CareerCurve™

Does your organization problem solve using value-based thinking or rule-based thinking?  Do you manage with rules or with values? 

When you are confronted with an HR issue, how do you figure out what to do?  Do you pull out the employee handbook and immediately check out the minute details of the rules?  Or do you assess the corporate values and then figure out the right thing to do?

From what I’ve seen handbooks are usually made up of rules – rules about employee relations and how to communicate, rules governing time and how you spend your day, rules about workplace violence – the list goes on and on.

I don’t think this is the best solution. 

• Too many rules create an environment that causes people to look for loopholes and challenge how far the rules can be bent. 
• They are also reactive, usually put in place after some new issue cropped up, not proactive in guiding desired behavior. 
• Rules break down to can and can’t and leave no room for thinking about what you should or shouldn’t do. 
• Rules are uninspiring and stifling.  You follow them and do nothing more and the result is no creativity in problem solving.  They don’t provoke thought in determining what is right or wrong according to corporate values.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I am a rule-follower.  I just favor an approach that is based on doing the right thing and aligns with a value system rather than behavior.  If the values are in place, proper behavior follows.

What if your handbook was a set of values?  Instead of paging through it to see what we are told to do in a given situation, what if we were encouraged to ask ourselves, “What is the right thing to do?”

Is it inconceivable to lay out a set of values and then trust people to use them to guide their behavior?  (As I’ve mentioned, I tend to be idealistic.)  Doesn’t it make more sense to have a collective group who share the same values rather than a group who uses the same handbook? 

What about you?  Are you given the ability to consider what’s right when you manage?  Or do you have a list of cans and can’ts that you follow?

Human Resources is going to continue to be impacted greatly by Healthcare Reform.  In a previous post, I provided resources.  This is meant to be a short list of the ways this will affect you and why it might be a good time to ask for a raise.    Here are just some of your job duties and challenges relating to healthcare reform:

Compliance – You have to know whether your business is covered (there are exemptions for smaller employers and other things such as hardship cases) but you also have to know which employees are covered.  (Full timers are, but what constitutes full time?)  Expect many new compliance mandates.

Lots of Math and Analysis – You may have to analyze and determine whether it is cheaper to offer healthcare or not offer it and pay the penalty.  If you do offer it, do you stay grandfathered into the plan you have (which will undoubtedly go up) or do you switch and hope it is cheaper?  You should be aware of potential tax credits available to certain size employers to assist with premium cost.  There also prohibitions on lifetime and annual benefit spending.  You will also be required to offer, at no cost, a plan that covers almost all preventive care. 

Finding a Good Broker/Agent – I hope you trust your broker or agent because there is a lot to learn and the days of him or her just sending in a renewal at the last minute are over.  You need an advisor, someone who knows the ins and outs of reform and is going to guide you through all the little nuances that have a big impact on the bottom line.  If you don’t have one, you’re going to need to find one.

Implementing Automatic Enrollment – Companies with over 200 employees will have to enroll everyone in their plan and then the employee can choose to opt out.  Seems like extra work when you could just enroll those that want in instead.  It will also undoubtedly make employees very angry when they forget to opt out – and you’ll get to deal with it.   

Determining Salaries – Depending on whether you choose to offer healthcare you will need to reassess salaries dependent on your healthcare choices.  For example, how much more can you offer someone if it’s cheaper for your company to pay the penalty?  How does it compare to those that offer healthcare?

Mandatory Breaks for Nursing Moms – Not only do you have to provide “reasonable” breaks but you have to provide a “comfortable” place other than a bathroom.  Anyone know who defines “reasonable”?  Is it the baby?  And what does “comfortable” mean?  This could present a whole host of issues for you that I’m not even going to get into here.

The New Recruiting – Offering healthcare is no longer a competitive advantage in hiring top talent.  In addition, your company may decide full-timers are too expensive and start asking you to recruit temps, part-timers, and independent contractors. 

Layoffs – Your company may decide it’s worthwhile to restructure so it remains small enough to avoid coverage under the act.  If that happens, who gets to spread the word?

More Turnover and Less Retention – Children can now stay on a parent’s plan until age 26.  If you don’t offer benefits, will younger employees leave to work somewhere that does, once they reach that age?  How many of your employees stay at your company because they have pre-existing conditions and are afraid they won’t get healthcare if they leave?  Mandated coverage removes the need to stay and you may lose employees because of it.  

Unhappy Employees – There will be no more pre-tax healthcare.  There is a new box on the W2 where you need to include the cost of healthcare.  Even if the plan cost is shared 50/50 between employer and employee, the employee will be taxed on the total amount of the plan, not on what he or she paid.  So instead of this not showing up on their W2 at all, now amounts employees probably aren’t even aware of are going to appear as taxable income.  Can you imagine your office at tax time?

Workplace Wellness Programs – Grants will be established to create these programs and the employer will be required to offer them to receive financial incentives.  Who gets the job of designing and implementing them?

On the bright side, this spells job security for you.  (And for HR consultants, this has opportunity written all over it, especially with smaller employers who don’t have an HR department.)   That is well and good but rest assured, by 2014, you’ll have earned that raise!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since my post about the 99ers and the video I watched.  There are so many facets to the discussion about extending unemployment and what can be done to help these people.  One area I am interested in getting feedback on is corporate social responsibility.  Does this come into play when an organization is preparing for a down-sizing?

Corporate social responsibility is defined as a form of self-regulation integrated into a business model.  The concept is that business embraces responsibility for the impact their decisions have on the environment, the community, the employees, the stakeholders and everyone else in the public sphere. 

Shouldn’t that mean there is a responsibility to the people they’ve let go?  And where does that responsibility end?  Should providing outplacement services and the coaching I discussed in that post be a social responsibility of the company?  There can’t be a much better example of how a business decision impacts communities, employees and people, than a down-sizing.

I wonder if the concept of social responsibility is ever discussed when it comes to layoffs.  Is it mentioned and disregarded as “not our problem” or “there is little we can do” or is it not even discussed at all?  And is it realistic to think you can be socially responsible and profitable at the same time?

There is a very interesting article on the case against social responsibility that says that more often than not, a company cannot do well by doing good and choices have to be made.  So what choices do you make?

What do you think?  Is any thought put into what will happen to the people who are let go?  Should there be?  How responsible is the company for what happens to their displaced employees?

Everywhere you look online you will see articles about all the people preparing to quit their jobs.  One article says 95% percent of employees will consider looking for a new job.  The Spherion Workforce study released last week shows many reasons why, including lack of security, increased workload with no additional pay, and an inability to completely disconnect from work when on vacation or even when sick.

But a manager’s role is the most important factor.  A Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor.  ERC, Ohio’s leading HR organization, recommends 5 ways to engage employees to help retention.  Numbers one and two involve training managers to pay attention to certain behaviors so that they can be addressed and holding managers accountable for retaining their best team members.

If you want to assess whether managers at your company are responsible for the loss of talent there are few questions you can ask yourself. 

 Have you heard of an employee who left to take the exact same job somewhere else for LESS money?

 Have you learned about people leaving and saying that they would be a “better fit” somewhere else?

Has anyone ever told you they are leaving because they just have differing philosophies than their boss?

If you have, you might need to hire better managers. 

The best managers are those that are going to take accountability.  They will ask “What didn’t I do that resulted in one of my members wanting to leave my team?” 

Do you have employees leaving for non-better jobs?  Do you pay attention to the relationship between your managers and their teams?  Do you train your managers and hold them accountable for retention?

Recently I had the unfortunate experience of watching this video, which will apparently be aired over and over again on PBS.  (Time for some humility here – I’m fortunate I only watched it and don’t have to live it, so I am NOT complaining.)  This made me question a lot of things.   I’m sure you’ll see this video recurring in future posts as I write about the different topics that crossed my mind.  I’m going to begin with the very first thing I wondered as I watched.

The subject matter is the 99ers, a term for those who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment.  Being in the outplacement industry and having worked in operations where I have first-hand knowledge of our candidates’ experiences, the first question I had was to wonder how these laid off employees would have fared if they had access to our services?  (I do not intend for this to turn into a commercial, but I believe very passionately in what we do and it may sound like one at times.)

Losing a job is ranked only behind death of a spouse or a child or divorce in terms of life stressors.  When something stressful happens, what do you do?  You look for support.  If possible you seek support from knowledgeable sources.  I watched the interviewees work on trying to develop their own support system, but how would they have benefited from a personal coach?  This is someone who initially helps the candidate to manage their emotions – absorbing the shock, coping with the anger, fear and grief, and basically helping the displaced employee to accept the situation.  But then, the coach provides assistance in not only developing a strategy, but executing the strategy.  Our coaches arm them with tools and suggestions, and then stay with them to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.  Our coaches also recommend alternative efforts when what they are doing is not working.

I have seen the results and the mindset of those who choose to use our services.  Yes, we still help with resumes and interviewing skills, but more importantly, we are there for them emotionally and that is proving to be the defining feature of effective outplacement.  In fact, resume assistance used to be ranked highest as the most valued service by our job seekers.  Coaching as the most valued service has increased from 24% in 2008, to 46% in 2009, to 55% today.  And this trend will continue as long as there are just under 5 unemployed workers for each job opening.

People who are laid off need emotional support.  The majority of them suffer from situational depression.  But if this type of depression is not managed, it becomes clinical depression which is a serious and lifelong problem.  The best treatment is support and assistance in coping.  Recognizing this, we stopped offering coaching support for only one year and made this service available for the duration of the search, no matter how long it takes. 

Unfortunately, this will not help everyone.   Because the desire to do just that is what I’m left with, I am going to offer some resources I’ve put together to try to reach those that we don’t.  If you know of anyone in this situation that could use them, please pass them on.  If you have any you could add, please do so in the comments.

 Advice for Managing Emotions

 Another with information on Managing Emotions

10 Effective Job Search Strategies 

TONS of resources that deal with emotions, strategies, suggestions and search advice.

Coping with long term unemployment.

A great document with suggestions for using and maximizing coupons.  Be sure to check out near the end where there is a great library of additional long term unemployment resources.

Bersin & Associates did a study ranking the 40 best practices that create an empowered enterprise.  The top 5 include:

1.   Leaders are open to “bad news.”

2.   Asking questions is encouraged.

3.   Decision-making processes are clearly defined throughout the company.

4.   Employees are frequently given tasks or projects beyond their current knowledge or skill level in order to stretch them developmentally.

5.   Employees have influence over which job tasks are assigned to them.

Interestingly, 4 of the top 5 best practices help build trust in your organization and as we all know, trust is a key factor in retention, engagement, motivation, and many of the other concerns faced by HR today.

What about your company?  Do you use these top best practices?  Do you have any others to share that leave a larger mark?  Do you have real life experiences of how operating this way has paid off?  If you do use these best practices, would you agree that trust in your organization is very high?  Please share in the comments.

Human Resources is accountable not only for keeping the top talent in an organization, but also for finding it.  So how do you know it when you see it? 

Back in the days of the command and control hierarchy the definition of a great hire was probably someone who paid attention, followed directions well, understood the position, and had the background to jump in and do the job.  The interviews you conducted probably reflected this by you asking questions that revolved around past experience and job duties.   

Business has changed.   Job evolution has created a need for talent that is creative, adaptable and free thinking.  Employees need to be able to add new responsibilities that may be outside of their specific knowledge base as well as having the power to extrapolate their experience to address the responsibility at hand.  Great hires need to be quick learners, problem solvers and most importantly, ambitious. 

To bottom line it, before you can determine if someone is a great hire, you have to understand how the candidate thinks.  You have to be able to tell if they will learn quickly and enthusiastically and whether they have the ambition to want to.

So how do you do this?

Behavioral interviewing can be very effective at ferreting out those personality traits and lines of thought that will demonstrate adaptability, creativity, and ambition.  There are great lists available of example interview questions.  

Describe a problem you are really encountering and ask for thoughts on a solution.  Pay attention to how many questions the candidate asks, whether they think outside the box, and if they commit to a solution without enough background.  Those that ask questions and offer insights without a set solution are probably creative thinkers.  Those that bail out by saying they don’t know the job yet or don’t connect with the problem are not creative.

Ask them to explain how a past role grew during their tenure.  Those that didn’t experience growth are not as ambitious as those who explain the way they grew their role into one with increasing responsibility.

Give them some crazy exercise to do, like a puzzle or a word problem.  Watch how they approach it and ask them to communicate their thought process.  If they are irritated by the request or think it’s silly, they are probably not very adaptable and will become disturbed by things going differently than expected.  This will also give you some insight into their communication skills, which is very important in a world that increasingly requires collaboration. 

What interview techniques do you use?  Have you adapted them to find the new type of talent your organization requires?  Do you have any tricks you use to dig deeper in an interview?

Previously successful business models no longer apply in today’s world.  Business used to be completed effectively in a command and control hierarchy, one where there was a leader who was in control and a group of followers who took direction.  Now the successful business model is based more on connecting and collaborating.  As I’ve stated numerous times in past posts, the world continues to shrink making the sharing of information easier and quicker and also, less controllable.  Because of this shift, it is more important than ever to connect with your workforce and work with them.

Re-recruiting is not a new concept; however, effectively re-recruiting your employees can be achieved with a new mindset that aligns with the overall business model of an organization.  Rather than telling your employees what you can offer them and why they should want to choose to work for your company, why not embrace the idea of collaboration, and ask them?  Asking employees what they need from you in order to stay with the company will be particularly useful when dealing with “Generation Y” or the “Millenial generation”.   They are known as a generation of employees with great expectations from the workplace and a desire to shape their jobs to fit their lives, rather than adapt their lives to the workplace.  They are also said to carry a sense of entitlement (and are sometimes called the Trophy Generation) as a result of their upbringing.   

As a result of these factors, traditional re-recruiting techniques may be ineffective.  The ultimate goal is to keep your employees inspired and to do this, you require feedback.  The way to get it is to ask and the almost limitless communication that exists today makes this easier and more efficient than in days past.  In addition, being humble and showing the employee that you want to do everything possible to ensure that he or she will choose to stay with you will go a long way in effectively re-recruiting.  (Remember, business no longer operates under a command and control hierarchy.  You want to connect and collaborate with them to establish and achieve mutual goals.  They are choosing to stay, you are not telling them to.)

Here are some good questions to ask that should prompt your employees to show you how to re-recruit them:

What do you like about your position?  What would you change if you could?

What other responsibilities interest you?

What are your long term career goals?

Are we providing a way for you to achieve these goals? What other things can we be doing such as education and training to help you reach your career goals?

Do you understand our mission and values?  What would you change about them if you could?

How do you incorporate these into your workday?

You can really get creative with the questions you ask and the answers should be very telling.  Do you ask these kinds of questions in your organization?  Does your company re-recruit?  Have you adjusted the way you go about it as the business world has changed?

How important is the human aspect of business? 

If you consider the success of a little company called Samsung, the answer seems to be VERY.  “On July 7, Samsung announced that its group operating profit for the April to June 2010 quarter was expected to reach a record 360 billion yen ($4.2 billion). The figure is 87 percent higher than that for the same period last year.  According to their President, their power lies in their philosophy of attracting the best and the brightest.”  Samsung places Human Resources first.  Ironically, many of the people that they choose to recruit and reward are from Japan.  By embracing a different focus from their Japanese rivals, this South Korean organization now dominates both sales and market share using the very resources Japan possesses, but has not cultivated.  Their people.

Their current President maintains the philosophy of their founder, Lee Byung-chull.  Though there has been some fine-tuning over the years, the basics remain.

In a biographical article about Lee, Samsung’s first business philosophy was first put into words in 1973, when the group cited the three principles of “engaging in business for national service,” “man and talent first” and “pursuit of logic and reality.”  Lee is quoted as saying he spent “80 percent” of his life recruiting and training people. 

The Samsung spirit, announced in 1984, consists of five principles ― entrepreneurship, morality, pursuit of best quality, perfection and coexistence and mutual prospering of businesses.

I’ve recently posted about HR and the employer brand and inspiring your employees by trusting them and letting them take risks. Samsung was the first Korean company to introduce an “individual-based business organization,” which focused on detailing exact company policies and business goals to every employee, giving them each larger autonomy to improve their productivity as well as larger responsibility. This proved to be an essential formula for Samsung’s success as a globally great company.

Not only does Samsung have a nice set of values laid out on their website (People, Excellence, Change, Integrity and Co-prosperity), but they walk the talk and align each employee with them.  They consider strong values the key to good business.  If you read what they say about each, you will see that all of these revolve around complete transparency.  This instills trust and loyalty.

What could your organization achieve if you revamped your onboarding process and engagement and retention programs to incorporate this mindset?  What if your role in HR was to work with individuals to align them with your company values?  Does your company walk the talk?

We live in a small world that is getting smaller all the time.  The more I read about the different topics important to HR such as engagement, retention, and attracting talent the more and more I am beginning to see that Human Resources plays a major role in an organization’s success.

I wrote a post a while ago regarding HR’s role in controlling employer brand.  I am also of the opinion that a brand is the culture of an organization and the culture is the character.  Character is typically related to an individual’s integrity and core values.  But if culture is to the company as character is to the individual, doesn’t every organization have a character too?  Character then drives reputation and a company’s reputation has everything to do with its success.  HR directly affects this reputation. 

I recently read an interesting article that discusses growth strategies and defining employee engagement.  The first few paragraphs really intrigued me because it refers to a successful company who has a strategy that HR can truly embrace and nurture.  Employees come first and this supports the idea that the culture starts there, and therefore, with you. 

How much does Human Resources have to do with customers, though?  Is there a direct correlation?

Going back to my first statement, this world is small and getting smaller everyday.  You never know who may someday become a customer, who chats with a customer regularly on Facebook, and how the way you deal with people will impact a customer relationship.  It is no different than an individual living life filled with integrity and values.  If you do the same with everyone you interact with, candidates and employees alike, you boost the reputation of your company and may even directly impact a customer relationship.  I read this article about how a candidate’s interest in a position and the lack of follow through by HR caused the company to lose a client.  It really made me think about all the ways that HR contributes to the business as a whole and how your actions can really affect relationships, even if you don’t know it.  This article should be food for thought about the importance of your role.

Have you considered the direct correlation between your actions and your customer relationships?  Do you believe there is a correlation?  Do you have any experiences that reflect how your actions impact your customers?