Despite my inability to attend all sessions, one resounding theme dominated the halls of the exposition, the clink of the evening receptions, the hushed whispers of session chatter and the demonstrative voices of the panelists and moderators – it’s a new world order so focus on what matters.
Death, Healthcare and The Employer Albatross
I’ve been pretty quiet on the whole healthcare debate up until now. It’s a mess. It’s more than a mess, it’s a crazed storm of clucking and feather rustling, posturing and lobbying, advertising and cajoling, misinforming and undereducating. But while all this is going on in my former hometown of Washington, DC, people are dying.
Yes, I said people are dying, and I’m not saying it to be dramatic. It’s happening about once every fifteen seconds every single day in every way imaginable. (Yep, someone just died as you read that stat.)
Is this my employer’s fault? Is it even their responsibility to be in the middle of this mess in the first place? I say it is not. But of course I’ve already completed my homework assignments.
Get A Life (Not A Job)
Until the fall of 1989, I was on my way to becoming an astronaut. I was in the best shape of my life, had been accepted into a top ten university for aerospace engineering, easily completed advanced placement tests in physics and calculus (among others) and had an innate curiosity for the unknown. This was going to be my chosen profession, and even if I never made it through training, my fallback position was certainly working for NASA or another large contractor. It was all straight lines and sure-footed planning.
You Have All The Answers
I have a hypothesis that I’d like to share with you. It’s not a new idea and frankly not terribly inventive, yet in my opinion we must embrace this concept holistically for our industry to evolve. Here it is:
You have all the answers.
I told you this was simple.
The premise is that any issue human resources faces has been thoughtfully considered and solved by someone in our peer group. This is the foundation of what research organizations like the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) have been studying for years. In their model, CEB assembles hundreds of C-level executives in their member-based forums and surveys the population to prioritize topics of interest. They then interview select members to identify success stories than can be deconstructed and root-caused into teachable moments for all. It’s a brilliant business model that I would like to see us apply to our professional lives. And guess what? It’s already happening, albeit on a very small scale.
Change Hurts. Resistance Hurts More.
The one common theme that we face in modern business is the necessity for change. It’s painful. It’s emotional. It sucks. The reality of a situation we no longer can control often leads us to do foolish things in a desperate attempt to clutch to the status quo. We revolt, we resist, and we pay dearly for doing so.
My friend and fellow HR blogger Trish McFarlane recently pointed out that I’m a storyteller. I’ve found that it’s the best way to convey even the simplest concepts. And since I’ve had such a bizarre life (wrestling a luggage thief to the ground this past week, for example), I have an endless supply of tales from my own misadventures. This is one such story.
As a child growing up in suburban Wisconsin, I was a barely tamed animal of sinew, dirt and boundless energy. It was not unusual to spot my beanpole frame loping around the neighborhood with a goofy grin and magnetic attraction to trouble. Shocking, I know.
Death, Healthcare and The Employer Albatross
I’ve been pretty quiet on the whole healthcare debate up until now. It’s a mess. It’s more than a mess, it’s a crazed storm of clucking and feather rustling, posturing and lobbying, advertising and cajoling, misinforming and undereducating. But while all this is going on in my former hometown of Washington, DC, people are dying.
Yes, I said people are dying, and I’m not saying it to be dramatic. It’s happening about once every fifteen seconds every single day in every way imaginable. (Yep, someone just died as you read that stat.)
Is this my employer’s fault? Is it even their responsibility to be in the middle of this mess in the first place? I say it is not. But of course I’ve already completed my homework assignments.
You Are HR
You are HR. You are human. You are resourceful.
You are psychologist, psychiatrist and therapist. You are corporate conscious personified. You are a closed door confidant.
You are baby announcer and obituary writer. You are Kleenex distributor. You are safe.
You are problem solver, mediator, arbitrator and lawyer. You are judge, jury and executioner. You are court reporter and record keeper.
You are timekeeper and clock watcher. You are attendance taker and vacation planner. You are sick days. You are holidays.
You are technologist and vendor manager. You are requirements definer, tire kicker, systems tester and disaster recoverer. You are procurement officer and RFP writer.
You are call center agent and case manager. You are insourced, outsourced and cosourced.
You are legislator and risk mitigator. You are lobbyist and influencer. You are policy maker and labor negotiator.
