Archive for category To: HR

HR Florida 2010 Update One

So first, let me just tell you. I am blown away by how impeccably the HR Florida conference is run. Professional, friendly, and just plain nice. I can’t imagine how many collective volunteer hours it must take to pull something like this off, but my easy guess is that it’s in the range of thousands.

HR Florida Presentation Report –“Are You Keeping Up?”  with Linda Bailey, SPHR

This class was completely full – and by completely full, I mean standing room only in a room for maybe 250. Bailey covered some really good basics, but it felt a little like a 45 minute master’s program. There was no room for discussion, action planning, or examples – just solid tips, read from a paper, with no Powerpoint or other illustrations. This needed to have been at least a three-hour preconference session. The participants must have felt that they were drinking from a fire hose. Or trying to keep up. So to speak.

Some of Bailey’s many, MANY tips:

  • Get to know the business by showing up, wandering around more, working with operations folks more.
  • Know what key indicators your business leaders use and use their terms. Don’t use soft and squishy phrases. Be more numbers driven.
  • Pay attention not to the process, but to the result you are you looking for – for instance, if you’re looking for higher engagement, take a look at better attendance, lower turnover, etc.
  • Pick one or two measures to start, and get your boss’s buy-in on what to measure.
  • Only as little as 28% of a company’s value shows up on the balance sheet. #HRLF10 “You won’t get a raise by administering FMLA or COBRA right, that’s expected.”
  • Be a credible activist – you’re respected, you have a point of view and you share it. HR with an attitude. HR pros who are credible but not activists are admired but silent. HR pros who are activists but not credible are not heard.
  • Negotiation, project management, presentation skills, coaching, OD knowledge are critical.

I had originally titled it, “Thats MR Lady to You”

But that was a little confrontational, even for me.

I have a little rant  up at Women of HR about people’s obsession with transgender issues at work, and our role in channeling people back to their actual jobs, no matter where the distraction may come from. Feel free to have a look if you want to see me at my hyperbole-est.

Thanks, Women of HR, for allowing me a much higher soapbox to stand on!

Waffle House to James Beard Award? Great Hiring

Bryan Caswell of Houston’s current favorite restaurant, Reef, has some very smart things to say about hiring.  Caswell commented that he strongly prefers to hire chefs who’ve worked at The Waffle House, a southern breakfast chain.  Jason Sheehan, food critic for the Seattle Weekly and another former Waffle House chef agreed. Take a look at Caswell’s short comments:

Caswell has it exactly right. When looking at a set of resumes, I’ll pick the person with hard-won experience, particularly restaurant or farm experience,  over fancy schools any day.  Similarly, I’ll almost always pick the candidate with a lower GPA who worked their way through school over the candidate who has a high GPA but hasn’t ever had to make rent or pay their own bills.

Don’t be mesmerized by big-name colleges or Fortune 100 experience – go with the person who can show you that they made home runs the old-fashioned way, not just by being born on third base and getting a walk. I’ve rarely seen people successfully move from a huge company to a very small one, and have often seen people with lots of small company, high intensity, broad experience help grow their companies into very big, very successful ones.  They don’t fool themselves that privilege is the same as talent. And neither should you.

Don’t Try This At Home

After fifteen years in HR and recruiting, a Masters, an SPHR, and reading a book or two about interviewing, I kinda have hiring down. I am a complete harpy about hiring managers who “go with their gut,” aka “listen to their lunch.” I am a ruthless reference checker, using every trick in the book to suss out fibs, exaggerations, and real feedback. I learned in grad school that references, done properly, are more accurate assessors of a future employee’s success than interviews, and spend as much time checking references as I do sourcing or interviewing.  In other words, I’m a bit of a hiring know-it-all process snob.
My company is filling several beginner engineer positions in Houston. The ideal candidate is a Chemical Engineer with strong people skills and a high level of initiative who wants to work for 35% below market for first-year Chemical Engineer graduates. I’ve just completed several days in a row of phone screens and face to face interviews for some beginner engineer positions, explaining the career growth curve in consulting and the demands of consulting in general and this job in particular. (I’m a big believer in transparency in the hiring process.) I had found some good candidates who seemed like they could do it, but few seemed truly excited about the job – particularly the social aspects of the job.
mmm...cookies
Then, after one more lunch in which the latest candidate said that she had a lot to think about but she’d call us, a kid in a suit showed up in our lobby. Bearing cookies. Delicious, warm, chocolate chip cookies. He introduced himself as one of the candidates I’d been playing phone tag with, and asked if I had five minutes to visit face-to-face. He ended up going through our entire interview process in our break room, talking to hiring managers and potential peers over cookies and coffee. His answers were solid, his hands shook a little but he stayed engaged with everyone and asked great questions, and he was completely respectful of the fact that he might be taking up too much time given his unexpected arrival. I checked through all my typical interview questions for the job – now that I include potential peers in interviews, they ask most of them for me, but sometimes they miss one or two. I probed. I pushed. I looked everywhere for inconsistencies – and there just weren’t any. This kid had it.
Reader, I hired him. On the spot.
Okay – actually contingent on our usual background and reference checks. I may have been listening to my lunch. I’m checking his references today but my guess is, his story will check out completely – he is just one of the young people who’ve gotten caught up in this bad economy and has had to learn to show more initiative and creativity than the competition. His actions and his answers were completely congruent with a great future leader at our company, and we have a good story and a full belly to boot. Maybe we can get him to make us bacon chocolate chip cookies for his first annual review.

Houston ERE Meetups!

Last month, I hosted Houston’s first ERE Meetup.   After a few tense moments when I thought I’d be left alone at Block Seven Wine Company to read my Angelina-cover Vanity Fair Magazine with a bottle of wine and some truffle popcorn all to myself  (ok – not SO tense,) several interesting and interested HR and recruiting folks from across Houston started popping over to say hello. We had recruiters from the hospital industry, the temp industry, and the refining industry there. We also had a couple of folks without jobs who are staying positive while on the hunt.

The conversation was authentic, lively, and engaging. We had laughs, we told the truth about how things are going, and we engaged far beyond the usual stiff  ”elevator speeches” often found at networking events.

I was thrilled. I’ve been looking for a community of smarty-pants HR pros in Houston, people who want the best for their organizations and aren’t afraid to take risks to make things happen. HRQ occasionally holds evening meetings that are focused on conversation rather than Powerpoint slides, and I’m sure there are other private group meetings as well. But this group just fits me. (Plus, since it was open, I was invited!)

We’re meeting again August 17th. Click here to sign up, or if you’re not from Houston, click through to sign up for the ERE meetup in your town. You won’t be sorry!

My Great Grandmother Was Too Busy To Die. Are You?

My great-grandmother, Francelia Crittenden, was a force of nature.  She lost her husband in the Great War, and raised her two sons on her own by working as a business organizer and community activist. She died, at the age of 103, in an old folks home she helped found. Gran had two sayings that have always stuck with me: “The only sin is not using the talents God gave you to make the world a better place,” and “You are how you spend your time.”  She stayed busy until the very end, walking the halls of the home, “offering suggestions” in her gracious but firm way.  I often fail her model, but she’s always on my mind.

In the last six days at work I’ve:

  • Placed job postings at 45 universities
  • Processed 120+ resumes for three positions using only Outlook and my good judgement
  • Performed 30+ phone screens
  • Set up eight face to face interviews
  • Participated in three face to face interviews
  • Checked references on five candidates
  • Made four job offers
  • Set up a rule in Outlook which sent 95 “no thanks” responses to resume submittals
  • Processed a couple of employee exits
  • Talked to our company employment lawyers three times (all good things, thankfully) and our tax accountant once
  • Worked through some 401(k) issues and checked references on a couple of potential new vendors
  • Worked with employees on performance issues and opportunities
  • Talked company execs and a few staffers into seeing eye-to-eye on various cultural or retention matters
  • Analyzed compensation and performance metrics across the company and recommended a couple dozen compensation adjustments
  • Improved the hiring process to allow all new hires to be more effective from day one of employment
  • Made recommendations regarding operational effectiveness opportunities
At home, I:
  • Celebrated my partner’s birthday
  • Moved from a Blackberry to an iPhone, with lots of “training time” on my part – aka “Angry Birds” and “Words with Friends”
  • Hosted the first Houston ERE meetup
  • Started a conversation about an oil and gas/petroleum industry-specific recruiter’s group
  • Provided a couple of quotes for a local paper regarding business uses of social media
  • Cleaned out my garage to give my crib and some of my daughter’s infant stuff to some friends
  • Took my daughter to four birthday parties, including buying and wrapping the presents and wrapping my daughter’s brain around the fact that the presents aren’t for her
  • Hosted a neighbor for swimming and dinner
  • Reconnected with some online friends over the phone
  • Unexpectedly babysat another neighbor’s child when the neighbor had to run to the hospital to check on her dad
  • Had an intense but productive conversation with the principle at my daughter’s school
  • Read most of two books – “The Upside of Irrationality,”  and “I Thought it Was Just Me
  • Read 160 postings regarding business, HR, economics, and just flat interior design eye candy, (according to my RSS feed)
  • Made a tiny nod to my health by sleeping 8 hours a night and attending a weekly yoga class
  • All while acting as the primary caregiver to my little stinkbomb, since my partner is working nights and sleeping days this month.
I have to admit, I rarely enumerate how I’m spending my time like this. When I see it in black and white, I feel, frankly, sick. Because the fact is, it’s Not Enough. There’s still laundry to be done, a regular exercise program to pursue, that employee manual that needs a serious overhaul ASAP, that staffer who’s still waiting on my confirmation that her address has been changed in payroll. You’ll notice I neither lent an hour to any volunteer efforts, nor listed “made it to church” as one of my achievements.
Being busy is not the same as being effective. I can delegate more, make better use of help at home, and deepen my impact with company owners.  I’m still struggling there, and I’ll keep exploring that intersection, hopefully until I myself am 103.  Though I’m no expert, HRFlorida has been kind enough to extend an opportunity for me to lead a conversation on effectively using your time at work. We’re sending out a brief survey to all attendees ahead of time, to make sure we cover what the participants want to learn, and we’ll discuss both practical and philosophical tools to lead the HR departments, or be the HR department, for small companies. I hope you’ll join us. Maybe you can teach me a thing or two, and I can offer you a couple of pointers as well.

SHRM 2010: Don’t Waste Your Time

If you’re attending SHRM 2010, don’t waste your time, or your dime.

Use this opportunity to learn something new, make new connections, land that next gig, get those new clients – whatever is truly on your mind as your Next Big Step. With a conference this big, attracting so many HR Pros and business leaders, you have the perfect opportunity to do what you want. But don’t show up, expect to be spoon-fed training, and leave. That would be a big waste.

I once landed my dream job at a National SHRM conference. I was working in a small town, disconnected from other opportunities, and I knew I wanted a bigger platform to do my thing. So since the SHRM National conference was being held nearby, I set my sights high. I decided I was going to walk out of the conference with at least three funny stories, fifteen new friends, two major job leads, and thirty-five non-vendor-related business cards. I asked a friend, who wasn’t attending, to help me keep score every morning – and I went to work. Here’s how I did it.

  • I spent time on the SHRM bulletin boards before the conference, getting to know some people and arranging for a meetup or two.
  • I went alone, so no one could bust my momentum or distract me from my goal.
  • I came up with a loose elevator speech explaining what I’d done up to that point, what I was looking to do, and my goals for the conference. This was important – it helped get strangers at the conference “on my team” and they introduced me to lots of their friends and invited me to parties.
  • I made myself show up. I went to every party, every luncheon, every large class I heard of. I also, frankly, crashed a party or two – sorry SHRM Best Small Companies partygoers, that was me with the lampshade on my head.
  • I applied for jobs through the SHRM on-site job board, and asked to meet with company interviewers during the conference. This is actually what did it for me. I was in the computer room and saw that Dream Job had JUST been posted. I quickly shot an email out outlining why I was The One and asking to visit immediately. The recruiter, Shannon Maroney of HR Backbone,  introduced herself, and we talked right there! We immediately clicked, and over the course of the next couple of days, she and I got to know each other much better. I told her about my goals for the SHRM conference and we attended a couple of the same parties. On the last day of the conference, I took her to lunch and to the airport. By the time she introduced me to her client, she was comfortable selling me as the best possible match to Dream Company’s CEO.

I know SHRM National is about more than networking. The seminars are great and you can learn a great deal just by listening. But if you are one of the attendees who goes to every seminar, takes notes, and then watches bad cable in your hotel room all night, you are REALLY missing out.  There’s no reward for being a wallflower.  You don’t need to be me, totally goal-focused and intent, but you do need to stretch yourself.  HR is an isolating and often depressing job. Use this time to make some new friends and have a laugh or two.  If you don’t, you may be wasting your time.

Ask Not What SHRM Can Do For You

The news of China Gorman’s departure from SHRM cast a bit of a pall on the HREvolution 2010 event a couple of weeks ago.

Someone said they felt hopeless. I myself felt discouraged and let down. I don’t really care much about social media, except as a way to connect with people who practice the kind of progressive, candid, risk-friendly HR I wasn’t seeing at SHRM events.  Speaking plainly, I think local SHRM chapters are often cliquish, conservative, behind the times, useless to those with more than five years of experience, and a little greedy. I think they get the tacit nod toward these behaviors from SHRM National. When China, who went from SHRM COO to interim CEO to Global Outreach Something Or Another,  chose to resign, I took it as a sign that SHRM would never “get it,” and my last hopes regarding the organization’s direction went up in smoke.  I felt that momentum that had been building towards change in SHRM had taken a big step backward.

I was wrong. Not necessarily about SHRM, but about the pedestal I put China on. It’s a little like the difference between the Obama campaign and his administration. We’re learning in lots of different ways that no one person can make things much better on their own. Barack Obama, China Gorman, our CEOs, all need US to create and sustain momentum and leadership. They can’t do it alone. Asking them to do so and then being disappointed when they can’t deliver is a complete cop-out, and creates a dangerous level of apathy.  I think people want to be lead. But we decline responsibility for our own role as leaders at the expense of our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, associations and even country. We have to do the work ourselves.

My friend Victorio Milian asked his readers to put up or shut up, to help create bright spots of positive change within our own spheres of influence.  So, Victorio, here’s what I’m doing about it.

  • I’m developing and leading a class on creating efficiencies in a one-person HR shop. The workshop will be held at HRFlorida 2010 and, afterward, I’ll post a series of articles on the subject. (This has recently been approved for three HRCI strategic recertification hours, so come on along!)
  • I’m using four vacation days to present at and blog about HRFlorida.
  • I’m using another three vacation days to blog about HRSouthwest.
  • I contacted HRHouston about helping them get their 2011 Gulf Coast Symposium plugged in to the online world. (I’ve got to comment here – the first thing they wanted me to do was join for $275 to get the pleasure of helping them. I can’t say I’m excited about this particular opportunity.)
  • At each regional or local SHRM chapter that I touch, I’m going to host open hours for anyone who wants to learn more about how to connect with the smart and business-savvy HR community that populates twitter, the blogging world, ERE, and the like. I don’t think that everyone has to blog and tweet and involve themselves with social media, but all HR pros need to know how to readily source interesting business ideas and next-level HR thinking.
  • I think I’m not going to rejoin SHRM National this year. I don’t really think it matters to them, but I just can’t believe that it’s worth any more investment. I’ve paid into SHRM National for ten years. That’s enough.

China, I’m going to miss you at SHRM National, no way around it. But I do apologize for turning you into a two-dimensional Joan of Arc character, and for not stepping up to the plate earlier.  I’ll help create bright spots within local SHRM chapters and within the HR field.  Thank you for your perseverance and your leadership. And thanks for helping remind us that we’re all capable of leading, if we choose to take it on.

On Clarity and Privacy in Hiring

A friend, let’s call him Ralph, recently lost his job. He was really upset because he doesn’t have a degree and he knows how hard it will be to get to the same type of job without one. Around the same time, another friend in my network called looking for someone with basically the same unique skill set and background that Ralph had. Miraculously, a degree was not required. I hooked them up, just like a good little node in the social world wide web is supposed to do.
I followed along as Ralph breathlessly proclaimed his excitement at every step on the weeks-long interview ladder. He just knew it was the right job for him, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
Until they asked for his 2009 W2.
And he said, “No.”
So they said, “No.”
And now Ralph is sitting in his apartment watching Oprah rather than doing great things for this company.
Who’s in the wrong here? I dunno.
But if you’re a job seeker looking for career advice, here it is: Don’t expect that every aspect of the hiring process will be respectful of your privacy. (We share a bathroom with a company that has all applicants do drug tests on the spot, whether it’s a call center or CFO job opening. Dignity and privacy are not high on the descriptor list for that process.)
If you’re an HR department looking for recruiting advice, here it is: Explain the entire hiring process, including that you will be asking for W2s or making them pee into a cup, if that’s what you do, in the first interview. You can save yourself a lot of time and heartache by being upfront about your expectations from the very beginning.
If, like me, you’re just a cog in the networking machine, keep trying. You never know what can come from introducing people to one another. If something works out, great. If it doesn’t, you can all still learn something new.

Better Late Than Never? HREvolution 2010

HREvolution posts have come and gone. Now that I’m on vacation, I can finally organize just a few thoughts.
I love seeing people in real life. Context is everything, and when I see people who are kicking ass and taking names in action, it makes me stronger and more committed to my own goals. Some people just exude intentionality, and being around them makes me much more focused. Just a few examples

  • All the volunteer leaders of HREvolution, keeping their word, getting down into the details, and making stuff happen in order to pull off an impeccable event. You know who they are. And how awesome they are.
  • Sarah White moving from Bright Idea to Execution in the space of ten minutes. During the discussion of HRIS advisory services for small companies, it became clear to Sarah that there was a market opening that she was uniquely qualified to fill. A few pecks on her iphone later, and she owned her new URL. She hosted planning meetings that day. I have no doubt Sarah will take this idea all the way.
  • Amanda Hite and her posse move through a room like lions on the hunt. Amanda is literally a self-made woman, and she knows how to work for what she wants. Amanda owned the responsibilities of micro-celebrity, never forgetting to treat each of her “fan-friends” to her full attention. She truly gets that she’s onstage at events like this, and that each interaction matters. I know she must have been exhausted by the time she got home, but her energy never flagged in front of others.

I thought a lot about personal responsibility at this event. The lack of structure of an unconference is a perfect fit for me.  I loved being responsible for getting what I needed out of the conference, rather than just being force-fed slide after slide of data and opinion.  It was great to get to ask people directly about how they’re getting things done, what they’re thinking about at work these days, and what they’d like to create next.  It made the conference much more work, but much more useful, than those meetings where one person does all the talking and the folks with great input sit there taking notes. If you don’t like talking to new people, or you don’t have the discipline to make things happen for yourself, there are always more traditionally structured meetings or conferences to keep you up to date.

Thanks to everyone who participated in HREvolution, at whatever level, and whatever your goals were.  I learned something from each of you, and I hope you got more out of it than you put in, as another attendee observed.