The Best and Worst Cube Farms in America...

Admit it - you've daydreamed about doing something cool with your office.  Maybe you're thinking about painting that accent wall, or maybe you're thinking about doing something cool with your cube.  Something to spice it up.  Something to take it to the next level, way past where Les Nessman left it.

Before you do that, manage your expectations.  Most of you probably aren't in Silicon Valley, or working at Google.  That's OK, but it probably means you aren't getting the marble counter top for the juice bar coffee closet at work.

That's fine - you can still dream, and maybe even have a cooler workspace than Yahoo.

Here's a look at the best workspaces in Tech via Valleywag. In the snapshots, you'll find cool workspaces from Six Apart (they provide the software that runs this blog), Netflix and Digg.  Pretty cool.

Then, there are the worst workspaces in Tech via Valleywag.

Get ready, because the standard for a cool workplace in high tech is probably higher than what you are used to.  Case in point - I say "Yahoo Offices" and you automatically have an expectation for some cool stuff, right?   Well, maybe that exists somewhere in the Yahoo real estate portfolio, but the Valleywag feature ranks Yahoo as one of the worst workplaces in tech, featuring the picture to the right.

The good news - Yahoo still has some apparently highly motivated employees - note the guy taking five in his cube...

The bad news - Yahoo's workspace in that picture looks like about 98% of corporate America.

Manage ye expectations, you Peter Gibbons clones of the world.  And if you are sprucing up the cube, bring it with more strength than the guy shown napping here...

Show Me the Freaking Money - Sharing Pay Ranges With Associates...

Sharing pay ranges with your employees - do you do it?

Three schools of thought here:

1.  We share nothing.  Maybe we have nothing (by way of comp ranges, etc.)

2.  We have stuff, but don't share it broadly.  We'll share it with the individual employee if they are interested, during the merit review, and certainly if pay issues come up with an employee who feels underpaid, etc.

3.  We share it all.  Our range structure is published to all employees, and employees might even have access to know the grades for all the jobs in the company.

Ann Bares got me thinking about this with her recent post on the sad state of Pay Communication. 

Markets drive pay.  Companies value jobs based on those markets, and also make determinations about how much skills in a specific profession are worth, based on the ranges that are developed.  So for me, #1 (we have nothing, we share nothing, and we value jobs on the fly) isn't a practical solution, at least for companies with any size and scale. 

I don't think #3 (we share it all) is a realistic alternative either.  The problem with sharing it all is the loss of productivity and angst regarding OPR (other people's ranges).  I've worked for big companies that took this approach, and a significant amount of time is spent with the angst of knowing someone else's range.  No matter that the person with the angst doesn't know the salary or if the comp ratio is .8 or 1.2.  Their range is higher than mine! 

So for me, we're left with #2 - Share range information with the individual employee at natural times, like the merit review.  Tell them how the company creates and updates ranges, and tell them why they are where they are within the range.  Tell them the plan and the room to grow, if they stay in the same position.

Or go with Option #4 - just post a list of all the employees' salaries on the bathroom door.  I joke, but I'm sure that's happened somewhere, sometime, with a frazzled HR Pro ready to go on stress-related FMLA leave at the center of the storm.

Go with option #2....

Can You Trust HR in Tough Times?

It's the age old question - can you trust HR?  With anything?

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen thinks you probably shouldn't; check out this post at Work in Progress, her blog at Time.com:

"Over the past few years, my employer has imposed a few rounds of layoffs. During the run-up, we were encouraged to visit with our human resources department if we wanted to inquire about taking a package. We were assured absolute, air-tight, witness-protection-program secrecy if we chose to do so. Who needs our bosses knowing we're entertaining an exit?

Quite a few of my colleagues did visit with HR. Then a funny thing happened. A few of them found that some management types dropped by to nonchalantly express their appreciation of the staffer's work.

Now, you have to understand my workplace culture to truly comprehend how completely weird that is. Where I work, bosses do not randomly drop in to tell you you're fab. My colleagues suspected an HR leak to management. I don't think they were being paranoid.

In these times of trouble, is HR your friend? Or can you ever trust a department that, after all, reports to the same master?"

The perception is sad but real, and at times, accurate.   After all, HR people are just that - people.  We have strong ones, weak ones, political ones, etc.   I think whether you can trust HR in any circumstance depends on the track record of the HR Pro you are dealing with.  What have you witnessed from them to that point?  As behavioral interviewers, we'll tell you straight up that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance.  It applies here...

For what it's worth, here's my approach with confidential information.  An employee comes to me and wants to have a confidential discussion about anything - a prospective job, their manager, etc., I let them know I'm happy to do it, but my ability to keep the information purely confidential is dependent on the topic.  I then give them an idea of the topics I couldn't keep confidential (harassment, etc.)

If they're still in, we have the conversation.  I try and help out any way I can.  We'll talk and I'll try to give them options, and tell them how I can help with their approval.

Then I lock the info down post-conversation.  It's what you have to do if you want to have credibility with a workforce.

Can you trust HR in tough times?  It's an individual question based on your HR Pro.  Just remember, past behavior is the best predictor of future performance...

Should You Ditch the Second Interview and Have Candidates Work a Half Day For You?

If you've hired enough, you've felt the pain of what I call "missing".  You did everything you should have done in the hiring process, got feedback from others so you didn't make a hiring call in a bubble, ran the behavioral interview and probed.

Nice job.  So why did that new hire turn out to be a dud?

It's nothing personal.  Anyone who says they never miss has either only hired 1-4 people or is lying. Everyone misses.

So what can you do to reduce the number of times you miss?  You can make sure your interview attempts to measure what's important in the job, provide a realistic job preview, get more people involved, etc.

You could also have them do a live exercise with you to see how they react to real world conditions.  You could even have them work a full day for you in the role they'll perform before you make an offer.   

Is that possible?  Seth Godin thinks it is:

"There are no one-on-one-sit-in-my-office-and-let’s-talk interviews. Boom, you just saved 7 hours per interview. Instead, spend those seven hours actually doing the work. Put the person on a team and have a brainstorming session, or design a widget or make some espressos together. If you want to hire a copywriter, do some copywriting. Send back some edits and see how they’re received.

If the person is really great, hire them. For a weekend. Pay them to spend another 20 hours pushing their way through something. Get them involved with the people they’ll actually be working with and find out how it goes. Not just the outcomes, but the process. Does their behavior and insight change the game for the better? If they want to be in sales, go on a sales call with them. Not a trial run, but a real one. If they want to be a rabbi, have them give a sermon or visit a hospital."

Target practice with live ammo - I like it.  I've always included some type of inbox with a lot of the positions I've filled on my team.  Seth's thoughts take it to the next level.  Not role play, but live action.

To get there, you need to get yourself, your team and the candidate to understand that the work included in the process is a contracting/consulting opportunity.  For a 60K job, one day's work equates into about $250 in cost.  About the cost of a posting on Monster....

That seems cheap for what you get in return.

Are Frontline Employees Fully Expendable? Isn't the "Same" really "Lame"?

If you've ever worked in a retail or consumer call center situation, odds are you've seen some employee turnover.  Depending on pay levels, the specific industry, and local economic conditions, it's not unusual to see annualized turnover at 100% in those sectors.

As HR Pros, we're conditioned that high turnover is never acceptable.  Most of us take it personally.

Is it possible, depending on the conditions you face (pay levels, industry and the local ecomomy), that you shouldn't take high turnover as a personal challenge as a HR Pro?  Additionally, if you don't invest much in the upfront training of those associates, have you made a business decision that high turnover is OK?

More on the value of high entry-level turnover from the Workforce Institute:

"Unless your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or point of difference is Exceptional Customer Service (like Nordstrom, BMW, Ritz Carlton, and the Container Store), there’s no reason to sweat it when you lose frontline employees. Most likely, they were not that good anyway because, truth be told, you haven’t invested a lot of money in your hourly hires and even the training you provided, if any, didn’t cost much. In fact, their replacements will probably be just as good and may be even better than those you lose. New employees are excited about their new jobs and will probably have a better attitude and try harder - at least for the first three-to-six months. On top of this, employee turnover will probably reduce your labor costs because you won’t have to fund any benefit programs for a while. And there’s no need to worry if the new hire doesn’t know very much because the customers don’t expect them to know much when customer service is not your USP. You may even want to have new people wear a button that says: “I’m new. Please help me help you.”

It's an interesting take, and hard to deny the investment piece.  If you don't invest much in service-oriented new hires, have you already made your choice from business perspective.  Should you be pointing that out as an HR Pro?

Still, it's hard as a consumer, who is also an HR Pro, to let go of the fact that exceptional service is important.  Thoughts?  Should business be giving up on entry-level turnover, or should they be fighting to be memorable?

I guess it depends on the business plan - and how you plan to make money...

HR Jobs From Hell - The LOA Administrator

By now, readers of the Capitalist know that I am a HR Generalist, meaning I do it all - recruit, employee relations, benefits, performance management, etc.   I'm also a firm believer that Generalist roles span the globe of HR titles - Generalists can be found at the Rep/individual contributor, manager, director and VP levels.

One of the things that is cool about being a HR Generalist is the variety - if you're sick of doing one thing, you just need to wait about 20 minutes, because you'll get a call shifting your priorities to another area as a routine course of business.

Some people call it chaos, I call it variety...

So, for me, a HR job from hell is one that includes no variety, and resides in an area of the HR practice where little joy is found.  Here's my first HR Job from Hell - the corporate Leave of Absence Administrator.

First up, let me say that me tagging the LOA Administrator as a job from hell has nothing to do with the people in the job, but instead has everything to do with what these folks have to put up with on a daily basis.  As luck would have it, HR Wench is currently in the job market, and recently phone screened for an LOA Administrator role:

"I had a phone screen yesterday that went ok. It was for the Leave of Absence Specialist. Get this: the organization has 15,000 employees. Guess how many NEW leave of absence cases were processed last year? 4,400. That is almost a 1/3 of their workforce, yo! Geez. Anyhow the in person interviews aren't until a few weeks from now due to vacations. So, we'll see".

UGH.  That pretty much sums up why I would consider the LOA Administer role as a HR role from Dante's 9th circle.  Here's what you have to deal with in that role:

-Primary focus is interacting with folks going through very rough times.  For the right person, this would be a plus, as they could use their empathy to make a difference.  But a steady diet of this over years surely leads to burnout.

-Being the tough gal/guy regarding compliance.  Folks are going through rough times, and you're the one that has to hassle them about the FMLA certification forms even though that's the last thing on their mind.

-Deciding when to play hardball on fraud.  You have 4,000 applications for LOA, you're going to have some folks gaming the system.  You have to decide when to play hardball and go after it.  You see the 5-10% that game the system - how can you not become jaded after a year or two of that?

Let me be clear - if you are in the LOA Administrator role in your company - thank you.   You are taking multiple hits daily for the HR function as a whole, and you're likely doing it very well.  If you get burned out, I hope your company has a rotational program in place, because you have skills that are a valuable resource.

That being said - HR Wench - Don't do it!!

Employees Who Play "Grand Theft Auto" - Good or Bad Thing?

We've been watching the NBA playoffs over the past couple of days, and here's the challenge.  It's PRIME TIME, and when the games go to commercial, my 7 and 4 year-old sons get exposed to programming clips and ads the networks view as acceptable at 7pm.

Case in point - On the video game front, Grand Theft Auto 4 is set to be released, featuring all the vices  you can name, set to a drug running culture where shooting cops is an afterthought.  Here's a taste of what the game entails from the London Free Press:

"Grand Theft Auto IV -- or simply GTA IV -- tells the story of Niko Bellic, a recent immigrant to the U.S. from an unrevealed Eastern European country. He's come to Liberty City, the game's through-the-looking-glass version of New York, lured by his cousin Roman's promises of wealth and opportunity.

Niko soon realizes his cousin has twisted the truth like a stoolie's arm: Roman lives in a fleabag apartment, runs a failing taxi company and is in trouble with several shady people. He's summoned Niko, an ex-soldier and all-around capable character, to help extract him from some sticky situations.

So begins Niko's pursuit of the American dream, a chase that will follow the Grand Theft Auto template of having players undertake dozens upon dozens of missions to advance the core storyline, while also pursuing any number of sideline activities, like going to the bar, playing darts and driving home drunk."

Of course, if I can't change the channel quick enough (where is the @#@* remote!?), my 7 year old ultimately see the shoulder fired missile going at the police chopper and asks if we can get that game for our Xbox.  Nice.

Here's a bigger question - are employees who band together at night via networked groups on the Xbox or Playstaion to play "shooter games" good things or bad things for your business? 

On the minus side - your employees are exposed to a steady range of violence via the normal shooter games like "Call of Duty".  Add drugs and poor treatment of women to the mix for games like Grand Theft Auto.  Is there a carry-over of aggression to the workplace?  I can't say that I see it, and it's not like we have the ability to stop what's going on in society.

But here's the big plus side - for every group of 5-10 employees you have that band together at night to save the war (or Niko), you get built-in teamwork.  That group is getting together after work, and doing team-based activities that require cooperation, leadership, accountability to the team and more - they're just exploding things while they do it.

That's got to be good for retention, right?

I think the group gamers are a good thing for your company.  It's also an area that's full of opportunity from a recruiting standpoint for those willing to step outside the box - what better way to recruit the gamer generation than to invite them to join the "Call of Duty" team for an evening of fun?

Of course, you would have to accept that your recruits are going to be exposed to cursing, violence and overall aggressive behavior. 

And that will keep most of us from capturing the promise - we can't accept the liability that goes along with it from a HR standpoint.... 

Square Peg, Round Hole - Can The Traditional Organization Afford to Focus on Strengths?

Is performance management upside down in Corporate America?  Here are a couple of quick observations:

1.  Jobs are structured for the company, not the employee.  I'm not saying that's wrong, just outlining the facts.

2.  90% of the time we spend talking about performance is about how to manage negative variance.

3.  We don't spend a lot of the time evaluating how we can continue to maximize a person's strengths.  We'll tell them they are doing great, give them an "exceeds", then move on to how they can improve their "areas of opportunity". 

4.  The combination of those competencies that create "jobs", are pretty inflexible in corporate America.

With that in mind, it should come as no shock that while we love to read books like "Now Discover Your Strengths" and nod accordingly when discussing, we pretty much go back to the coal mine and expect people to fit in the traditional spaces we've defined.

Scott McArthur recently talked about the power of positive, strength-based psychology in the workplace.  From the sweet rundown at McArthur's Rant:

"Positive psychology suggests that by focusing on people’s strengths rather than on their development needs we can transform wellness at work and as a consequence improve organizational performance.

The notion behind the work that is being done under the banner of Positive Psychology is to enhance our experiences of love, work and play and by doing so encourage wellbeing. This is in contrast to the traditional ways of thinking in both psychology and business where the focus is on finding what isn't working and trying to fix it.

Techniques such as Appreciative Enquiry and Strength finders (Gallup) as well as writers such as Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience have been extolling the value of adopting this approach for some time. In Gallup’s case they have produced some strong statistical evidence that it works.."

Scott acknowledges in his post that while focusing on employee strengths is a powerful tool, it's problematic for the traditional organization to figure out how to do it.

Here's my take.  The power of focusing on strengths in corporate America is probably best used in a combination of performance management and engagement.  The smart managers know that they can't adjust a role to fit the employee's strengths with a 100% match.  But with the right amount of praise, coaching and organizational flexibility, they can create an environment where the employee understands that the more efficient they are in their formal job, the more they can chase what they really love to do, and maybe even innovate and create stuff on the way.

And that would be a pretty cool thing... 

HR Capitalist Goes to D.C. - World Health Care Congress...

As a part of my ongoing role to figure out the whole health care cost thing for our company, I'll be taking a trip to the 5th Annual World Health Care Congress ,in Washington, D.C. 

While there, I'm serving as a featured blogger for the proceedings, a part of the cast that includes:

-Lola Butcher
-George Van Antwerp - PatientCentric Health Care BLog
-Jennifer McCabe Gorman - Health Management RX
-Joe Paduda - Managed Care Matters
-Vijay Goel - HealthShopper

Wish me luck!  I'll post my top couple of observations daily here, and you can check out all the think-tank observations at the live blog for the conference here...

Should You Reward Managers With Low Turnover?

I know, you look at this one and automatically say, "of course"!!  After all, low turnover is good, high turnover is bad.

On second thought, maybe rewarding low turnover isn't such a great idea.

I was prompted to pop a post on this topic because of a line I saw in the whitepaper recently released by The Workforce Institute on the role of Front-line Managers in retaining hourly workers.  Here's Action Item #2 from the paper:

"Action Item #2 - Penalize or move managers who generate excessive turnover"

Now, I'm going to agree with part of that statement - you should find a solution for the manager who is clearly generating excessive turnover over time due to his or her style, issues, etc.  If you can't coach them up, or develop them, then you probably need to get them out of that role.

But penalize managers/departments who generate light turnover?  That sounds like you are ready to reward managers with low turnover.  That's the wrong way to go, and here's why:

1.  All Turnover is not created equal.  Some is good, some is bad.

2.  Low Turnover doesn't mean your employees are engaged, care about your mission, or are contributing to the cause...

3.  Penalizing or rewarding turnover stats is a sure way to make managers manage the stats rather than their teams.

4.  When managers try to appease employees who shouldn't be driving the agenda, guess what happens?  Your best employees see it, get appalled, and start looking for other gigs,  which means the turnover you do have may be the worst possible kind - your stars leaving you....

Those are my reasons not to penalize or reward based on turnover stats.  I'm all for managing someone who has a problem, but systematically rewarding or penalizing based on voluntary turnover? 

That's an agenda that has a lot of holes....

I'm Stealing Your Talent With Cold, Hard Cash....

I love stats on what it's going to take to steal your talent from a comp perspective.  Latest data is from Salary.com via the Working section of the Washington Post:

"If you're like many employees, you'd expect at least 16 percent more money to jump ship. 

More than one-third of workers would move for a 16 to 30 percent raise, according to a Salary.com survey. Another third would walk for 8 to 15 percent more in the pay envelope. And one in six said it would take a raise of 31 to 50 percent.

Oddly, most employers think it would take less -- 15 percent or less -- to lure away talent.

And employers offer, on average, only 7 percent to persuade a valued employee to stay. Half of employers said they sometimes make counteroffers, but more than a third said they never do."

I think those numbers ring pretty true.  Here's how I get my head around it:

1.  The chronically unhappy or those in danger of losing their job will leave for a lateral pay move or a very small bump.  This number is broken out in the above numbers, but based on the other figures, this is about 20% of the average workforce.

2.  Those who are at least somewhat content by open to hearing the message from recruiters?  The bidding starts with the equivalent of a promotional pay bump, which is the 8 to 15% group.  That's a third of those surveyed...

3.  Those who are happy and content?  They're still willing to listen, but like the Godfather, you'll have to make them an offer they can't refuse - a 16 to 30% bump in pay    (33%) or maybe more than a 30% increase (16% of those surveyed).  So that equals 50% of the workforce.

So the bottom line for those of you following at home...  About 50% of workers are available for the equivalent of a promotional increase.  The rest will be more expensive.

Of course, as with all data coming from Salary.com, it's self-reported data.  Raise your hand if you've ever had an employee print out data from a job that didn't match the one they were in and present it to you as scientific comp data showing a pay issue on their behalf....

CEO's on the Cursing, Yelling "Straight Talk" Express - Leaders or Liabilities?

A lot's been written about the rantings of Sam Zell, the real estate billionaire who recently became a media magnate when he bought the Tribune Co.   If you're late to the game about who this guy is or what he's done, here's all you need to know:

1.  Zell became a media tycoon when he bought the Tribune Company, which means he bought a bunch of newspapers and assorted media companies.

2.  Zell went on a straight talk express, where he did a tour of the newspaper newsrooms and tried to shake things up.

3.  Zell's approach includes, a) cursing, b) yelling, c) telling people to stop spending time on being politically correct, and d) challenging a lot of conventional wisdom in the newspapers he owns.

Which begs a question.  Are CEO's and owners who engage in a profane, animated discourse with employees leaders or liabilities?  Is it possible they can be both, with the scales tipping one way or the other based on the overall circumstances before them and facing the companies they manage?

I'm conflicted on when the approach is warranted, although there are certainly industries and workforces that are more open to the message than others.   The rationalization is usually the need for a "sense of urgency".  Is that a good reason?

Take a look at this latest clip (running time - 5 minutes, warning PG-13), where Zell explains his approach to some folks at the Chicago Tribune, and decide for yourself.  If you want more Zell, go to YouTube.  It's not hard to find...

(Hat tip on video to Erik Berggren at Success Factors)

Employee Engagement 101 - Can Frontline Managers Impact Voluntary Turnover?

The answer is obviously yes, but as with many obvious answers.... the question is how?

Especially if you have a wide range of talents and capabilities among your most entry-level supervisors. Which most of us do.  Some managers naturally have the gift that comes with instincts and experience, while others struggle.

So how do you help maximize retention and reduce voluntary turnover with your group of front-line supervisors?

The Workforce Institute recently released a whitepaper with multiple takes on the role of Front-line Managers in retaining hourly workers, including:

• Refusing to accept that there is nothing you can do to improve voluntary turnover;
• Measuring the performance of front-line managers with respect to their management of turnover;
• Ensuring that corporate issued policies and procedures don’t undermine the field manager’s ability to retain staff; and
• Understanding that hourly workers vary in their motivations and needs to work for your organization - the retiree will be engaged by different management practices than the high school student.

It's a good read, so you should take a look.  I'm not sure that there are any "ah-ha" moments, but it's a solid place to start in terms of having the conversation with the groups you support as a HR pro.

Hate to throw out the buzzword here, but reducing voluntary turnover while keeping pay and benefits the same probably comes back to whether you create high levels of engagement within your workforce.

For engagement, I read Zinger and Wright.   One of the things I learned from Tim Wright on engagement was that in the average workforce,  29 percent of employees are engaged in their work, 54 percent are not engaged, and 17 percent are actively disengaged. 

That suggests that one of the best ways for organizations to reduce voluntary turnover is to figure out a way to engage the 54 percent who aren't currently engaged.  Here's the Gallup G12, which lists traits of engaged employees:

• Consistent levels of high performance.
• Natural innovation and drive for efficiency.
• Intentional building of supportive relationships.
• Clear about the desired outcomes of their role.
• Emotionally committed to what they do.
• Challenge purpose to achieve goals.
• High energy and enthusiasm.
• Never run out of things to do, create positive things to act on.
• Broaden what they do and build on it.
• Commitment to company, work group, and role.

Which ones can you impact as a company to help reduce voluntary turnover?  I bolded the ones I thought might be possibilities, through better performance management, communication, etc.

The ones that aren't bolded?  You probably need to figure these out at the point of hire, because they seem difficult to impact once the person is in your workforce....

Dropping Some Science - the Merit Matrix...

Ever had someone ask you for a reasoned explanation of pay for performance and the standard merit matrix?  I think I do a pretty good job of explaning it, but the esteemed Ann Bares of Compensation Force rocks out this topic over at her site.  Check it out and throw the link into a folder.  I guarentee you'll use it in the future.

Ann's nickname - "The Foundation" - she's solid....

I can't resist the tease with a quick chart from Ann's post.  See below and click through....

Lower Turnover Doesn't Equal Employee Engagement...

First up, all you wise guys and gals, don't ask me to define engagement in the comments.  I'm pleading the fifth, then citing the G12 and Zinger and Wright to get you off my freaking back...  It's like art, OK?  I know it when I see it...

Here's something I can talk about - employee turnover.  I've had my share, as has anyone who has lived in the mosh pit called HR.  In a rare upside in a slowing economy, employee turnover usually goes down, which makes sense.  Fewer jobs equals less total opportunity to change gigs, which equates to many of your employees hunkering down and trying to get through the slowdown.

Of course, just because your peeps aren't leaving you doesn't mean they are engaged.  To the contrary, they may be chronically tuned out to what's going on around them, feeling no link to theompany mission, their supervisor, etc.   In short, they aren't that into you, but they're not going to leave.  Add weak performance management to the mix, and you've got a recipe for a stale workplace, stale energy, and most importantly, stale performance.  Blah...

So don't think because people aren't leaving you in droves that they are engaged.  Like Peter Gibbons once said, "it's not that I'm lazy Bob, it's that I just don't care"...

Lose 2.7 Billion, Get a Bonus?

I'm just sayin.... You lose 2.7 Billion and give out bonuses?  From Workforce:

"Ford Motor Co. is paying every U.S.and Canadian employee a $1,000 bonus even though the automaker lost $2.7 billion last year.

In a company wide e-mail to all employees on Wednesday, March 5, CEO Alan Mulally said that although Ford fell short of its sales goals for 2007, the automaker “met or exceeded” its objectives in every other category.

The bonus also will be paid to managers outside the U.S. and Canada. Mulally said the “performance awards” are based on improvements in cost performance, quality, automotive cash flow and financial results."

I know the cash isn't a lot on the individual level but it's a nice gesture.  Still - bonuses when the loss is 2.7 Billion?   From where I come from, we'd be rallying around the barrel for heat, so we could save on the energy bill.

For my Austin Powers peeps out there - that's Billion, not Million.  Perhaps a recap is in order.....  Feedburner or Reader subscribers click through for the video tutorial...

Free Agents or Evildoers? Employees Who Post Their Resumes On Monster...

Your employees love you. Except when they don’t.

Like when you're trolling through a Monster or CareerBuilder resume database and there they freaking are.  They've posted their resume!!   The gall!  The nerve!

What's up with that?  What should you do?  Confront now?  Take two weeks off and quit?

A younger me would have said confront them all.  Man, would I have been wrong.  Good things weren't nearly as digital when I was coming up and trying to be the Clint Eastwood of HR. 

The old me broke this one down at Workforce in a recent column.  Is the resume poster a Free Agent, Reactionary, Disgrunted or Forgetful Analog?   The profile drives whether you confront, poke around quietly or do nothing.  Check out the article to get a vibe for the profiles and which once I would confront. 

PS - Hey Monster, if you want to carve a little revenue out of the candidate side, offer up a $5 per month service to keep the resume of the employee masked to their current employer.  If you pitch it right, that ought to let you squeeze another 100K a month out of the Matrix easy.... 

AC/DC as HR Philosophers - When It Comes to Salary Ranges, Money Talks, BS Walks...

Sometimes the best wisdom is found in AC/DC songs.  For example - If you rock, I'm going to salute you.  That's just the way it is..

Of course, money talks and BS walks.  Especially when it comes to compensation philosophies..

Ann Bares has a nice rundown up focused on the pros and cons of compensation broadbanding.  For those of you who haven't heard of the term before, broadbanding is defined by World at Work as "a pay structure that consolidates a large number of pay grades and salary ranges into much fewer broad bands with relatively wide salary ranges, typically with 100% or more difference between minimum and maximum."

I know - your eyes are glazed over already, right?  Who cares?  Where's the AC/DC clip?

Here's why I wanted to post a reaction.  I've been in one organization where Broadbanding was attempted.  Like cavier and classical music, broadbanding sounds very progressive and high-end, until you try and use it as a HR professional.  Then it all falls apart and you end up "fixing the system" to get the very tools you disposed of.  From Ann's rundown:

"By collapsing a pay structure into fewer, wider salary bands, at least in the "pure" sense of broadbanding, an organization effectively gives up the control point (midpoint) of a traditional salary range.  That is because the broad band does not represent appropriate pay for a job, but rather for an entire class of work (such as "managerial" or "advanced professional").  This is a critical shift to bear in mind because the result is a pay system that is no longer job-based, but rather person-based.  No longer do we set and manage pay opportunity by the level and attributes of a job, but rather by the skill, competency and performance of an individual - within a broader "range" established to represent the value of a broader class of work."

That sounds sweet - until you start to attempt to make value calls on candidates or value individual jobs in an organization.  As Ann points out, you need midpoints and specific ranges for both activities.  If you have an external candidate who is pushing the envelope regarding salary needs, the tradtional range and midpoint (as long as they are based on accurate and current data) give you a feel for what's real, and what's overvalued. 

The same holds true when it comes to valuing jobs in an organization.  As an HR Pro, or a manager running a division, you have to know what the market bears for the specific positions in your organization.  Otherwise you are going to look up in 3 years and have an absolute mess on your hands, with limited mobility for all, because entry points to an organization weren't based on market data.  As a result, you hired a VP of Marketing as a Marketing Rep.  Then the new boss arrived, only to find a subordinate two levels down was making more than her boss, and was uncomfortably close to the VP's.

So give me the standard "rock and roll" over the classical music that is broadbanding.  After all, Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution.

Too Bad You Can't Use the the "Kissing Cam" to Pump Up Employee Engagement..

Getaway weekend for me and the family last weekend, featuring a NBA game on Friday, climbing a big rock on Saturday, and roller coasters on Sunday.  After that type of weekend, you have to come back to work to get some rest.   Takeaways from the weekend for the Capitalist:

1.  They build arenas really strong these days.  We were in Phillips Arena for a Hawks game, and apparently all hell broke lose early in the fourth quarter outside as a tornado hit the Georgia Dome and CNN Center.  I was in between both and didn't even know it was going on until we came outside.  I guess the razor-sharp basketball on display when the Hawks and Clippers get together makes you numb to what's going on around you...

2.  I'm getting old enough that my four-year old handles big roller coasters better than I do.  Seriously, the ones he could qualify for made me feel like I was going to hurl.  No impact to him.  Can the AARP card be far behind?

3.  Employees could be engaged, treaties would be signed, and wars would be avoided, if one promotion used during NBA games could be used in the workplace (or peace talks) - THE KISSING CAM.

The Kissing Cam is an entertainment feature used during various sporting events in which couples, usually one man and one woman - are shown on an arena's JumboTron and then encouraged to kiss by the rabid fan base. 

Here's the great thing about the Kissing Cam.  It brings people together, banding them together through a shared experience of cheering for others and laughing.  Engagement means a lot of things to a lot of people, but feeling like you're tied in to a mission bigger than yourself has to be somewhere in the equation.  Go to an arena, and you'll see 17,000 strangers, who won't get out of the way of each other in the concourse before the game.  Turn on the Kissing Cam, and suddenly they are cheering with each other, laughing and looking at each other to share the experience - engaged with the event and the people around them.

Of course, you can't use the Kissing Cam at your next meeting, or even your next retreat.  You'd lose your job, get sued and might even end up kissing Bob in Accounting as a result. 

So no Kissing Cam for you.  But, could you use video and humor to build the employment brand?  To actually put a little humanity and humor into your next internal communications program/promotion targeting your employees? 

Sure you could.  To give you a flavor, here's my favorite kissing cam segment from the NBA featuring Shaq and D-Wade at the end (from an actual NBA game...)

Neil Diamond and Will Ferrell Love Them Some Casual Dress Code Policy...

It's Friday and I work at a software company.  Is there any doubt I'm in jeans?  If you're in a button-up and wrinkled khakis, don't hate me because I'm casual...

Just do what Neil Diamond and Will Ferrell would do and change your dress code policies - to ALL CASUAL, ALL THE TIME....

Here's a clip to inspire you on casual Friday (readers and email subscribers - click on the title of the post to get the video)...

Is Ferrell hilarious or what? I wish I would have had this clip when we moved to the policy of wearing jeans anytime you want.  I guess there's still time to make it part of the employment brand...

The War For Talent is Zip-Code Specific... But the Goal is to be on the Front Lines...

A loyal reader of the Capitalist emailed me, over the weekend, with a link to an article in the New York Times, entitled "Is a Lean Economy Turning Mean?".   The primary take of the article is that the economy is in the tank, and lots of people are getting hurt.  That's true for some, but not for all.  Here's the vibe from the NYT:

"Across the nation, the labor market has been deteriorating. Many companies, long reluctant to add workers, are hunkered down and waiting for improved prospects, engaged in what Ed McKelvey, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs, calls “a hiring strike.” Americans with jobs are taking cuts to their work hours; those without jobs are staying out of work longer, or accepting positions that pay far less than they earned previously.

In many communities, dreams of upward mobility are yielding to despair and the grim realization that the economy — not strong for less-educated workers even when it was growing — may now be shrinking, making it tougher than ever to find a job."

That perspective is on the money for some, but not for all.

Here's the tough thing about the labor market.  It used to be enough to have education, skills and experience.  Now you need all of those things, plus you need to be mobile/relocatable to go where the jobs are. 

Take a look at the map below, from the NYT, at Northeast Missouri, which is where I grew up.  Lots of smart kids from my hometown of 2,000 (that's right, I didn't even have a stoplight where I grew up, and it took an hour to get to the nearest McDonald's), but not a job to be found for a new college graduate.  The result?  Not many people in my generation, who grew up there, continue to live there. 

The map shows the reality - if you are a manufacturing worker or a service sector worker and the jobs go away where you live, you have to move to stay even financially.  If you are locked down by family, by the love of where you live, etc., there's a high likelihood you may have to take less to stay put. 

That stinks.  Coach the people you know, in the yellow areas below, not to stand still in terms of building their knowledge, skills and abilities.  The only way to remain whole over the next ten years, if you live in an area with negative job growth, is to be the best at what you do, have flexible skills, and if necessary - be willing to move.

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...

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....

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.

Communicating Acquisitions to Employees - Microsoft/Ballmer Style...

One thing we don't get enough of is public copies of internal memos from companies who are either the hunter or the hunted in acquisition activity.  Late last week, TechCrunch posted an email to all Microsoft employees from Steve Ballmer, in which the Microsoft CEO communicates the bid for Yahoo by Microsoft and lays out the rationale to his employees.

In reading it, I thought it was nicely done.  Ballmer lays out the rationale for the bid (online ads are booming and will continue to do so), tips his hat to the work already being done in the space in Microsoft (gotta tell the current employees you love them), and even predicts a soft landing for any Yahooligan that might be concerned about culture shock when and if they join the army in Redmond (nice proactive pitch to the hunted from a retention perspective).

All in all, a good message hitting all the major points you would expect.  The message is also reinforced by the video webcasts being offered at the end of the email, just in case you need to hear the generals talk - a good media mix.

Take a look at the memo below and judge for yourself...

PS - I would love to see any internal communications that are being used at Yahoo, so if you are a Yahoo employee, hit me offline at hrcapitalist@gmail.com.

__________________________________________________________________

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008
To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: Proposed Acquisition of Yahoo!

Today, I am very excited to announce that Microsoft has made a proposal to acquire Yahoo!. This announcement represents a big opportunity for Microsoft, and is the next major milestone in our companywide transformation to embrace online services, search, and advertising.

By combining the strengths of our companies, we can deliver an efficient and highly competitive offering for our customers. Our complementary assets will give us increased talent and scale to compete in the markets of search and online advertising, and pioneer new innovations in the areas of video, mobile services, online commerce, and social media.

This year, online advertising is a $40 billion business. It will grow to $80 billion by 2010 and will continue to increase in the years beyond. This market provides a significant growth opportunity for Microsoft—our ability to provide the best search and online experiences for consumers, and the best ad platform for publishers and advertisers, is the key to unlocking this opportunity.

We are on a good path with our existing search and advertising product roadmaps. To date, we have made progress in our organic online services and advertising efforts, and by joining with Yahoo!, we will take the next step toward becoming a major search destination and social platform for consumers. The combined reach of our content properties and combined breadth of our tools for advertisers will enable us to provide an online advertising platform at scale. Together, we’ll create a company that is in a much better position to compete against an increasingly dominant player in this market.

Through our recent acquisitions of aQuantive and Tellme, we understand what it takes to successfully integrate new talent, assets, and infrastructure into our company. Leaders from both Microsoft and Yahoo! will work together closely on the integration process to ensure that we are thoughtful about the questions we ask and the decisions we make. As we move forward, we’ll look carefully at how to bring our assets together to create the greatest value for customers, employees, and shareholders.

During this transition period, I urge you to stay focused on your commitments and team goals. We are committed to communicating with you frequently as our leadership team works on bringing the two companies together.

As I outlined in my quarterly strategy email last week, we grow by anticipating new areas where software has the greatest potential to create opportunities. The proposed acquisition of Yahoo! will transform our ability to compete as new opportunities in online services, search, and advertising emerge.

I am very excited about today’s announcement and about the collective talent and energy we will bring to the industry. A great opportunity is in front of us to evolve how people and businesses create, find, and use information. Through today’s proposed acquisition, we can take our business to new levels of success and growth.

Kevin Johnson, Chris Liddell, Ray Ozzie and I will host an employee web cast that can be viewed live beginning at 10:00am PST and will also be available on-demand. You can link to the web cast at http://msw/NewsEvents/StudioCasts/Pages/conferences.aspx

Steve

Why Bashing Hillary or Huckabee is Bad Business for Managers....

I was on the road last week and had the time/location to catch up with a couple of former co-workers.  While politics didn't drive the conversation, we talked for a few minutes regarding the ongoing presidential primaries as part of the banter.  On the flight back home, I was struck by the fact I hadn't had a meaningful conversation on politics, within my workplace, since the primaries began.

I guess that means my HR DNA, to avoid all topics divisive to the workplace, is functioning correctly...

Robert Cenek of the Cenek Report checked in last weekend with a similar post entitled "Political Banter in the Workplace", where he throws out some statistics on the wisdom (or lack thereof) in managers talking politics with their direct reports:

"According to a survey by Vault.com, 35% of bosses openly share their political views with employees, and 9% of workers feel pressure to conform to the boss’ views. Regarding co-workers, 30% of respondents said that a co-worker has tried to influence their choice in an election.

An article appearing at Associated Content reported that 53% of those surveyed believed that politics should never be discussed in the workplace. These results seem to reflect the conventional wisdom that discussions about religion and politics should be off limits during the workday."

To be sure, conversations about religion, politics, race and other sensitive topics are going to happen in the workplace.  The workplace imitates life, so that's just the way it is.

Employees talking to other employees about politics?  Cool, as long as you know that it's a polarizing topic.

The catch comes when those with authority over others begin to flex their opinion muscle as part of their daily banter.  HR people?  Probably need to stay away from polarizing topics, which basically covers any opinion you can have in these areas.    Pick a camp on any of these issues and publicize it, and some folks cease to view you as approachable.  At the end of the day, being approachable by all is a big part of the job.

The same holds true for supervisors.  Pitch a political point of view that your direct reports disagree with, and a change in chemistry is likely to occur.   Let's say 9% of your direct reports feel pressure to conform to your point of view.  That's fine.  What about the other 91%?  They could think that you are 1) wrong, 2) attempting to use your position to influence them (without feeling pressure to conform), 3) telling them in your own way that they don't have a clue, or 4) <insert your own negative outcome here>.

Of course, you could bond with some as a result.  But the negative outweighs the positive in most situations....