Can Incentives Be Used If You Aren't Ready to Fire Someone?

Paul Hebert, my go-to-guy for all things incentive in this world, has a great post up at Incentive Intelligence about the types of things for which you should provide incentives. 

From PH's post:

"Incentives have two poles - rewards and punishment.  I can move your behavior based on providing an incentive or I can punish you for non-performance.   If you don't do what I want - there will be negative consequences.

I was wondering if this idea of opposing sides to incentives could be used to test the validity of an incentive and reward structure?  What if we re-frame the rules using the negative - and see if it still makes sense? 

If you wouldn't punish someone for missing a goal then maybe you shouldn't reward the same goal."

Think through that for a moment, and you'll find the exercise is more difficult than you think.  For example, Paul uses the concept of making a sale in his post as a basis for incentives.  We provide incentives for sales all the time.  Paul uses the test logic "Make a sale today (use this week/month depending on the cycle times for your product) or you're fired".

Would you make that blanket statement?  Probably not.  To Paul's point, there are too many things involved to let someone go, based on non-performance over a short period of time.

But that brings me pretty quickly to the related topic of performance management.  If you read this site, you know I am pretty strong-headed about doing performance management off a 3-point scale (Exceeds, Meets or Does Not Meet) rather than a 5 or 7-point scale.

The reason?  Simplicity, my friends.  I can bring an expert like Paul into the organization to assist me with structuring incentives.  But, the best way I can think of to make sure I get "bang for my buck" is to tie the incentive, even if it is short-term, to the "Exceeds" level of performance.  In that fashion, I'm using a short term incentive to reinforce how high the bar is to be an "Exceeds" performer.

That feeds the culture of performance, which is the goal of upstream incentive programs.  The danger is that you set the bar low enough that "Meets" performers get the carrot.  It's cool to be a "Meets", but incentives should be there for those who exceed and deliver extra.

The more people who get that, the better the performance of your organization.

Online Degrees - The Real Deal or Diploma Mills?

Don't flame me too hard in the comments - hate the game, not the player.  I thought the question was worth talking about.  A few weeks back, I put up a question from a reader wondering whether she should pursue certification or go back and get a masters in HR.  I told her a Master's in HR, while valuable, was worth less to her career-wise than a MBA.

A commenter to that post (Ed) encouraged her to get the M.A. in HR - but warned her about the perils of online universities.

So what about it?  Are online degrees the real deal or diploma mills? 

Here's my rank order of the best options to get a degree, or an advanced degree.  Note, I am not slicing and dicing the quality of traditional universities as part of this post.  I get that Ivy league schools are good and the junior college around the corner isn't known for its pre-med.  Here's how I would rank my impression of 4-year or graduate options for the discriminating worker/scholar:

• Choice #1- Traditional University, 4 Year School (you attend on a campus)
• Choice #2 - Combo online/weekend program, traditional 4-Year University
• Choice #3 - Franchise School (my term for the mcUniversities that are popping up in Suburbia, like Strayer University, maybe a Devry - you attend most of your classes, but it's not affiliated with a four-year program)
• Choice #4 - Online Program from a school with brand recognition, like a University of Phoenix
• Choice #5 - Any online program other than that of a 4-year school or the University of Phoenix. Most have directional sounding names that end with something besides a state, maybe a PO Box.  "Southwestern Pacific", "International Bailiff Academy" - something like that.

As the commenter to the post mentioned above outlined, the University of Phoenix has had some issues in the past year (outlined by the NYT here), so it still needs to be "buyer beware."

If online is your flavor, I would do anything I could to stick with an online curriculum affiliated with a traditional program.  Once you have the degree, no one will care whether it was online or traditional - they'll just note the degree from the school.

Another huge warning sign.  If you are getting an undergraduate in 2 years, when it takes traditional mortals 4-5 years, your degree is probably not going to perceived as real.  My take on graduate degrees?  Anything less than 2 years and 50-60 credit hours is going to be treated in a hostile fashion as well.  I'll simply ask candidates conversationally how long it took them to complete and how many hours were required - that tells me what I need to know.  If they don't know how many credit hours it was - well, that REALLY tells me what I need to know.

Just because you have an online degree doesn't mean you didn't learn anything.  Learning's a state of mind as much as it is a program.  You just have to be ready to convey the value of what you learned to someone who cares - like an interviewer.

If This Were a Division, You'd Shut It Down Tomorrow - The Cost of Health Care to Double By 2017...

Hey dude... The light at the end of the tunnel?  It's a freaking train, and it's coming to run you over....

Seriously, can there be a more desperate situation than the state of US Healthcare?  The population is aging, the mostly good capitalist society creates drug companies that create billion dollar markets out of vapor, and you are in the middle of the fray, trying to be the Daddy Warbucks of healthcare by providing medical and Rx to your workforce.  That's what you're supposed to do as an employer, right?

Sure, that's been part of the employer role.  But, it's getting ready to be very painful.  From the Associated Press:

"By 2017, total health care spending will double to more than $4 trillion a year, accounting for one of every $5 the nation spends, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation_ will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. Other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011."

That means total health-care spending in the year 2017 will average out to $13,101 per person.  By contrast, that spending in 2006 worked out to an average of $7,026 per person. 

WOW... 6.7% actually sounded OK to me, until I realized that compounding, which is good for my 401k, really hurts when it impacts the expense side of the P&L.

If it were a division, you'd shut it down tomorrow.  But it's not...

The Problem with HR Pitching Voluntary Benefits.....

Did you hear?  Critics are lashing out at the state of California and Arnold for aggressively pitching Long-Term Care to its residents.

It seems as if many expect state governments to avoid being a marketing channel, even if the product is in the state's own interest.

Some would say the same burden should apply to employers.

Warning - HR Capitalist opinion ahead which many HR professionals will not agree with....

Topic - "Voluntary Benefits", defined as benefits in which the employee pays all of the cost, provide employees with options for benefits and insurance coverage they might not otherwise be able to afford.  The affordability of such benefits is usually enhanced by the face that employees can often pay for voluntary benefits with pre-tax dollars.

Sounds noble, right?  Here's are a few problems that are often overlooked:

-Voluntary benefits usually include benefit classes like supplemental life insurance, long-term care and auto/property insurance that can have wildly variable cost structures based on the provider and the demographics that are insured.

-HR shops don't do RFPs that closely canvas each class of voluntary benefits.  They usually are hit by a comprehensive provider like an ADP, which provides a package of voluntary benefits with some high margin products built in.  If an HR shop doesn't do a comprehensive provider of the benefits, then they are usually assaulted by the bank, or insurance agent with the most aggressive marketing strategy.  In that scenario, HR people are often bad at saying no.

-Everyone, including the employee and the voluntary benefits provider, loves the concept of voluntary benefit costs being automatically deducted from their paycheck.   Employees love it for the convenience and the fact they don't have to track it.  The providers love it because they don't have to collect money.  Once the automatic deduction is in, it's hard to get out.

Put all that together, and it's complicated.  Here's the biggest issue I have, and one of the reasons I haven't opened my shop up to voluntary benefits since I arrived at my current company - I feel responsible for the solicitation.  If I'm going to open up our employee base to a voluntary benefit, for which the employee is going to pay 100% of the cost, I feel like I am VOUCHING for its quality and value across the marketplace.

And there's no doubt that employees expect you to be looking out for their best interests.  So, they take the voluntary coverage, if available, often without shopping. 

If I am going to allow an auto insurance product to be marketed to my employees through our normal channels, I feel like I need to say the quality/price combination is the best in the marketplace.   And that, my friends, is hard to do.

And that's why I traditionally have said no to the concept of voluntary benefits. 

Tom Brady - Posterchild For Why Video Resumes Are A Bad Idea...

If you are thinking about doing a video resume as a candidate, stop.  You're not George Clooney or Jennifer Anniston.

If you are thinking about using video resumes as a hiring manager, stop.  You'll limit yourself by seeing what the talent looks like WAAAAAY too early in the process.

When you are early on in the recruiting process, it's a stack of resumes.  The possibilities are endless, and you'll carve your 100 resumes down to 15 viable candidates.  You'll get excited about the talent as you pick up the phone to have initial phone screens with the candidates.  Some you'll click with, others you won't.

That's OK.

You'll bring the ones with whom you click in for interviews.  As you go out to your lobby to greet them, at least half will suprise you by not looking like whatever you had in mind.  Here's the cool part - the fact that you have already dug into their resume and heard the communications skills/energy over the phone will allow you to give them a chance, even if they don't look the part.  That's how folks who aren't models get hired and thrive in organizations.

If you started with the video resume, those folks never make it in the door.

Case in point, the picture below of NFL megastar Tom Brady before he was drafted.  If you were recruiting for a NFL star and were presented with this snapshot, would Brady have been called in for a live interview?

I thought not. 

All I'm saying is give every candidate a chance - just say no to video resumes and photographs......

"Reply to All" - The Nuclear Button for Employee Relations Issues...

Who hasn't been there?  You meant to reply to one person only, but instead it went to everyone.  Hasn't everyone had an experience like that?

You just hope at the end of the day, when it happens to you, that it's a small explosion, not a nuclear one.

Of course, the size of the explosion is out of your control.  Most of the time, it's determined by who the original recipients of the email were before you got cute with the response.

Small group = manageable.   Medium-sized group = bad.  Distribution List for the entire company = Nuclear Winter....

Everyone's got a story on this.  Here's a great one from the January issue of GQ:

"One summer, we had an attractive intern, to put it mildly.  When her internship ended, she emailed everyone saying how great it was to work with us.  The right thing to do would have been to respond, "It was great working with you too."  But because I was on such familiar terms with her, I wrote back, "I'm going to miss you, baby.  We had great times together.  Your Latin lover." 

Without thinking, I hit "reply all", and it went to the entire company.  And when I say the entire company, I'm not talking about 15 or 20 people.  I (sic) talking about hundreds of people.  Even the employees at various subcompanies got it.  I felt like a total #$*.  My bosses immediately emailed me, telling me to try and recall the message, but it was too late; people were already opening it.  I got responses within seconds: "Who is this?"

Some people where annoyed.  Some were baffled.  Many knew who I was and couldn't believe I'd made such a stupid mistake.  Responses to my email poured in for two or three days.  I took the next day off out of total embarrassment but learned a valuable lesson:  The "reply all" button and the "reply" button are really close to each other.  Luckily, there wasn't any major fallout with the company, but I still hear about it to this day".

My favorite part of the story is the group that is confused and not even focused on the content and the obvious career-limiting blunder you've made.  They want to know what you need from them and why you are emailing them since they've never heard of you...

"Why are you sending me this?", they reply.   As you read their innocent response, you think, "Please move along.  Don't look at me - I'm hideous"....

Then, my second favorite part of this morality tale of public humiliation happens.  That's when people start using the "reply to all" button to encourage everyone to stop using the "reply to all" button.

That's ironic.  Too bad it's lost on you, because you'll twist in the wind for another week at the minimum.

On the positive side, you become much more alert at your desk for at least a couple of months... 

Commentator Compares Social Network Experiment to Puppies with Vertigo....

Thick skin is required when you blog and put your professional feelings out there.  Here's what Jake Swearingen of BNet blogs thought of my upcoming social networking experiment inside a real company:

"Kris Dunn’s HR Capitalist blog is normally pretty spot-on. But his idea of experimenting with a social network for his company is cute but dumb, like when puppies try to run and keep falling over."

Ouch...That's gonna leave a mark....

Actually, I laughed out loud when I read it.  One of the things I said in my post, announcing my intent to use Ning to create an internal social network, is "we'll see"... I don't know if better engagement and communication is a natural outcome of an internal social network.    It might be that we build it, try to put recurring content on it, and no one comes...

Still, running a few month's worth of an experiement on the topic seems worthwhile.  If we can't make it work in a software company, where everyone lives off the web and email, then I don't think anyone can.

Of course, that's me, the giver.  Jake's the guy having fun watching puppies stumble... PETA readers, let Jake know how you feel about that..

I'm out...

Are You Working Remotely or Remotely Working?

As the percentage of the total workforce working remotely grows, so does the periodic distrust of those working remotely.  Are they really working?  Or are they simply squeezing 3 hours of work into an 8-hour day?

More importantly, can a remote worker/telecommuter even go to lunch without having that "gotcha" feeling?  A realistic question that serves as the basis for a recent BusinessWeek online article:

"It was the kind of spring day that golfers fantasize about—balmy, crisp, no wind. But there would  be no links for Ken Wisneski. The president of business services firm Vendorseek and his staff were pushing hard under a crush of new business. So when the office’s toner cartridge broke, Wisneski did his servant leader thing and volunteered his lunch hour to drive to a nearby Staples to pick up replacements. As he sauntered across the parking lot, he glanced over to the patio of Don Pablo’s, where the sun-dappled throngs were lapping up their margaritas.

Wait…was that? Surrounded by her three children and husband in a picture of leisure-class bliss was one of Wisneski’s employees—the same one he had recently warned about falling behind. She was supposed to be “working remotely.” Not enjoying a familla fiesta.

Caught in the act by the man. It’s the flextiming faker’s worst nightmare. Though such treacheries are the aberration, they are on the rise simply because so many companies have opened the floodgates on working remotely. Indeed, seven years into the let-your-people-go phenom, a cadre of burned managers are beginning to ask, sotto voce: is it working remotely…or remotely working? “I have a lot of friends who “work remotely” for big companies, says Wisneski: “They play a lot of golf.”

Here's how I would coach any remote worker regarding the types of concerns outlined in the above missive:

-You like working remotely, so do what it takes to make it work well for those around you.  Don't mess it up for the rest of the remote team.

-Perception is reality - deal with it or go back to the office.

-Focus point number one - answer the phone and respond to emails quickly.  You have to do more than your office based friends.  People will naturally look to be critical of your responsiveness based on your arrangement.  Go above and beyond to pick up the phone and respond to emails same-day.

-If you're going out during the day in the same metro where you have office-based co-workers, don't wear your "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt and flip flops.  If your office is biz casual, you need to look that way when you go out.

-Do what it takes to stay engaged with your team or those that you rely on.  Accept their meeting invites, even if you have to move your calendar around.  Set up a few tele-meetings on your own, even if you could do it all off-line and one-on-one.  It's good for folks to know you still think like an office worker.

-Send some emails after hours if you are working then.  Most remote workers find themselves cranking work out in the evening or after the kids go to bed.  If you are working then, don't hide from laying out a digital trail. 

If you can't deal with that simple roadmap, some folks are naturally going to assume you are taking shortcuts in your remote role.  If you're offended that you'll have to respond quicker to manage perception, you should probably stay in the office.

Then you can judge others from the comfort of your traditional cube...

Help Wanted - Witty and Sometimes Jaded Talent Professionals Who Want to Blog Weekly....

HELP WANTED - (4 Positions Available)

Progressive blogging organization is looking for witty and sometimes jaded professionals, in the Talent Management sector, to blog on a weekly basis, about their life as part of the machine.  New blog, as yet unnamed, to be launched to provide perspective of people conducting recruiting, staffing and talent management activities in the field.

Requirements:

-A working position in recruiting, staffing or HR, focused on acquiring, aligning and maximizing talent in your company, or on behalf of clients.

-Writing skills, plus the actual willingness to write and blog on a weekly basis.

-Personality and the ability to merge other resources and pop culture in writing, all in an effort to make it digestible for the commoners (that's me..)

-Ability to tell the world who you are while you are blogging - name, what you do, and where you do it.

-Skin thicker than that of a donkey, for the lashings you'll receive in the comments section.

Successful Applicants Will Come From the Following Areas:

-HR Pros with recruiting responsibilities
-3rd Party Recruiting/Search Execs
-Director of Talent Management within a company
-Staffing/Recruiting Manager within a company
-Gen Y Correspondent
-OD Professional, preferably within a company
-Leadership Development Pro
-Employee Incentives and Performance Pro
-Sourcing Pro

What You Get in Return:

-Membership in an exclusive, yet opinionated team that will undoubtedly make the dysfunction in your extended family look like an episode of "Little House on the Prarie".

-The ability to blog and share your thoughts without having to start your own site.

-Exposure of your ideas and brand in the online property of a national periodical in the Talent Management space.  If you're a current blogger, you'll also get enhanced exposure for your blog.

-A projected stipend per month that will fall somewhere between a night out at Denny's and paying your cable bill.

-The warm feeling of giving back to your profession with the professional distance that only digital media can provide.

Sound like you?  Interested in hearing more?  To apply, please confirm your interest in the comments section or email the Capitalist at hrcapitalist@gmail.com.

Dorky Video/Feel Good Friday - HR is "More Than A Feeling"...

I have no clue how I found this clip from Scrubs, but I love this kind of stuff. 

Consistent with the title of this Boston cut, HR should always be "more than a feeling".   Case in point, I see a clip like this, I start thinking like a marketer.  How can I use an idea like that to improve our employment brand?  You're progressive as well, so you probably start thinking about how to run a contest to enhance employee engagement using video.

If HR isn't more than a feeling to you, well... You're just wondering what the corny takeoff, of the Boston 8-track in your attic, is all about.  Or maybe you're just enjoying Scrubs.   That's cool, but opportunity is everywhere - all it needs is your application....

PS - If I was doing this air jam session with bloggers, I'd have Paul Hebert, Frank Roche and Michael Moore in the band.  I'm the maintanence guy with the shades on.  I'd make room for Evil, Ann Bares, Lisa or the Wench, but apparently this is a dorky guy thing.  My guess is they've seen plenty of those that they wanted no part of...

Avoid Hiring an HR Dud....

Whether you are hiring for a HR Manager/Director position, or interviewing to become one, you want the same thing:

-If you are hiring - you don't want to hire a dud.

-If you are interviewing - you don't want to be perceieved as a dud.

See the synergy?  Nobody wants to be the dud.  Funny how things seem to work out...

To that end, my most recent Workforce article is up to help you with the interviewing process for an HR spot.  I'm taking a shot at the best behavioral questions to separate the players from the pretenders in the HR Manager/Director space.

Take a look and let me know what you think.  If you flame, just remember - I'm limited to around 1,000 words in the column, so I gotta make choices... You can always tell me what your top 5 Behavioral questions would be...

Does Your Company Sponsor Employee Clubs? Not Even a Wine Club?

Kristina Shevory has a cool article up at the New York Times about employee clubs.  From her article at the NYT:

"Fat paychecks, pensions and health insurance are not enough to recruit and keep employees these days. Companies are again finding that adding a bit of social context to work is crucial to keeping employees happy and productive. That is where employee clubs come in. Workplace specialists say clubs are a way to build camaraderie and help people get to know fellow employees away from work. Companies benefit, too. Clubs help create loyal employees, reduce turnover and improve morale while costing very little."

Interesting stuff.  I should know because she called me last year (found me from the HR Capitalist) and we talked about the challenges for employers who aren't Boeing or Google.  It was good conversation, and we talked about things that cash-challenged companies can do.

We talked for about 30 minutes.  What she quoted me on serves as a cautionary tale.  Here's my quote from the story.  Get ready to channel the Grinch:

"Still, perks can be impermanent. During the technology boom in the 1990s, companies piled on the benefits to attract talent and then promptly got rid of them when the economy soured. Many companies, whether they are battling bankruptcy or are flush with cash, have rolled back benefits, eliminated pensions and increased health care premiums to reduce expenses. Any nonessential perk, like an employee club, is also fair game.

“If they ever existed, the first thing that goes is the frilly, frilly stuff,” said Kris Dunn, vice president for human resources at SourceMedical, a Birmingham, Ala., software company, and author of the blog The HR Capitalist."

Bah Humbug... So my quote is true, but Mercer and the consultants get the fun quotes.  I get the fiscal hawk quote.... The HR person's trying to take all the fun out of the workplace...

Check out the article, it's a good read.  Finding out that Boeing funds over 100 employee clubs at seven locations nationwide is kind of like finding out that a Massage Therapist from Google is now a millionaire from her stock options.

It's hard to relate to from the trenches.... Boeing has a VP of Wine....

Can the HR Function Handle a Name Change to "Talent Management"?

Seth Godin weighed in on HR early this week with this take:  Why not change the name of the HR function and then try to be exceptional?

After all, at one point the term "personnel" got stale, and the move was made to migrate to "human resources".

I love Seth's work.  But a name change won't change the issues.  The problem, in the past, was that personnel had a bad name, then the named changed.  Unfortunately, a lot of "personnel" people didn't see the need to raise their games.

Here's Seth's take:

"Like it or not, in most organizations HR has grown up with a forms/clerical/factory focus. Which was fine, I guess, unless your goal was to do something amazing, something that had nothing to do with a factory, something that required amazing programmers, remarkable marketers or insanely talented strategy people.

So, here's my small suggestion, one that will make some uncomfortable.

Change the department name to Talent.

The reason this makes some people uncomfortable is that it seems like spin, like gratuitous double speak. And, if you don't change what you do, that would be true.

BUT...

What if you started acting like the VP of Talent? Understanding that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage. The VP of Talent would have to reorganize the department and do things differently all day long (small example: talent shouldn't have to fill out reams of forms and argue with the insurance company... talent is too busy for that... talent has people to help with that.)"

Seth's books are exceptional, and they've taught me a lot about the concepts of marketing.  Check out the recommended books on this blog and you'll see many of his works.

So I'm comfortable.  I'd like to deal with the challenge he outlines.

The problem is that many in our profession are still personnel people, focused on transactions.  The move to "Talent" as an identifier in our profession would mean that the bottom dwellers in our profession have caused us to abandon identities twice.  The "Why I hate HR" would simply become "Why I hate Talent Management".

Maybe a better plan is to offer up some professional credentials that transcend the SPHR, and focus on recruiting, performance management, innovation, leadership development, etc.   The high end skills that allow someone to call themselves "Talent".

Then those who have earned it can move to the cool designation.  Those that don't can stay in HR... or maybe personnel....

42% of Tampa Bus Drivers Have Signed Up for Intermittent Leave..(!)

WOW.  It's been a few years since I supported a big consumer call center as part of my practice, so I had really forgotten about the pain that Intermittent Leave under FMLA can cause employers. 

The desire for maximum flexibility and at times, the avoidance of accountability, can cause Intermittent Leave to spread like a virus through an operating unit of a company.

For me, I thought bad news in this area would be about 3-4% of all employees in a division or company being approved for Intermittent Leave (10-12 employees in a call center of 300 would cause a big impact to scheduling, etc.).

But 42% of all employees?  You're kidding me, right?  Apparently not - from the Tampa Tribune:

"...Case in point is HARTline, the county's(Tampa metro) public transit service. Forty-two percent of the bus drivers have signed up for a benefit the federal law calls "unscheduled intermittent leave." Many of them are using the law to extend weekends and go home "sick" to avoid unwanted assignments.

The law designed to cost nothing is costing HARTline and other employers many millions of dollars. The family leave act was intended to cost little or nothing while providing 12 weeks of job security to help workers through challenges (sic) times - such as bringing home a new baby, recovering from illness, or helping an incapacitated relative.

Some workers, including many HARTline drivers, have discovered that minor ailments also qualify, such as back pain and headaches. A one-time doctor's certification can give a worker a perpetual excuse for going home early, sleeping late, or not showing up at all.

Lawmakers were wrong in thinking that two features would minimize employee abuse and employer expense: One, the worker on leave under the act gets no pay and thus has no incentive to malinger, and two, the law applies only to organizations with 50 or more workers, which seems to be ample manpower to make up lost productivity."

But employers like the bus agency can't make up in the afternoon for a bus that doesn't run in the morning. In many businesses, schedules must be kept.

To keep its buses on time, HARTline is spending $2 million a year on overtime, an agency spokesman says, and 39 percent of that cost is attributed to FMLA absences."

42% of all employees.  Maybe it would be easier for that HR Team to certify the people who don't need intermittent leave....

Ralph Kramden would never approve...

Social Networking and HR - Live Case Study at the Capitalist...

The world of Human Capital Management is littered with reasons you shouldn't try things - liability, technical issues, unresponsive employees or managers, exposure to bad stuff (another way to say liability), etc.

Sometimes you just have to be like Tom Cruise in Risky Business and say "Why Not" (actual Tom Cruise quote from movie edited by censors...).

A great example - the use of social networks inside of companies.  Joel Cheeseman recently waxed about HR's struggle with Web 2.0. (hat tip to Jason Averbook at Knowledge Infuser).  In his article at The Industry Standard, Joel points to a lack of marketing and IT chops among HR people, along with liability, as the main reasons HR can't leverage Web 2.0 to their benefit.

Joel's right about his observations.  But I don't think it has to be that way.  So we're going to run a project in my shop and drop our notes and lessons every couple of weeks for as long as it's relevant here at The HR Capitalist.

The project - establishing a social networking platform inside a company...

Social Networking (think products like FaceBook and MySpace) should have positive impact inside a company.  Linking employees to other teammates they've never met, sharing thoughts, interests and news inside a social network sounds cool.  Surely that translates to increased satisfaction, retention and even engagement - right?

We'll see....

Here's how the project will work.  We're going to launch a social network inside our company, including the ability to set up your own home page, a blog hosted by me with multiple contributors, youtube video capablity, widget functionality, etc.

I orginally tried to do this with Facebook, but got immediately concerned when I saw an existing employee account that had daily derogatory comments about the employee's manager.  Since liability is always on the table, no reason to assume more risk than you have to.

So, the open platforms of Facebook and MySpace are out for this experiment.  I can't afford a custom private solution, so we're going with a new product on the market called Ning...  Ning allows you to create a social network for free, but the upside for me as a HR Pro is that I can approve anyone who's added - meaning we can "wall it off" to employees only.

That's it for now; I'm configuring it as we speak.  I'll get it launched and provide updates as we move forward with the technology.

Union Membership is Up, But Quality of Jobs Represented is Down...

With the ill-advised Employee Free Choice Act likely making a comeback in 2009, I feel obligated to revisit the topic of Union membership at least once a month to keep it on everyone's radar screen.

One thing you might have seen over the last couple of weeks is the fact that Union membership actually increased last year.  The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2007, the number of workers belonging to a union rose by 311,000 to 15.7 million.

From the Workforce analysis of the report:

"It represents part of the seismic shift in the makeup of America’s unionized workforce. Today, a union worker is more likely to be a low-skilled, low-paid service worker than a skilled, well-paid manufacturing employee.

“The future of the unions is the $8-an-hour home health care worker,” says David Gregory, professor of law at St. John’s University. The unions may have regained membership with lower-wage service workers, but they cannot regain the dues lost along with higher-paid jobs, Gregory says."

Seth Borden at the Union Free Employer took a look at the trend, the union's own organizing site, and came up with the following take:

"If a job cannot be done from Bangalore or Mexico City (outsourced outside of the U.S), it is in a sector likely to become a significant union organizing target in the next few years.  Health care, construction and education are examples.  We would add hospitality, food service and retail to that list; and, we suspect Mr. Hoffa would add transportation."

Solid analysis from Seth.  So the jobs at Ford and GM are out of reach, and organizing efforts at the new age automakers like Mercedes and Toyota have largely failed.  It makes sense that the growth (in quantity, if not in revenue) would come from lower-paid service jobs.  After all, frustration with wages, career pathing, etc. are going to be highest in those sectors.

Of course, if the EFCA comes back in 2009, it's likely that growth would come from sectors much higher up the food chain.

Educate yourself on the EFCA today if you haven't yet....

President's Day Special: Immigration and the Elections - A Rare Positive Story...

Time for a little flag-waving on President's Day...

I'm not a big political person with this blog, so it stands to reason that I don't talk a lot about  Democrats/Republicans, the policies of either party, or the ongoing presidential race. 

One presidential topic that interests me a lot as a HR person is immigration.  But my interest in immigration has nothing to with I-9 guidelines, building a wall on the Mexican border or deportation. 

My interest is more on the Visa side of things.  Doing HR for a software company, we support and sponsor multiple employees in the US Immigration Process.  It's a win/win for us - it expands our pool of candidates available for key positions, and it's obvoiusly good for the employees we support in this fashion.

So, with all the negative stories about the ills of immigration, let's focus on a positive, in a knowledge-based economy.

The crazy thing?  We get so busy in the day-to-day details of running the business that we often forget that the employees we support in the immigration process are often experiencing things in the U.S. for the first time. 

Case in point - this brief conversation I had in our hallway, with an employee whom we sponsor:

KD - Hi, John (name changed to protect the identity).  How are things?  Thanks for sending that email about your son - he seems pretty sharp!

John - You are welcome.

KD - What else is going on?

John - I'm watching the presidential race with great interest.  It's fascinating...

KD - Yes, it makes for great theatre.  Looks like the Republican side is basically done, hard to tell what's going to happen with Clinton/Obama

John - The fascinating thing to me is that anybody can emerge and do something like run for president.  In my country, the ability to lead is predicated more on family ties and the caste system.  Here, it's wide open in comparison.

KD - uh (uncomfortable silence as I realize I can't compare and contrast the US system versus that of his home country) yeah.  It's good to hear a perspective from someone who has experienced another system.

KD - (Thinking to self as I walk back to my office - it's pretty cool to live here...)

And that's the strength of immigration into our country.  Talent, we don't have enough of, coming to Amercia and loving it.  Telling their family of the wide open political system (at least in comparison) and the positives of the U.S.  Whether it's war, the economy or political mudslinging, there are countless distractions that cause much handwringing and make us question whether we are going to make it.

Leave it to someone without citizenship rights living among us to put it all in perspective.

Should HR or Hiring Managers Handle the Offer Process?

Recruiting is selling, simple as that.  Especially when you are seeking candidates who don't have to take your offer...

When the talent you are pursuing has options, the whole recruiting process is Marketing 101.  The employment brand on your website, first contact with the prospect, follow-up, selling the advantages of the position and your company, etc.

And when it's time to make the offer?  That's closing time, baby!  Time to wrap all the advantages up in a package and make the candidate feel like they can't afford not to take the offer.

Or, you could just take the offer package professionally prepared by your friendly HR team, email it to the candidate without calling, and hope they accept.  Preferably without them calling you to accept.

But I digress....

My team works with hiring managers throughout the recruiting process.  When it's time to make the offer, we do a professional package, forward it to the hiring manager, and ask them to call the candidate to make a verbal offer.  The documents are to be forwarded to the candidate after the verbal offer is made.  All designed to put our best foot forward - and to increase the probability of an accepted offer.

So imagine my surprise when I got the following email from a manager once we gave him an offer packet for a tasty new hire:

"Offer forwarded to candidate's email address, will let you know the response".....

I wish I could say this has only happened once.  No mention of the verbal offer via phone call that's supposed to happen before.  You know why?  Because the manager in question put the "I" in introvert.  He didn't make the call to make the verbal offer because he didn't want the interaction.  It's not something he's good at, so he skipped it.

And that's OK.  Not everyone has "closer" in their DNA.  Those who don't are skilled in other areas...

I've always been a little stubborn in this area.  My theory is that HR doesn't need to be all "command and control".  If an employee is going to work for a manager, I suspect they'd like to see the offer coming from the manager.  If I was the manager, I'd want them to know the decision to hire was mine - thus setting up all the good things that can happen in the employee/manager relationship.

But then I get an email like the one above from a manager, and I again realize that a lot of people don't want the responsibility.

So maybe I'll compromise and encourage managers to make the verbal, but step in do it on behalf of those who want nothing to do with it.

I'm getting full of compromise in my old age....

Valentine's Day Special - The Most Productive Day of the Week According to the Band "Loverboy"...

First up, I'll do anything to fit the band "Loverboy" into a Valentine's Day post.  Count on that...

As for the day Loverboy would find most productive - No doubt - it's Thursday...

And I agree...

I can come in, everyone's at work (unlike Friday), and you can really get things done.

Even the energy's better, since everyone is working for the weekend... which is the main reason the band Loverboy would choose Thursday as their main day to conduct business.

Apparently, the boys from the band and I are in the minority... From AccountTemps:

"Why tackle today what can be put off until Tuesday? In a new survey, 57 percent of executives said Tuesday is the most productive day of the week for employees. Monday was the second most popular answer, although it appears to be losing favor: Only 12 percent of respondents ranked Monday as most productive, compared to 26 percent in a 2002 survey.

The national poll included responses from 150 senior executives -- including those from human resources, finance and marketing departments -- with the nation’s 1,000 largest companies. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Accountemps, the world’s first and largest specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.

Executives were asked, “In your opinion, on which day of the week are employees generally most productive?” Their responses:

Monday		12%
Tuesday		57%
Wednesday		11%
Thursday		11%
Friday		3%
Don't know		6%

Of course, all these executives would trade it all in for a brief taste of the rock and roll lifestyle of Loverboy....

Check that - maybe they wouldn't - I just did a youtube search for the original "Working for the Weekend" video and and was reminded of style issues that went with the early 80's.  Also saw some videos suggesting they are coming to a County Fair near you.  That would hardly make executives leave their options and turn in their company cars.   

I was in grade school when Loverboy released the album shown above.  I think my sister had the 8-Track.  Good times for the young HR Capitalist...

A free lifetime subscription to this blog for anyone who makes it through the whole video.

HR Nightmare - Web 2.0 Meets Layoffs...

There's nothing cool about layoffs.  Whether you are an impacted employee or an HR person charged with holding meetings, there's not much positive to be found.

Leave it to Web 2.0 to liven up layoffs.  Or to take it to the next level of desperation.  All depends on your perspective.

Ryan Kuder lost his job at Yahoo on Tuesday. He was senior manager of integrated campaign strategy at Yahoo.   The Web 2.0 twist?   He Twittered how he was feeling throughout his last day.

For my 1.0 friends, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

Ryan apparently loves Twitter, because he Twittered throughout the day he was laid-off.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I'm erring with the mantra "transparency is good".  From the rundown at Valleywag:

"Lots of whispered conversations. Like people are afraid to ask who's gone. about 4 hours ago

Dear Blackberry, What great times we had. I'll miss you. At least until tonight when I stop on my way home and buy an iPhone. Love, Me about 4 hours ago

Oh...and my badge. He's going to take that too. Will I be able to get a latte for the road still? about 4 hours ago

I'm going dark in a few minutes. The HR guy is on his way over to confiscate my laptop. about 4 hours ago

Last free triple non-fat latte from Beantrees. Sniff. about 3 hours ago

Signing off from Yahoo!. Fade to black... about 3 hours ago

Celebrating unemployment with a giant margarita at Chevy's. 5 minutes ago"

Pimpin Ain't Easy - But Managers and Commentators Can't Say That...

In the 678,976th example of why you can't simply say anything you want as a manager, I present the recent example of MSNBC news reporter David Schuster, who recently accused the Clinton campaign of "pimping out" Chelsea Clinton.  From the Baltimore Sun:

"David Shuster, the television news anchor who suggested on air the other day that the Clinton family had "pimped out'' daughter Chelsea in its campaign for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential nomination, has been temporarily suspended from all NBC News broadcasts.

MSNBC announced that it had temporarily suspended anchor Shuster from all NBC news broadcasts — except to offer his on-air apology for what he said about Chelsea Clinton.

Shuster had outraged the Clinton campaign by saying that the campaign had "pimped out" the Clintons' daughter when they had her place phone calls to party superdelegates on her mother's behalf. In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson on Friday excoriated Shuster and called the comment "beneath contempt.''

Here's the lesson for managers, HR pros and yes, commentators.  Words like "pimp" have been mainstreamed to a large degree.   That doesn't mean you won't be judged harshly if you choose to use them. 

Sure, MTV can offer up fare like "Pimp my Ride", but that's a media company pushing the envelope using the term to describe a vehicle - not a person. 

As a manager, HR pro or media personality, every time you get edgy with others listening, watching, or filming, there's a high likelihood you'll be judged critically.   

Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don't. 

Doesn't matter.  Especially in the digital age, where flippant remarks one morning in the parking lot can end up on youtube by noon....

What's That Smell? Self Assessments & Performance Management

As an individual who recently revamped a performance management system from the old subjective system (everyone gets the same 80 items, rank on a scale of 1 to 5) to one driven by cascading goals driving individual objectives across the organization, I've had a lot of time to ponder things in the performance management space.  One thing I have ran into is the value of allowing employees to evaluate themselves as part of the process (Self-Evaluations!!)....

Now, I don't want go all Dennis Miller and get off on a rant here, but the prospect of self-evaluations is more riddled with holes than the final season of the Sopranos.

Here's why I don't like Self Evaluations:

1.  There is always a gap between real and perceived performance, and the gap is always largest with your lowest performing employees.  Poor performers lack the skills to perform - which are the same skills required to evaluate their performance. They don’t understand that they don’t understand, and so believe their abilities compare positively to their peers.  The Success Factors Blog plots this out with research to back it up... See the chart below from their site as well....

2.  Self Assessments set up managers who struggle with performance management to fail unnecessarily.  Your inexperienced managers already have a hard time with conflict, so you take your garden variety self-assessment (the one that allows the employees to have the first crack before receiving the feedback of the manager) and automatically your manager is boxed in a deep corner of conflict.  What is he/she to do?  Go after the perceived gaps and really drive home their point of view with multiple specifics?  Or just give in, offer up a few comments, give the employee 75% of what they wanted, and live to fight another day?  Better to allow the manager to drive the process with their thoughts before the employee has a chance to frame the conversation.  Self-Assessment afterwords, OK - Self Assessment before, not so good...

3.  Self Assessments are often crutches for managers with poor writing skills.  I literally had a manager just offer up the objective-based system to an employee, then turn it in as his own work.  I called the employee (happens to be a manager of people working for a Director) and said, "You wrote your own review didn't you?"  To which the employee responded "I did the self assessment part and I think ____ took most of my recommendations.  If you look at the last sentence of each section where the grammar changes (she meant where the grammar became very poor), you'll be able to see his comments".  Nice... what more can I say?

4.  Most employees confuse behavior and performance that "meets" expectations as "exceeding" expectations.  Called all your customers?  Got all the transactions that are a part of your job complete?  Darn, that is just plain "Exceeds"...(I'm Joking).  Most employees have the opinion that if they knock out the major components of their job, they are exceeding.  That's incorrect - the progressive view of performance management suggests that employees need to innovate and add value in other ways to truly "Exceed"  Want to know what happens with weak managers when a "Meets" employee turns in a self-evaluation that rates themselves as an "Exceeds"?   See #2 - they fold without the help of a competent partner on the Human Capital team...

Exceptions to my observations - if you use self assessments as part of a well tuned 360 degree feedback program, the self rating probably has the proper rating and is effectively counter-balanced by the non-manager feedback of others.  Of course, 360 degree feedback programs have their own set of issues, and I'll leave the pro/con breakdown of that for another day.

Bottom line - unless your org is a well-oiled performance management machine, leave the self assessment on the shelf.  Your managers won't overcome it...

Of course, like Dennis Miller, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

As an individual who recently revamped a performance management system from the old subjective system (everyone gets the same 80 items, rank on a scale of 1 to 5) to one driven by cascading goals driving individual objectives across the organization, I've had a lot of time to ponder things in the performance management space.  One thing I have ran into is the value of allowing employees to evaluate themselves as part of the process (Self-Evaluations!!)....

Now, I don't want go all Dennis Miller and get off on a rant here, but the prospect of self-evaluations is more riddled with holes than the final season of the Sopranos.

Here's why I don't like Self Evaluations:

1.  There is always a gap between real and perceived performance, and the gap is always largest with your lowest performing employees.  Poor performers lack the skills to perform - which are the same skills required to evaluate their performance. They don’t understand that they don’t understand, and so believe their abilities compare positively to their peers.  The Success Factors Blog plots this out with research to back it up... See the chart below from their site as well....

2.  Self Assessments set up managers who struggle with performance management to fail unnecessarily.  Your inexperienced managers already have a hard time with conflict, so you take your garden variety self-assessment (the one that allows the employees to have the first crack before receiving the feedback of the manager) and automatically your manager is boxed in a deep corner of conflict.  What is he/she to do?  Go after the perceived gaps and really drive home their point of view with multiple specifics?  Or just give in, offer up a few comments, give the employee 75% of what they wanted, and live to fight another day?  Better to allow the manager to drive the process with their thoughts before the employee has a chance to frame the conversation.  Self-Assessment afterwords, OK - Self Assessment before, not so good...

3.  Self Assessments are often crutches for managers with poor writing skills.  I literally had a manager just offer up the objective-based system to an employee, then turn it in as his own work.  I called the employee (happens to be a manager of people working for a Director) and said, "You wrote your own review didn't you?"  To which the employee responded "I did the self assessment part and I think ____ took most of my recommendations.  If you look at the last sentence of each section where the grammar changes (she meant where the grammar became very poor), you'll be able to see his comments".  Nice... what more can I say?

4.  Most employees confuse behavior and performance that "meets" expectations as "exceeding" expectations.  Called all your customers?  Got all the transactions that are a part of your job complete?  Darn, that is just plain "Exceeds"...(I'm Joking).  Most employees have the opinion that if they knock out the major components of their job, they are exceeding.  That's incorrect - the progressive view of performance management suggests that employees need to innovate and add value in other ways to truly "Exceed"  Want to know what happens with weak managers when a "Meets" employee turns in a self-evaluation that rates themselves as an "Exceeds"?   See #2 - they fold without the help of a competent partner on the Human Capital team...

Exceptions to my observations - if you use self assessments as part of a well tuned 360 degree feedback program, the self rating probably has the proper rating and is effectively counter-balanced by the non-manager feedback of others.  Of course, 360 degree feedback programs have their own set of issues, and I'll leave the pro/con breakdown of that for another day.

Bottom line - unless your org is a well-oiled performance management machine, leave the self assessment on the shelf.  Your managers won't overcome it...

Of course, like Dennis Miller, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

When Employees Sleep and Harass in the Homes of Customers....

Your employees represent your company's brand with every interaction they have with customers.

True?  Great!  We agree...

Now close your eyes and imagine the following scenario.  You work for a service company, and as a part of the service offering, your employees have to go into the homes of your customers.   And interact... Without you or a manager there....

As a HR pro that has supported businesses with this model, I can tell you lots of bad stuff happens when employees have to go into the homes of customers.  Based on my experience, here's the leading things that cause customer and employee relations pain when someone like Larry the Cable Guy knocks on the door of a customer, then enters the home representing your brand (listed in ascending order based on severity)

Larry can kill your brand by:

• Leaving mud on the carpet
• Helping himself to a glass of Dr. Pepper
• Being rude
• Being dressed inappropriately (regardless of what your dress code is)
• Cursing
• Sleeping in the customer's home
• If doing computer work, using the customer's PC to look up objectionable content
• Making inappropriate remarks to the lady of the house, thereby freaking her out that she is going to be assaulted
• Making inappropriate remarks to a child in the house, thereby freaking everyone out...

Of course, sometimes the employee gets accused of something and is totally innocent.  In a morality play acted out numerous times, we used to see allegations from customers currently in collections, demanding their past due bill be waived or some free service offered, in exchange for dropping the claim that Larry made a pass at them inside their home.

Kind of made you want to assume the fetal position in the corner and start crying as a HR pro.  The customer's always right, but then there was that "advocate for the employee" thing in the back of your head...

What's got me thinking about employees in the customer's home?  I was reading Meatball Sundae over the weekend (Seth Godin's new book), and he mentioned a Comcast installer that had been videotaped asleep on the customer's sofa.  The point?  In the age of the long tail, an interaction that might have cost you customers on one street can now damage your brand globally.

Which means if you are sending employees into a customer's home, you should think differently about the hiring model, both from a compensation and behavioral perspective.

Enjoy the video, and if your employees aren't required to go into customer homes with zero oversight, be thankful....

Quick - Name the Two Fastest Growing Job Sites on the Net....

Hitwise recently released traffic figures for the major job boards, and to me, the average HR user, there were some surprises...

First up, the top two sites that appear to be growing are job.com (which I've never been to) and Indeed.com.  I'm intrigued by the Indeed model, and might post about it in the next week or so.

An even bigger surprise is the traffic levels flowing to the top three sites that have mind share - CareerBuilder, HotJobs and Monster...

Check out the numbers below.  It seems that CareerBuilder is spending the most money to grab market share via ads, so the fact that they have ascended into 1st from a traffic perspective shouldn't be surprising.   The biggest surprise for me is HotJobs being in second place.  I guess there are obvious advantages from a traffic perspective with being linked to a portal like Yahoo, but my experience with HotJobs is this - I don't get any candidates from them when I use the board.

And then there's Monster.  Traffic is down by 54%.  Ouch.

Here's one HR/recruiting person's opinion.  I get the most utility from Monster, closely followed by CareerBuilder.  HotJobs isn't even on my radar, mostly because they haven't delivered for me in the past...

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong....

Top 10 Visited Employment Websites ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits for the week ending Jan. 26, 2008
Rank	Domain	U.S. Visits w/e Jan. 26, 2008	YoY Change
1	CareerBuilder*	12.96%	-6%
2	Yahoo! HotJobs	11.18%	84%
3	Monster*	4.32%	-54%
4	Job.com	4.11%	43%
5	Indeed*	4.07%	92%
Note - the Hitwise data featured is based on U.S. market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context. * - The market share of visits percentage does not include traffic for all sub-domains of this website which are reported on separately.
Source: Hitwise

Tip of the Hat to Cheezhead for the link to Hitwise....

Why Reading SHRM is Like Eating an Unsalted Cracker...

Imagine your favorite meal.  Whether it's Italian, Mexican, American or a cultural segment that I don't frequent, here's what you crave - the quality of the flavor.   Most people find a type of food they like, then start mining down into the restaurants that serve that type of food, until they find the locale that delivers it best.

Most people don't label fast food as their favorite.  Sure, they go, but for most, it's a matter of convenience.  Order up the happy meal.  If you're feeling brave during the cold and flu season, maybe the kids play in the playground... When you are looking for the best, you'll look elsewhere.

What you read professionally follows a similar trend.  There are thousands of choices with the proliferation of media on the web.   You pick a topic like HR and Talent, then go find the best source.   

Analogy time!  SHRM is to HR/Talent news and opinion as McDonalds is to food.  I'm referring to the periodicals published by SHRM and the database of materials at www.shrm.org.  Easy to find and on every corner, but not particularly compelling or memorable.  When you are looking for cutting edge, you look elsewhere, usually in a specific space (resources directly related to areas like comp, technology, etc.).

There's a quality rundown of SHRM over at Workforce.com, focused on the direction of the world's biggest HR organization.  It's a good piece, so you should give it a look.  A few days ago, I posted that SHRM should spend some of the existing $138M war chest by customizing their resources for users and interjecting opinion into the mix.

One of my readers (Frank) commented on that post that abundant resources are available at SHRM, but are often written by journalists who, while good writers, appear to lack the background needed to satisfy HR professionals.  Gautam Ghosh wondered aloud on his site that if an American HR pro like me can't get the value out of SHRM, what hope is there for a global pro like him?

I think both takes are correct.  SHRM has a lot of resources available, but I don't have the time to dive into the whitepapers at www.shrm.org.   I'm unsure of the quality as well.  I also don't think the resources are written in a compelling fashion.  In an age where there are 57(00) Channels and Nothin' On, it takes personality and opinion to cut through the clutter. 

From my view, the next time SHRM takes a position, on an area of HR practice, that alienates half of their readership, will be the first.

And that's part of the problem.  Getting and keeping a seat at the table means you have opinions, even if they are unpopular.  There's a name for people without opinions in our profession - they're called administrators.

It's OK to disagree.  So SHRM, go hire some bloggers and put them on the front page.  It's less about Web 2.0 than it is about opinion.  Have the bloggers link to the extensive resources you offer and mix it up by taking defined positions on issues that polarize your membership.

And watch the interest and engagement in your membership explode....

Would You Fire Shaq? You Would If You Were Missing Revenue...

Businesses make hard calls all the time.  Is what we are paying worth it?  Is it time to let a former star, who's become an average performer, go?

Business and sports mirror each other in this regard.  It's just that when you make a business decision, you don't have 10,000 news sources analyzing your move and intellect...

The Miami Heat recently traded Shaquille O'Neal to the Phoenix Suns for former All-Star Shawn Marion and reserve Marcus Banks.  If you follow sports, you've seen the blockbuster deal in the headlines.  While the deal is all about sports, it's also all about talent. 

More to the point, it's about what you are willing to pay for talent - based on your operating results and P&L.

Take the case of the Phoenix Suns.  Shawn Marion's been an All-Star, and Phoenix has the best record in pro basketball.  Unfortunately, Marion is at the end of his contract, and the Suns were going to have to cough up more than they were willing to pay, to lock him up for the future after this season.  The Suns weren't willing to erode their profitability to give a big, long-term contract to Marion.  Rather than be left with nothing in return, they made the move to deal for Shaq.

Now take the case of the Miami Heat.  Shaq had 2 years left on his deal, and his play had been severely diminished as of late.  In return for the hefty contract of Shaq and running mate Dwayne Wade, the Heat have the league's worst record.   It's clearly time for them to rebuild, so moving Shaq and getting younger with Marion makes sense.  So, they made the deal for Marion.  If Marion still declares for free agency with the Heat at the end of the season, they've removed a huge salary off their payroll (Shaq) and can use the resulting funds in the rebuilding process.

Here's how the deal mirrors paying for talent in corporate America:

--Situation #1 - You have a high performing employee who's a little disgruntled that he's not earning more.  Unfortunately, you have better talent locked up in the positions above the employee (just like the Suns do above Marion with Steve Nash and Amare Stoudamire).  What happens?  You do the best you can to keep the talent motivated, but understand at some po