Hiring Convicts and Morons

I'm reading a fascinating book from 1921 on "Personnel Relations." It's a 200+ page manual or perhaps textbook applying "scientific principles" to the personnel industry.

In a chapter on Interviewing, it talks about how every adult should be capable of being hired and the focus should be on finding the proper "adjustment" between the worker and his job. The text literally states that the only reason to reject an applicant would be if the worker would be injured by the job or would injure his fellow-employees and/or society.

It goes on to say,

"Establishments that a few years ago were hiring a small percentage of applicants and yet had a turnover of 400 and 500 percent now boast of their ability to use such exceptional classes as discharged convicts, morons, disabled soldiers, and industrial cripples, with a lower turnover and improved production."

Work really has changed over the years, hasn't it? In the 1920s there was evidently and unlimited number of unskilled jobs that needed to be filled. For "personnel professionals" of the day to be even suggesting that there was a job for every person who applied is incredible.

Wouldn't it be nice if in today's world that the job openings across the globe were exactly equal in number and requirements to the skills and qualities of all the people who are unemployed and job seeking?

Equal Pay for Less Work? No Thank-You

I have just read one of most demeaning things toward women since Larry Summers ventured to open his mouth about girls and boys.

In a cleverly written piece which purports to be even keeled toward both men and women, Professor Roy F. Baumeister, Professor of Social Psychology at Florida State University, states the following:

Likewise, I mentioned the salary difference, but it may have less to do with ability than motivation. High salaries come from working super-long hours. Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.) One study counted that over 80% of the people who work 50-hour weeks are men.

That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell.

Wow. Equal pay for less work....because our poor little women just aren't motivated to work enough to earn it the way men do?

How about we start with equal pay for equal work, Professor?

According to a 2009 article in Psych Central, "The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites women working 41 to 44 hours per week earn 84.6% of what men working similar hours earn. It gets worse as women work longer hours — women working more than 60 hours per week earn only 78.3% of what men in the same time category earn."

Although I don't believe it to be true, let's suppose men are at the workplace more hours than women. Could it have anything to do with the fact that women continue to have the greatest burden of caring for children, putting food on the table and keeping a house relatively free from germs, dirty socks and fast food plates?

Continuing with the (likely erroneous) supposition that men are at the office more hours than women - Is there anyone who doubts that women are accomplishing the same amount (or more) work per week than their peer men?

Women less motivated? I don't think so.

I am not a "feminist" nor a "man-hater" but my hat has always been off to the many superwomen I encounter year after year. These super women work their tails off at work putting in long hours and performing random miracles. At the same time, they are often raising multiple children from infancy though teenhood. These superwomen do not need to be handed equal pay for less work. They are doing the same work for less pay and usually, I might add, with less complaint.

Please, Professor, don't try to do us any favors. We don't want your condescending hand-out.

When 1950s Home Technology Enters the Workplace

I came across this article from the 1950s.

"What started as a passing technology fad has taken hold. The younger generation in particular is taking to it very quickly. "My children spend all day on it. In fact the teenagers have given up everything else to use this technology."

It all started with Uncle Miltie. After the debut of Milton Berle's show, sales of television sets doubled to 2,000,000 in 1949. Today, kids want and expect to be entertained.

What does this mean for the workplace?

We need to keep up with the needs of the changing world. Some day every household will have 2 or 3 television boxes. We can even expect advances like television programs in color. Clearly the workplace needs to keep up. Entertainment through the use of technology is becoming an important communication avenue for our younger workers.

"A happy, unstressed workforce is going to be more productive. We started by having television in the lunch room but today we are providing TVs for every employees desk. Sure,there is a risk but think about the benefits?"

Executives take note. Can you afford to ignore the needs of your next generation of workers?"

Tweeter, You're Fired!

The following Tweet showed up on my twitter search for the term "Nobscot" this morning:



Happily for me, my Nobscot is an HR technology company and we don't serve food in which to spit. But what about the owners of this Nobscot restaurant? If they see this tweet, should they fire @aspensullivan? Where do things cross the line from venting online to putting customers at risk?

A few days earlier, @aspensullivan tweeted this:


Was she at work when she tweeted that threat? Was it a threat or simply a harmless vent?

Does the fact that she's using her own phone rather than company resources make a difference? Should she be free to vent if she's only kidding? Is her speech protected? Should be tweeting during work? Is she a threat to her co-workers and customers? Should she hear the words, "Tweeter, You're Fired?"

We've seen highly publicized incidents of tweet terminations but what about the likely hundreds of tweets similar to this that are posted every day? This was one random tweet that I stumbled on because I happen to keep a search for Nobscot.

Which raises another question - if we can not control employee's online behavior, should HR monitor employee tweets to screen for potential risks? Should we have a Tweeter Termination Policy? Or in today's modern world is public venting and hollow threats inevitable and acceptable?

A Short Lesson About Opportunity

I'd like to ring in the new year with a reprint of "Where is Opportunity" from August 2004.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Where is Opportunity?

On Sunday we went to hear a friend sing and play guitar at a private club. We were introduced to a very friendly gentleman who looked like he had been planted in the lounge for several weeks. After he bought us a couple drinks, he pulled out a slip a paper and said to me, "Dear, tell me what this says." The paper said

OPPORTUNITY
ISNOWHERE

I wasn't sure what the trick was so I read what I saw.

How would you have read it?

Opportunity might be nowhere but opportunity might also be now here.

Beth C.

$80 Million HR Technology Project Gone Wrong - Very Wrong

It's being called an "$80 million information technology fraud scheme" against the New York City government. The technology, known as CityTime, is a custom made time and attendance system which includes online timesheets and biometric devices.

The story begins in 1996 when the city contracted with Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) to build a timekeeping system that would track schedules for 165,000 employees in 5000+ job titles. The city comptroller at the time estimated that the project would take 2-3 years to complete. The city budgeted $63 million. This alone sounds like a hefty price tag but we can give them the benefit of the doubt since newer technology was not available in 1996 that makes projects like this much less complicated and time consuming. (Though one wonders if they would ever realize $63 million dollars in savings from such a system.)

In 2003 SAIC put their hands in the air and said they would not be able to complete the project. But the city wanted to finish and offered to up the budget to $114 million. (Now one really wonders about the ROI. Throwing good money at bad?)

SAIC still balked but made an offer to scrap the project and start from scratch. The new project would be delivered to the city at cost -- based on hours worked by the contractors to complete the project. No cap was placed on the number of hours and no one could say how many hours would be likely.

Uh oh. The project designed to make sure everyone is on the up-and-up with their work hours just created a blank check for the contractors. Seven more years and $722 million later, the mayor abruptly stopped payments this year when the fraud came to light.

(Now we're REALLY beyond any possibility of ROI for this system.)

Six people have been indicted for $80 million fraud and $850,000 was seized from one of the consultant's bank deposit box.

The responsibility for overseeing the project fell to Joel Bondy, the current Executive Director of the Office of Payroll Administration. Bondy had been the lead on the project prior to being tapped by Bloomberg for the position in 2004. Bondy managed over another contractor Spherion, whose role it was to monitor SAIC for quality assurance. On performance reviews, Bondy rated Spherion (who happens to be his former employer) as excellent. “The contractor’s work has consistently exceeded expectations.”

Unfortunately, criminal charges suggest the opposite.

Investigators said that from 2005 through this December, Mark Mazer, Spherion’s lead quality assurance consultant on CityTime, awarded lucrative contracts to people he knew who then kicked back about $25 million to him. Prosecutors said these individuals also billed for work that was never performed and hid the money in shell companies that were in the names of Mazer’s mother and wife."

Bondy is reported to have links to Mazer as well. According to news reports he worked with Mazer in the past in another city office. Bondy was placed on unpaid suspension. He has since resigned effective December 31, 2010.

With the complexity of HR technology contracts it's hard to imagine such a thing happening. Perhaps it's a good reminder to everyone who purchases HR technology that your contracts are only as good as the people involved in carrying out the work behind the contract. That means good, trustworthy managers internally and impeccable vendors who are committed to exceeding your expectations, not your budget.

Two Very Simple Techniques for Innovation

I read a lot about "Innovation." Classes on innovation, books on innovation, b-school programs on innovation. Creating cultures of innovation. There is currently a huge mystique around innovation as if it's something terribly complex that must be studied and learned.

Here's a secret. Being innovative is incredibly simple. We are built for innovation. We only need to open our minds and look and listen to the things around us.

Here are two simple techniques that I live by everyday:

1) "I wonder if...."

For everything you see throughout the day, you should always be thinking about how things could be better. This applies to every store you enter, every service you engage, every interaction you experience, every thing you see as you walk or drive down the street.

"I wonder if...you could see the products better if this store had better lighting? I wonder if... LEDs would work better? I wonder if... a different color lighting might work?"

"I wonder if... I would feel better about this company if the customer service person had a smile in her voice?"

"I wonder if... I'd be more likely to buy this product again if the @#$% package was easier to open? I wonder if they could seal it with a different kind of material so that it would still be strong but easy to open?"

You don't have to do anything with your wonders. The act of curiosity develops your mind to always be creating ideas and innovations for improvement. Soon you'll be able to "wonder if" for every facet of your own business as well.

Plus some of your wonders about other interactions will translate over to ideas for your own life or business.

2) Connect All Dots to You. Every time you read a book, study an article, listen to a podcast, watch a video, or sit in on a webinar keep your mind open for a kernel of wisdom that can be applied (in a completely new way) to you. Even if the topic seems to be absolutely unrelated. Always be thinking, "How could this connect to me? What could we do with something like this?"

For example, some years ago I was speaking at a Conference Board conference on Recruiting and Retention. In between speaking I sat in on a couple of sessions. There was one interesting session conducted by a Sr. HR Manager for a major corporation. He was talking about various recruitment techniques his company was using successfully.

I was no longer involved in recruiting but as a former practitioner it was interesting to hear what the big companies were up to. At one point the speaker talked about their "rebounding" efforts. He talked about how they had been very successful in bringing back high performers using a postcard campaign. The postcard had a field of grass and asked, "Is the grass greener?" (Love that!) It invited the high performers to re-explore opportunities with the company. I can't recall the details now but it was very successful. A large number of high performers returned and their metrics showed they were even better and more loyal employees the second time around.

Interesting. But what did this idea have to do with me? I was no longer involved in recruiting as I was earlier in my career. I was now running an HR technology company that automated the exit interview process.

But wait ---

Could the exit interview process be used to facilitate this "rebounding" effort? If the exit interview is the last place we "talk" to the departing employee, could we could find out if high-performers would be open to the company keeping in touch to see if the grass is greener? Could we use the system to automatically schedule a follow-up so HR didn't have to keep track of when to send out postcards? And thus the idea for our innovative "Rebounding Module" was developed.

In 2003, I watched the HR Talk online bulletin board for SHRM members as the members were attempting to match newbies in HR with more senior HR mentors. People were making posts with their background and desire to be a mentor or mentee. Some of the old-timers on the board were attempting to match people together. It was a great idea to match members up in 1 to 1 mentorships. Watching this though I couldn't help but notice how slow and cumbersome the process was. It was a lot of work for a handful of volunteers. There had to be a better way.

At the same time, we were seeing that many of the problems being identified on our clients' exit interviews could be solved or minimized by Mentoring. The spark was lit and Mentor Scout was born. (And subsequently donated to the SHRM HR Talk group.)

In 2006, MySpace was all the rage. Every where I looked, everything I read had mention of MySpace. I wasn't a teenager and I'm not all that into music -- but could some of the concepts of MySpace be borrowed to solve problems or enhance my field of Human Resources? The result was Mentor Scout's Talent Networking Edition, one of the very first internal corporate social networking platforms for employee collaboration, information sharing, recognition and retention.

How do you know if your ideas are innovative? One of the amazing things about how our minds and bodies work is that when you get a truly inspiring idea, it comes with a burst of energy. (Lucky us!) I don't know the biology behind it (adrenaline?) but presumably the energy is a way to help us immediately begin implementing the idea. Be forewarned, the energy may fade by the following day so when you get the idea and the energy burst, write the idea down right away with as much detail as you can. More ideas will continue to flow for a few hours after the initial idea.

Once you get into the innovation habit, you'll have many more ideas than you have capacity to achieve them. I wish I could give you advice on how to handle an overload of ideas but my idea notebook is overflowing right now. We'll have to save the post on prioritization for another day.

Related Posts from the Archives:
1.Mind Your Own Business
2.Does Birth Order Influence Acceptance of New Ideas?
3.Are you LDD? Why We Are All Becoming Listening Deficient
4.Thinking Strategically
5.Ten HR Ideas to Beat the Year End Blahs [Dec 2008]

HR in da Office - Hawaii Style

You think you have Employee Relations challenges?
Hilarious short story about office life in Hawaii written in Pidgin English. It ain't easy being in HR in Hawaii!

Check out this excerpt:
**************************
We jus rag on poor Michelle. But das how, ah? Pretty much, once you make one mistake at da office, you going forevah be reminded.

And we could probably get written up by Human Resources for doing dis all da time, but whenevah somebody makes one mental error we play da race card and we blame ‘em on top their ethnicity even though we know dat their ethnic backgrounds nevah have nahting for do with their screw up. Like if Lisa Kim forgets for put da ting she Xeroxing underneath da cover of da Xerox machine and makes 246 copies of nahtingness before she realizes her mistake den we say “Eh, you stupid Yobo,” cuz Lisa’s Korean. Or if David Hiromoto files one folder under da first name instead of da last name, cuz sometimes people get confusing names like Parker Bryan where dey get one first name dat sounds like one last name and one last name dat sounds like one first name, and so eventually when da missing file turns up undah P instead of B we tell “Eh, you stupid Buddahead.” We do dat for everybody at work. You stupid Buk Buk. You stupid Pa-ke. You stupid Popolo. You stupid Haole. You stupid Kanak. You stupid Potagee. You stupid So-le. For little while dat new girl Debra Miyashiro had immunity cuz nobody knew what for call one stupid Okinawan, until finally somebody came up wit “You stupid Chewbacca” and so it stuck.

In our office get people who is of da kine mixed race ancestry too, so we usually jus go by dominant ethnicity. Or if dey hapa, if dey half half exack, we be nice about it, we let dem choose which of their ethnicities is da more stupider one.

Da Boss, she ej-u-ma-cated, but I no tink she catch on dat we only making fun. She jus tinks she surrounded by one office full of racists. Das why no one in da office has dared for tease her yet. We dunno how she would reack. Plus nobody knows what her precise ethnic background is and everybody too sked for ask. She no catch on we only fully tease da people we know good. But I guess no can blame. I tink she extra nerjous cuz when she first came ova hea had dat parking space incident in Waikele dat wuz in da news. So now everytime she hears somebody in da office calling somebody one stupid someting, she automatic tink going get beef. But ironicallies if had one beef she might not even know, cuz I no even know if she know what one beef is. One day people in da office might start yelling “Beef, beef” and she might jus very well tink we all celebrating da deliciousness of da new McDonald’s McTeri Burger. I gotta remembah if anybody starts fighting I gotta yell, “Altercation, altercation.”
***************************
You can read the rest of "Some Kind of Jedi" by Lee Tonouchi at Hawaii Business here.

Where Are The Bathrooms and Other Things New Hires Need to Know

One of the secrets to successful onboarding and socialization of new hires is to make sure they are fully informed on everything that they need to know. Let me amend that. New hires need to be informed on not just what they need to know but also what they want to know.

Most companies fall short on this one because we rarely stop to think from the newcomer's perspective. Instead we focus on all the goodies that we think are important.

A few years ago we put together this list called the 5Ws. It includes all the Who What Where When Why and How questions that your new hires want and need to be able to answer.

WHO

To whom do I report?
Who reports to me?
Who else does what?
Who can help me?

WHAT

What are the job priorities?
What should I accomplish daily, weekly, monthly?
What are my goals; what is expected of me?
What is the department's role in the company?

WHEN

When do I need to be at work?
When do I take breaks?
When is lunch?
When do I leave?
When can I get help from my manager?
When is my work due?

WHERE

Where do I park?
Where do I sit?
Where do other people sit?
Where are the resources I need?
Where are the bathrooms?
Where are the conference rooms?
Where do I get lunch?

WHY

Why is my job important?

HOW

How do I do my job?
How do I use the equipment?
How do I handle questions?
How do I handle mistakes?

Pass this list along to your Managers. Getting them answered may involve a combination of direct supervisors, the former incumbent in the position, senior peers and/or a new hire buddy or mentor.

Having a good grasp on all the various items helps an employee move from feeling like the lost newbie to being an important member of the team. This kind of socialization and embeddedness is directly correlated with satisfaction and employee retention.

Lessons from The Amazing Race: Building Successful Teams

Never mind The Apprentice. We have learning lessons galore from another reality competition The Amazing Race. If you want to learn about winning teams, this is the place to go.

Race 17 has three top contender pairs whose team dynamics are very different from one another. Let's take a look.

Team: Thomas and Jill

Thomas and Jill, a dating couple, have been strong contenders from Race One. He, the Ad Sales Director and graduate of Notre Dame. She, the very fit hair stylist whose spelling Thomas feels compelled to correct. They don't yet seem completely comfortable with each other and one might question the degree to which Thomas respects Jill. Though we may worry for the longevity of this relationship, this imbalance may be exactly the catalyst that propels this team to success. For Thomas and Jill, winning is partly about proving themselves to each other. Thomas has to succeed because he has presented himself to Jill as the one who knows all. She on the other hand is determined to show Thomas that she is as good (and better) than he. Thomas, the self-established leader, pushes Jill hard and she (though perhaps frustrated) responds well his verbal barbs. As an added dimension to what drives this team to success, it would go against Thomas' self image to perform less than Jill. So while he's externally pushing Jill, he's internally pushing himself to make sure he performs as well or better than her.

Team: Nat and Kat

Nat and Kat are two female doctors and close friends. Their success is the opposite of Thomas and Jill's. They succeed by mutual respect and support. Both of them are equal in terms of smarts, fitness and willing to do what it takes to win. This kind of long term close friendship pair is risky in teams. Research has shown that as team members get comfortable, they are less likely to rock the boat by challenging each other. (See link 1 at the bottom of this post which includes the following statement, "congeniality taking precedence over the introduction of ideas that might prove unpopular.") This can lead to mistakes, lack of creative thinking and/or laziness. Luckily for Nat and Kat, each member of this duo is individually self-motivated. They remind me of the slow and steady wins the race concept.

Team:Brook and Claire.

Brook and Claire. The Home Shopping Co-Hosts. Their success is clearly a function of the overwhelming, never-ending energy and enthusiasm (and fitness!) of Brooke, the exuberant blond and the tireless do-what-it-takes-to-please-Brook persistence of Claire. Brooke is a tough but loving coach. Claire can be fainting or vomiting and Brook will shout out, "You can do this, Claire Bear" and do it she will. They both deserve a lot of credit; Brook for her contagious excitement over each little win and Clair for hanging in and succeeding against the odds.

Our lessons on creating winning teams

1) Members who are not yet comfortable with each other often strive extra hard to succeed.
2) Long term teammates can be successful if each member is individually motivated for the team to succeed and are mutually supportive
3) When skill levels are unequal, unbridled enthusiasm can propel each member to give more than they have to give for the team's success

Who am I cheering for in The Amazing Race finale? I'm hoping for one of the two-women teams to win. I like Nat and Kat a lot but it would also be fun to see Brook and Claire go wild at the finish point.

More on Teams here:

1)The Power and Challenges of Group Wisdom

2)1954 Psychology Experiment Provides Clues for Cooperative Work Among Distributed Work Environments

3) Managing Remote Employees

4) Group Mentoring: Keys to Success

Apprentice Lessons - How to Sell Yourself in the Boardroom (Job Interview)

The Apprentice boardroom provides an excellent lesson for job applicants in selling themselves to their prospective employer.

In this week's episode, Donald Trump had to decide which candidate of the final three to fire. Liza and Brandy had just come off from a winning task. Clint was the favored candidate and survivor from the opposing team.

Donald asked each candidate, "Why should I hire you?" Brandy gave a comprehensive overview of her accomplishment, experience and education. Clint did the same listing his credentials. When it was Liza's turn, instead of selling herself she took the losing strategy of focusing on how the show was about helping people during the recession. Like many applicants in job interviews, she talked about how much she wanted the job rather than why she is the best person for the position. It's true that Liza's qualifications may not rival Brandy's and Clint's, but she did have one ace up her sleeve.

Let's rewind and try another tactic.

Donald: Liza, Why should I hire you?

Liza: Mr. Trump, you seem to hold Clint in high regard. Is that true?

Donald Trump: I hold all of you in high regard.

Liza: So it would be reasonable to say that you think Clint is very good then, yes?

Donald Trump: Yes

Liza: Then what would you think of a candidate who beat Clint in a head to head task? In fact the ONLY person to beat Clint Project Manger to Project Manager. Would you think that person is worthy of your consideration?

Donald Trump: Well. That's a good point. But Liza, throughout the whole competition. No one seemed to like you. Shouldn't I be concerned about that?

Liza: I understand your concern, Mr. Trump. But let me ask you one more question. What do you think would happen if I called up all of your competitors - Some of the people who you have competed with -- and won against -- for major projects? Do you think they would all say that they like you?

Most likely Donald had already had his mind made up to go with Clint and Brandy (probably why Stuart was fired). But wouldn't it have been a lot more difficult for him to fire Liza had she focused on her major selling point - having just beaten Clint?

You might not be able to go into a job interview and come on as strong as the above conversation. But you can make sure that you are prepared to talk about your unique selling point. It's important to focus on what you can bring to the company, rather than what the company can do for you. Unfortunately because you really, really want the job doesn't mean that much to the company.

Nuts and Bolts of Onboarding Surveys

There is an excellent LinkedIn Group for those interested in employee onboarding called Onboarding Best Practices - Clearing the 90-Day Hurdle. It's run by Sue Edwards of Development by Design with whom I have been very impressed.

One of the members posed a question about Onboarding Surveys for which I happen to have a little bit of experience. I thought I'd share my bullet points answer here in the Nobscot blog for others who might be interested as well.

Question: Onboarding Survey?

I am part of a team that is designing a comprehensive onboarding process from hire date through first anniversary. We are looking for samples of new hire onboarding / first year surveys. We are interested in the content as well as the frequency that employees are surveyed - and if the content changes with each survey. Any information you can share would be very helpful. Thanks!

Beth's Answer:

We see a variety of approaches to onboarding surveys and each has its pros and cons. Here are a couple things to think about:

1. The frequency in which you survey needs to be congruent with your corporate culture. If you have a culture of listening to employees and acting on the feedback then you are in a good position to do multiple surveys. If your culture is not quite there yet then you might want to scale back the # of surveys initially until employees see that their feedback does make a difference.

2. If you are thinking of doing one survey only and doing it at 90 days, consider moving that up to 75 days. Ninety days is often the point where new hires give up. If you can catch them at 75 days, you may find out some of the needs before it's too late.

3. If you plan to do multiple surveys, you should plan your objective for each survey. For example an early survey might be geared around the recruitment and orientation experience, a second survey around the early training and meeting initial expectations and a third focused on socialization (are they beginning to identify with the organization).

4. You can also use multiple surveys to follow employees' (collective) work experiences and see if there is a particular point in time where your employees tend to lose their initial enthusiasm. This is useful if you have a lot of employee turnover in your first year.

5. Based on item 3 and 4 above, the answer to your question regarding whether or not the content changes for each survey, the answer is yes and no. You'll want to have some unique questions based on the objective of that particular survey and some core questions that you ask at each interval in order to track changes in responses.

6. Consider aligning your new hire survey questions with your exit interview questions. You'll often get a little bit more candid responses in the exit interviews and it will allow you to track the life cycle sentiments of your employees. (And be sure to track your exit interview results by length of service so you can break the data down appropriately. When you compare the data side-by-side you'll be able to see exactly where and when the irritations occur that cause people to leave.)

7. Depending on the volume, consider utilizing a new hire survey technology. This will make it easier for you to administer at the appropriate time interval, encourage honest responses from the new employees, track participation rates and make it easy to analyze and report on the results.

Has HR Technology Pricing Gone Veblen?

I write a lot about pricing strategies because as the CEO of Nobscot Corporation it is one of my most difficult and most important jobs. The reason that it is so difficult is because of the psychological component or as Dan Ariely would say the irrational side to pricing and its affect on purchasing.

For me, being not only the CEO but also a co-founder and co-developer of Nobscot and Mentor Scout's products, I have a (misguided?) sense of pride in offering the HR community the best HR technology in our niches at the lowest possible prices. It's satisfying to help clients and the industry in such a way. Great products - Great Prices. Everyone wins.

Or so you would think.

I recently ran across an article published in Harper's Magazine that was an expose of the Jewelry business. It was eye-opening in a number of ways. What particularly caught my attention was the concept of Veblen goods. The term Veblen goods is used to describe (per wikipedia) products "for which people's preference for buying them increases as a direct function of their price, as greater price confers greater status, instead of decreasing according to the law of demand." In other words, the more they cost, the more people want to buy them.

The author, Clancy Martin, PhD, tells the story of a Thai rug he was selling that hung on the wall of his store for several years. He had bought the rug in Thailand for $5,000. and tried to sell it for $25,000. Over the next three years he slowly upped the price. It didn't sell until it hit $150,000 at which point he ended up negotiating a sale that closed at $110,000.

Which got me thinking about HR technology. Are some vendors selling Veblen HR products? When the HRIS model began to shift from the on-premise client-server model to online SaaS versions, vendors reduced their development and other costs dramatically. Did they equally reduce the prices of their products as well or have some of them gone Veblen?

I remember when one of the first major onboarding technologies was released by one of the applicant tracking system vendors (that has since been absorbed by another). The pricing was in the neighborhood of $75,000 per year for something that at the time consisted primarily of new hire checklists and emails sent to the appropriate parties. I'm pretty sure that was Veblen.

As you review your HR technology and HR services budgets and future purchases ask yourself, am I buying Veblen goods? And if so, keep your eyes open for other possibilities that may have the same or better quality, features, security and support for a lot less. Don't be the one who happily walked away with the $5000 rug for $110,000.

Retiree Reaps Rewards from Mentoring

I was excited to come across this gem from the United Way Retirees Association newsletter.

It's a great example of the many wonderful benefits of mentoring for both the mentee AND the mentor. (See Ten Best Reasons to be a Mentor). If you have the opportunity to be involved in a mentorship program jump at it. Your first reaction might be that you don't have time or you have nothing to learn or nothing to share. Not true! Everyone has something unique and special that they can bring to a mentoring relationship.

Just ask Dick Aft.

Below is the article in its entirety.

Retiree Reaps Beaucoup Rewards from Mentoring
By Dick Aft


For the past few months, my life has been enriched by a young United Way professional who selected my name from the Mentor Scout data base. Mentor Scout is a collaborative effort of the United Way Retirees Association and United Way Worldwide that has established a comprehen­sive system-wide online mentoring program.

Mentoring is not new to United Way. During my 50 years as a professional, now volunteer, this is the third organized program in which I have served as a mentor to a colleague with less experi­ence. It’s been the least that I could do considering all of the people who infor­mally did the same for me over the years.

At its heart, mentoring involves torch-passing. . . . sharing the principles, practices, mores and methods of profes­sional United Way practice. What sets the Mentor Scout program apart from its predecessors is its extensive use of online communication. It begins with on-line registration by people interested in serving as mentors. Following their acceptance into the program, each pro­spective mentor’s bio is put onto a web­site open to United Way employees who are seeking one-year mentors through this program. Next, each prospective mentee reaches out to mentor candidates whose experiences appear to meet his/her interests.

My Mentor Scout mentee initiated our relationship by sending an e-mail self-introduction and inquiry regarding my interest. Following a brief exchange of e-correspondence to become acquainted, she followed Mentor Scout protocols by proposing goals and objectives for my reaction. Together, we refined them so that they fit her needs, my capacities to be of help to her and assurances that our plan fit within her job and supervisory job demands. After three months of mostly weekly, but sometimes twice-weekly e-mail exchanges, she and I both feel that she is making progress on her goals. Next, we plan a telephone con­versation of shared experiences related to her objectives.

What fun! And how interesting it is to be using a 21st century medium to “give back” some of the many things that have been given to me during my career. What’s more is that, just between us, my mentee helps me feel proud and satisfied that I am adding value to her ability to contribute to our movement.

If you are interested in becoming part of the Mentor Scout program, please visit the UWRA website (www.UWRA.org) for a link to the information. Hopefully, you’ll find this experience as delightful as I have!

The Personnelovac Machine

I had a good chuckle last night reading a cute, satiric short story from 1960 with an HR technology related theme.

The Success Machine, by Henry Slesar, follows "Personnel Manager" Ralph Colihan. Colihan works for General Products, a company where "mechanical brains" (big computers) do all the thinking and employees are there to simply act on the results. Colihan runs the "Personnelovac" machine which assesses employee performance. Each day he enters in punch cards of various employees and the Personnelovac chitters, chortles and chuckles and burps out an assessment. If the card is pink, the assessment ends with the recommendation: Fire him. The pink slip goes into the Action Chute and the deed is carried out.

"Marvelous machine, that. Most marvelous of 'em all, if you ask me. Sizes up a man beautifully. And best of all, it's one hundred percent honest. That's a mighty important quality, Ralph."

On the day of our story, Colihan breaks a company rule and begins to Think. He wonders why his machine is spitting out pink cards at such a rapid rate. Twenty-four out of the last 40 assessments have come back pink.

Although concerned, our hero hatches a plan to exploit the opportunity by entering in the punch card for Grimswitch, a colleague that has been annoying Colihan and others. Sure enough, the Personnelovac's recommendation: Fire him. Unfortunately, Colihan's enthusiasm is short lived for the President of General Products, spurred on by the negative assessment of one department head, instructs the Personnel Manager to run assessments on all department heads.

"It was an interesting week for Colihan.

Morgan, the production man, was fired.

Grimswitch came up to see the Personnel man and tried to punch him in the nose. Fortunately, he was a little too drunk, and the blow went wild.

Seegrum, the Shipovac operator, was fired.

Douglas, the Treasurer, was permitted to keep his job, but the Personnelovac issued a dire threat if improvement wasn't rapidly forthcoming.

Wilson, the firm's oldest employee, was fired.

In fact, seven out of General Product's twelve department heads were greeted by the ominous pink card."

This continues until the only department head left for the Personnelovac to assess is Ralph Colihan himself.

Enjoy!

(note: The Success Machine is available in the public domain.)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Success Machine
by Henry Slesar

The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped a card into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer.

"Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!"

He read the card. It was pink.

"Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac.

"An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14.

"Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination. Decrease in work-energy per man-hour. Marked increase in waste-motion due to subject's interest in non-essential activities such as horseracing. Indication of hostility towards superiors.

"Recommendation: Fire him."

Colihan's legs went weak. He sat down and placed the card in front of him. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he broke a company rule and began to Think.

Something's wrong, he thought. Something is terribly wrong. Twenty-four pink cards in the last month. Twenty-four out of forty. That's a batting average of--He tried to figure it out with a pencil, but gave it up as a bad job. Maybe I'll run it through the Averagovac, he thought. But why bother? It's obvious that it's high. There's obviously SOMETHING WRONG.

The inter-com beeped.

"Ten o'clock department head meeting, Mr. Colihan."

"All right, Miss Blanche."

He rose from his chair and took the pink card with him. He stood before the Action Chute for a moment, tapping the card against his teeth. Then, his back stiffened with a sense of duty, and he slipped the card inside.

(Continue reading this short story via PDF by clicking on The Success Machine in Nobscot's HR library.)

The Evolution of HR

It's not often that you get to see the practice of Human Resources evolve before your very eyes. That is what I have been seeing with the many HR folks dabbling (and more!) in social media. Of particular interest is an upcoming "unconference" called HRevolution which is bringing together 150 forward thinking HR consultants, bloggers, practitioners, vendors and more.

The group was pulled together in the way that only social media can. It started with an initial throw-away Tweet about getting together, evolved into last year's informal unconference (which Nobscot sponsored) to this year's impressive, well organized and forward thinking program.

You can tell that something interesting is afoot with session titles like:

• Teamwork in the Age of Social Media: What Happens When The Employee Gets Bigger Than the Brand?
• The HR Apprentice: Bring your A-game or 'You're fired'
• Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber: Expanding the HR Social Media Community
• HR: Where Brand meets Culture – A discussion about HR’s role in Corporate Brand Building

They say that evolution is about "survival of the fittest." The professionals involved with HRevolution are those who stay one step ahead of the game, network with other forward thinkers and jump right into the future. These are the people who are going to be best prepared to move the HR profession forward.

With this in mind, Nobscot had to get involved.

To show our support for these HR visionaries, we created the Nobscot HRevolution Scholarship to help defray travel costs to HRevolution. This years recipients were selected by the HRevolution planning committee based on their experience, background and insights brought to the table, as well as travel challenges that may preclude their attendance without the aid of the scholarship.

Recipients Mervyn Dinnen and Shennee Rutt will both receive stipends to aid in covering travel expenses to attend the conference.

Dinnen is professional recruiter, well-known UK blogger and an active member of the online recruiting and HR community in both the U.S. and Europe who will bring a global perspective to the mix of conversation at the HRevolution event.

Rutt is an HR professional with more than 15 years of experience in recruitment, sourcing and HR generalist roles spanning retail, transportation and human services. She is an active member of the online HR community, a newcomer to the HR blogosphere and previously served as co-host of the Compassionate HR Show on Blog Talk Radio

Please join me in congratulating Mervyn and Shennee and thanking the planners of this event: Trish McFarlane Ben Eubanks, Jason Seiden, Crystal Peterson, Joan Ginsberg, Steve Boese, Mark Stelzner.

Welcome to the evolution of HR!

Prediction: Unsustainable Employee Turnover Crisis

There is a lot of talk these days about sustainability. The general concept is simply about having the ability to endure.

I'm predicting a business sustainability crisis in corporate America that is going to require the finesse of some genius Human Resources professionals to prevent.

The crisis relates to unprecedented employee turnover rates that companies will not be able to financially endure.

I'm not referring to the turnover bump that we are going to face as we come out of the recession and jobs become more plentiful. I'll save that post for another day. I'm referring to the turnover that is coming based on the new mindset of the American worker.

Let me explain.

I think we all agree that it is becoming acceptable in the minds of employees to stay with their companies for 6 months to 2 years. The derogatory term of "job hopper" is fading fast. Yes? This is not a crisis at this time as there are still enough employees who choose to say with their companies long term to balance things out.

At some point, though, the balance is going to shift. Long service employees are going to retire. New employees are not going to consider staying a full career at one company. That is when the crisis begins.

Let's do the math.

Suppose that we are an executive at a company of 5000 employees. At this company the norm for all of our employees is to stay with the company for somewhere between 6 months and 2 years. This equates to voluntary turnover rates of between 50% (for those who stay 2 years) and 200% (for those who stay 6 months). This scenario leaves us with roughly 100% turnover per year.

What is the financial impact? Let's say that voluntary turnover has traditionally been at 15% per year. At 15%, our company of 5000 is losing and replacing 750 employees per year. If we are conservative and say that the cost per lost employee is $5000, that would make our traditional costs of turnover $3,750,000. ($5000 x 750 EEs).

What happens when our turnover rises to 100%? At this rate, we'd be losing 5000 employees per year. If we use the same cost per lost employee of $5000, our new cost of turnover would be $5000 x 5000 EEs = $25,000,000. per year.

Would you say that a company that is used to and budgeted for turnover costs of $3,750,000 per year would be able to handle turnover costs of $25,000,000?

The cost of turnover becomes unsustainable.

This is both highly frightening and incredibly exciting. Frightening for obvious reasons. Exciting because it's the first time in a long time (ever?) where Human Resources executives are going to be the most important business people in the organization.

There are two possibilities in how Human Resources will drive the changes needed for their organizations to become sustainable in this climate.

Companies will need to create work environments that will drive employees back to longevity. Corporate cultures will change, incentives will change, benefits will change, environments will change. The very nature of how we manage human resources will transform in order re-build the old concepts of employees staying with an organization until retirement.

OR

Human Resources will re-think staffing and workforce management in completely new ways that will no longer create costs associated with employee turnover. Imagine if the ways of doing business change so uniquely that new employees came onboard at no cost, employees are productive from day one and employees terminate without leaving any gap in customer service or productivity.

If Human Resources Management and business in general evolve to the latter scenario, then we could have a world where all employees work at each company for 6-months to 2 years that would be sustainable. If we are not that creative or that is not realistic, then we'll need to sustain through some of the old tried and true employee retention methods. Either way, HR has a big job ahead of us. Are you ready?

What Do You Not Understand About Private & Confidential?

I was browsing through my Twitter stream this morning and this tweet caught my eye:







The link brings you to a memo from Capgemini to one its employees regarding his bonus award for 2009. It then follows with the employee's presumed response. In a gesture of kindness or sarcasm (the tweeter assumes sarcasm) the employee requests that the company keeps the bonus to help with any future financial challenges that the company may face.

Cute post.

But....

The letter from Capgemini to the employee is posted in full including a PDF download. At the top of the letter, it states in bold: Private and Confidential

At the bottom of the memo it adds:
Your compensation details are strictly personal and confidential and should not be disclosed to others.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Exactly what part of "private and confidential" does the employee not understand?

I realize that we live in a new world and "openness" and "transparency" (oh, how I hate that word) are the watchwords of today, but if you receive a letter from your "Chief People Officer" as Mr. Kumar did that says the information is private and confidential, should you really be posting it and spreading it all over the Internet?


If you were Cyprian D'Souza, Chief People Officer of Financial Services GBU and the signer of the confidential letter, how would you respond? Would you laugh it off or would you take disciplinary action? Or maybe something in between? What is an appropriate reaction from HR?

Stay Interviews are about the Individual; Exit Interviews are about the Organization

There has been a bit of PR recently about stay interviews so I thought it would be a good time to delve into the Noblog archives and dust off a post on this topic from back in 2004. In it I clarify that Stay Interviews are wonderful but they have nothing to do with exit interviews. They sound similar but in reality they serve two unique purposes. Enjoy.

Stay Interviews and Exit Interviews
December 1, 2004

In preparation for a meeting today I was thinking about exit interviews in comparison with stay interviews. As I understand it, stay interviews are about reaching out and touching (oops, bad word - let's make that listening to) each employee and showing that you care about their individual success. This is a very worthwhile endeavor and an important part of your employee retention strategy. Not to mention it being the human thing to do.

The exit interview, on the other hand, is not about the individual. You'll hear people outside of the industry say things like, "Why conduct exit interviews? It's too late once the person is already leaving." That would be true if the exit interview were about the individual but exit interviews are about the organization. The purpose of an exit interview is not to try and persuade an employee to stay. The purpose is to identify organizational strengths and weaknesses and the irritations that drive turnover. Irritations are unique to each organization and exit interviews are the most effective way to uncover them. **

Most companies (reportedly 97%) strive to do exit interviews because they sense that there is valuable information there. They are right about that but without a system in place it's a huge burden on HR to conduct exit interviews with each terminating employee. If a company manages to conduct exit interviews with a good percentage of employees who are leaving (which is a real challenge) it takes even more effort to manually compile, analyze and report on the data. Because of the huge amount of effort required, most companies that I speak with rarely come full circle to the point where they can use the information from their exit data in meaningful ways.

Today, with the advent of exit interview management systems (yes, like WebExit) HR can automate the process. With exit interview automation, HR staff can reduce time spent on conducting, compiling and creating reports and focus their time instead on actually using the data to solve organizational issues. Exit interview automation has come a long way since January of 2001 when we released WebExit. Today, at the click of a few buttons an HR Director can be identifying the exact irritations causing turnover in each department or location worldwide.

So how I see it is that we shouldn't be deciding between stay interviews versus exit interviews. The two serve unique and different purposes. The stay interview with its focus on the individual and retention and the exit interview with its focus on the organization and reduction of turnover.


** Most effective because
1) they take place when the employee has the least to lose and therefore can be the most candid (plus there is a strong psychological pull in most people to "say their peace" when resigning).
2) There is no added time pressure on HR to act on the data when it is received through exits as opposed to information received via focus groups and employee surveys.

First Impressions: How Our Unconscious Mind Deceives Us

You are a recruiter. You go into the lobby to meet your applicant. Your applicant is sitting next to a very large, obese woman. As you walk your applicant back to your office, you begin to formulate your initial impressions. Would you believe it if I told you that your first impressions were going to be more negative because the applicant was sitting next to the obese woman? Even if the applicant had no relationship or connection with the overweight woman whatsoever?

I was introduced to this fascinating brain phenomenon while listening to a radio interview with Shankar Vedantam, the author of The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Mind Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. Mr. Vedantam explained that most of the decisions that we make are affected unconsciously by many factors that we would never consciously consider relevant.

How could the biases toward obese people possibly transfer to a person who just happens to be sitting near by?

To find out, I examined the research study on which this information is based. Sure enough, in the laboratory, some completely irrational results were recorded.

Two studies were conducted by researchers Michelle R. Hebl and Laura M. Mannix of Rice University. In Experiment 1, Hebl and Mannix showed random individuals a dossier including a resume and a photograph of a presumed applicant. The photographs showed the applicant in a social setting (described as a work reception). In one set of photos, the applicant was seated next to a woman of average weight, size 8, of average attractiveness. In the other set, the applicant was seated next to the same woman but this time the woman was wearing a realistic prosthesis that brought her size to 22. They asked the individual to rate the applicant on a variety of factors including the extent to which they would recommend hiring. The results showed that people were less likely to recommend the applicant shown seated next to the heavy woman. They also rated the applicant next to the heavy woman lower on various Professional Qualities and Interpersonal Skills. The results were statistically significant.

Amazing.

In Experiment #2, they researchers took it one step further. They invited individuals to (ostensibly) interview applicants. They compared a variety of scenarios which included (but were not limited to):
- The male applicant sitting next to the obese woman
- The male applicant holding hands with the obese woman
- The male applicant sitting next to the average sized woman
- The male applicant holding hands with the average sized woman

The individuals were asked to provide a pre-interview opinion on the applicant.

Remarkably, the results were similar to Experiment 1. Those applicants in the proximity of the overweight woman were judged more harshly than those next to the average size woman. Perhaps the most surprising finding was that the results were the same whether the applicant was believed to be in a relationship with the overweight woman or complete strangers.

Hebl and Mannix suggest that when we form impressions, we take in a wide variety of environmental cues that go beyond the specific individual themselves.

What does this mean for HR?

Most of us are aware that stereotypes act as faulty shortcuts and may cause us to make poor HR decisions if we don't consciously set them aside. We might make false assumptions about applicants or employees based on their age, gender, race, attractiveness, height, etc. With this new knowledge, that we might unintentionally spread the stereotype stigma to others, we now have to be even more keenly aware of how we are forming impressions and how we are making decisions.

In a second interview that I heard with Mr. Vedantam, he was asked if these unconscious manifestations absolve us from the aberrant behavior since it's out of our control. Vedantam wisely responded absolutely not. He believes (and I concur) that regardless of the phenomena about how are brains (mis)function, we are still most assuredly responsible for our actions. Absolutely.

Mind Your Own Business

"Strategy is about creating next practices and not adapting to best practices in the industry." Vijay Govindarajan, Professor Tuck School of Business,Dartmouth College

Professor Govindarajan's statement perfectly sums up my approach to business. For the past 10 years I've done my best not to look at or care about what my competitors are doing with their products and services. While I admit to a mild (occasionally wild) curiosity, I recognize the danger in seeing the way another vendor approaches our business. Once I have seen their products, it's likely I will unconsciously (or consciously) be swayed to build ours to look and act like theirs. And what use in the marketplace is there for a product that already exists?

The strength behind a company is its unique approach to solving a problem or unleashing an opportunity. In my industry, rather than look at the "normal" way that HR vendors create and deliver products, I like to focus singularly on what would be most appealing, helpful, productive, cost-effective, easy and powerful for HR professionals (our buyers).

It perhaps sounds a conceit to say that I am not concerned about what my competitors are offering but it is only a liability if I take my eyes off the ball of what our buyers want and need. Successful entrepreneurship and mature company innovation require a healthy dose of the rebel rather than that of the good follower.

What do you think? Am I keeping my products fresh and innovative or am I missing opportunities and should be sent back to B-School?

The Importance of HR: A Tragedy that Could Have Been Avoided

If any of your colleagues or senior management ever doubt the importance of the Human Resources function, tell them about the Tragedy at Mangatepopo Gorge.

On April 16, 2008, 6 students and 1 teacher died due to an amazing array of Human Resources failures on the part of Sir Edmund Hilary Outdoor Pursuits Centre. The tragedy happened on an adventure field trip in New Zealand but the Human Resources lessons are applicable to companies around the world including those in North America.

Sir Edmund Hilary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) describes itself as a provider of outdoor education and adventure. It's goal is to provide adventure activities to "develop people’s potential and instil concepts of environmental leadership." Programs include kayaking, canoeing, tubing, rockclimbing, snow and ice climbing, caving, tramping, skiing, snowboarding, river walking, gorge walking, camping and ropes course.

This story takes place on a canyoning trip at Mangatepopo Gorge, located in the Tongariro National Park in the Central North Island of New Zealand. Canyoning (also known as canyoneering) is a rigorous sport which requires climbing, jumping, and swimming and generally requires special apparatus such as ropes, helmets and wetsuits. It was raining when the students and teacher from Elim Christian College, a small school in Auckland set out for their adventure trip with their guide from OPC. During the trip, the rains turned to flash flood and caused the river to rise trapping the canyoneers on a ledge overhanging the cliff. They stood on the ledge for an hour until the heavy rushing waters were up past their knees. The guide made the decision to continue onward and she and one pupil jumped into the water. They made it across. She successively had each student in groups of two jump into the waters while she threw rope for them to grasp. The seven who died were unable to reach the rope or were unable to hold on due to the violent waters. They went over a dam where their bodies were recovered.

Had they chosen not to go out on that day or had stayed on the ledge, the loss would have been avoided.

Why is this a tale of HR misfunction rather than a story of a risky adventure going bad? Over the past two years, the parents of the deceased children requested examination into the tragedy that shattered their lives. The investigation revealed an alarming number of issues, all within the purview of HR that could have and should have been corrected. From what was discovered, the loss may have been avoided if someone was minding the HR shop at the Sir Edmund Hilary Outdoors Pursuit Centre.

Eight HR problem areas were identified:

1) Employee Turnover. Staff turnover at OPC was described in all reports as being very high. This resulted in inexperienced employees along with a loss of institutional history both of which contributed to the deaths.

2) Promotion "Creep." At the OPC, employees were being promoted to "Senior Staff" at just 2 years.

3) Safety Issues due to Poor Corporate Culture and Employee Stress. A safety audit in 1996 reported that 50% of the employees at OPC had a 50% risk of having a serious accident or illness. 11% had a 79% risk. According to the Sunday Star Times, the audit highlighted high staff turnover, non-compliance with agreed organizational policy and an "autocratic, unfriendly and demotivating" management dynamic as significant safety risks.

4) Ignoring Exit Interviews. In addition to the safety audit, Exit interviews (which is why this story came to my attention) warned that employees were "overworked, not supported and disillusioned."

5) Inadequate Training. The guide for this trip had only done the gorge trip 5 times prior to the tragedy. Her training consisted of:

• a 12-week course
• 2-weeks as a volunteer
• FT employee for 2 months

She had been with the company for just three months. Yet with this limited amount of training she was still sent out as a solo guide for this challenging trip.

6) Poor Workforce Management. Whether it's due to money savings or lack of employees, the OPC assigns just 1 instructor to each adventure. The Coroner's report which included recommendations to prevent a future tragedy suggests a minimum of two guides per trip (each equipped with proper communication devices). On the OPC website today it still states, in the risk section I might add, that they continue to provide 1 guide per adventure.

7) Inadequate New Hire Orientation and Induction. The investigation report says that OPC provides a 3 week induction for newly graduated instructors which they consider inadequate due to the high risk nature of the jobs. After the tragedy, the Center Manager said "there was pressure to get new instructors into productive work mode as soon as possible." He also cited an "ineffective mentorship system for new staff."

8) Employee Silos and Communication Breakdown. A direct contributor to the accident was due to a communication breakdown between the guide (who survived) and the Program Manager. One of the Program Manager's job functions is to determine if it's safe for the guides to go ahead with planned outings. The guide said she received approval. The Program Manager said she never would have approved it. It later was revealed that the two had spoken and the Guide promised to not go very far up the gorge.

Luckily in most of our companies, high turnover, high stress, inadequate training, poor communication, insufficient onboarding and mentoring result only in a financial loss* and not a loss of life. I am reminded however of a set of exit interviews from employees in the Pharmacy of a hospital who all stated they were leaving because they didn't feel they received enough training and were afraid they were going to kill someone. (Unlike OPC, this hospital jumped on the information and improved training programs in this area.)

The work that we do in HR is important; vitally important. The impact that we have on minding the "people part" of the business affects every customer that interacts with every employee. For some companies it goes beyond our customers to the very health and safety of every person and every living thing on the planet. If you ever begin to doubt the importance of HR, think about the kids who died at Mangatepopo Gorge and how those death may have been avoided if YOU were in charge of HR at OPC.

* OPC was fined $40,000 and ordered to make $440,000 in reparation
You can read more in the Sunday Star Times article: A Tragedy That Could Have Been Avoided
Additional articles available through searching on the term: Mangatepopo Gorge

Why Boomers Don't Comprehend Work-Life Balance

This evening's #HRHappyHour was on the subject of work-life balance. When the discussion turned to generational differences, there was a palpable cringing from several of the Gen X and Gen Y participants. The post-Baby Boom generations are absolutely sick and tired of being grouped, labeled and stereotyped. They want to be accepted as individuals with various preferences unrelated to their age, generation or the times in which they have come of working age.

Fair enough. I can respect their frustration. Being prejudged based on a classification is never fair and often leads to incorrect assumptions.

So in this post I will stick to commenting about my own peers, the Baby Boomers and our relationship to work. (Aren't you allowed to stereotype your own group?)

Why is that many Baby Boomers have a hard time grasping the concept of work-life balance? The answer is very simple: Guilt.

For most workers my age and older, there has always been a clear designation between work and non-work. During work hours, you better be working. Lunch break and coffee break were available for personal errands. Unless you had a funeral to attend, taking off work time to attend to family matters (or heaven forbid fun/hobbies) was a signal that an employee was lazy, not dedicated to the company, a lousy worker, a poor planner, or a combination thereof. No self respecting employee would even think about taking time off for personal matters.

We have always felt that it was our responsibility to make arrangements so that life did not impede on work. Personal life and family life is something that happens after hours.

Work-life balance? It's like an oxymoron to us. Our idea of work-life balance is chit-chatting with co-workers about our families and having birthday cakes and baby showers in the office conference room.

Truly this is one paradigm that is difficult for us to shift. We hold fast to these views. We still feel guilty if we are not working during work hours.

On the brighter side, most of us our doing a better job of understanding and accepting that employees can accomplish a full week of valuable work while mixing and matching work hours with life hours. I see this in my own company every single day.

Companies have made tremendous strides in work-life balance. We're seeing flexible schedules and virtual workplaces like never before. We old timers are coming around. And if we don't, no worries. We'll be out of the workforce before you know it. You'll soon be able to mix-up your work and your life as much as you please without our baby boomer guilt looking down on you. Just make sure you keep getting your work accomplished or we'll be saying "I told you so" from our wheelchairs.....errrr.... from our lovely retirement communities where we are relaxing without any work to feel guilty about.

Lifestyle Company versus Growth Company

Gerhard Gschwandtner's post on the premium oyster farm whose motto is "that's enough for me" reminds me of an unfinished post I had written about lifestyle companies versus growth companies. I don't have it with me but it went something like this:

Starting Nobscot Corporation I found to be a relatively easy and fun challenge. We were creating a technology (WebExit) that we knew there was a need for and we had a clear vision of what we wanted the company to be and do. The only times that I had any doubt at all were on the few occasions that I encountered those connected with the venture capital community. Sometimes it would be an attorney, other times a local networking group. The discussion would inevitably turn to the dreaded lifestyle company versus growth company discussion. Lifestyle company would be said with a condescending tone even when the words around it were seemingly positive. "It's OK if you want to be JUST a lifestyle company" . Maybe it wasn't them. Maybe it was me. Maybe I was feeling guilty for not wanting venture capitalists to have a part of my business and wondering if I was making a mistake?

Fast forward 9 years later. Today I can without guilt extol the virtues of a lifestyle company. We run Nobscot the way we want to. We grow based on our earnings. We have lots of money in the bank. We have no stress. We make great HR technology with the design philosophy of simple but powerful; no more and no less than what is needed. We have amazing, truly amazing clients. We help some of the best HR departments in the world. We have tremendous colleagues that are like family. We provide fun, challenging opportunities to our staff and they provide our clients with more service than they ever expect (or pay for). We barely noticed the recession. We live in paradise. Not a bad lifestyle.

Would we have been happier if we had gone the Growth Company route? If we had started with $10,000,000 in the bank instead of $10,000? It's possible but hard to imagine. My guess is that we would have butted heads with money people very early on. Likely if we had even become at all successful, Bruce (co-founder) and I would have been booted out. The company would have gone off target and be gone. More likely is that it never would have become successful at all. We would not have been able to focus with such laser sharpness on continuous improvement of products to meet the customers many wants, desires and needs. There is something to be said for small and scrappy.

Lifestyle company or growth company? For the entrepreneurs out there, don't let anyone turn their noses up when you choose the path less travelled. There is a pot of gold at the end of the lifestyle rainbow and perhaps more importantly the rainbow itself is a pretty great (and profitable!) path to follow.

The Wind Beneath the Organization's Wings

There's an interesting discussion going on over at my new friend Laurie Ruettimann's Punk Rock HR blog regarding the death (or not!) of HR.

It's interesting that for some reason people evaluate HR based on the performance and job duties of the clerks in the profession. It's as if people think the role of HR is keeping track of vacation and holiday time or posting rules in the lunchroom. Most people have no idea of the actual role of HR as leader and advisor to the CEO and executive team on all things people related. No one thinks that the role of the IT leaders is data entry or that the role of the Finance team is paying bills. Yet everyone defines HR in those simplistic terms.

I think the reason for this disconnect is that HR works as an advisor behind the scenes to make every other department look good and function optimally. Much of what HR does is in the shadows and HR professionals are content to let other people shine based on HR's advice and counsel.

The most accurate description is already written out in Bette Midler's song, Wind Beneath My Wings. Read the following lyrics and consider them being sung to you (HR) by every executive in your organization.

It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strain.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.