Dateline - Any workplace in the U.S. with a HR Department
Topic - Can HR people have good friends in the workplace?
Capitalist Conclusion - You should be able to, but it is tough.  Proceed at your own risk...

If you've worked in a HR position at the same company for more than 3 years and opted to have a normal set of good friends in the workplace (the kind you are repeatedly seen at lunch with), you fall into one of three categories:

1.  You've felt the sting of a co-worker friend ask for, or allude to, confidential information in their day-to day conversations with you (testing..1..2..3..).

2.  You've felt the sharper sting of co-worker friends a) attributing confidential information they share with others to you, or b) sharing confidential info and having the recipients of that information assuming they got it from you, since the co-worker in question is widely believed to be your best friend (just as dangerous).  PS - you may not know this is occurring as in 2b...

3.  Employees outside your circle of friends have a lower probability of coming to you with concerns or items they need your help on, either because they don't like one or all of your workplace friends, or they feel out of the loop.   You won't likely know this one is occurring either...

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.  If you don't have friends in the workplace, you don't get what you need socially from work and you may be considered aloof and unapproachable.  If you do have friends in the workplace, you can get scorched worse than Fire Marshall Bill (pictured above) by the rumors and undercurrent of alleged favoritism in the organization (the Fire Marshall Bill skit would go like this - "let's just say...you're a HR Manager with friends who like to gossip.. You go to lunch and let it all hang out about Tommy in accounting, and BAM!!! Destruction!!)

So what's the best solution for you, the HR Pro?  Take care of yourself, but take care of your reputation.  Have a small group of workplace friends that you can trust, and treat their reputations as seriously as you do your own.  Let them know your concerns and expectations.  If an employee outside of that circle comes to you with an issue, give them 2x the service and urgency you would give to your friends, to show you're above and beyond reproach.  And if your friends violate the trust, eliminate the visible affiliation with them in the workplace.

I know, I know, it shouldn't have to be like that.  But it is.  HR people have access to a lot of data, and as a result, you're held to a higher standard.  Welcome to your personal version of Employee Relations.  The goal?  To advance your career without looking like Fire Marshall Bill after a chemical explosion... 

My latest article is up at Workforce.com, entitled "7 Ways to Reduce Benefit Costs Without Decreasing Coverage", so go out and take a look if you have a chance.  Here's the intro:

"By now you’ve read the latest yin and yang of benefits news. Health care premium increases rose at their lowest rate in eight years. But the increase is still more than 6 percent, and that’s still more than twice the rate of inflation. It far exceeds the average annual increase (3.6 percent) for employees in the U.S.

With that data in mind, the reality remains the same. Your benefit cost structure is increasing, and it remains difficult to shift some, much less all, of the increasing costs to employees. The crunch continues, and you’re in the middle. Your CEO is looking to you, the HR pro, to squeeze dollars out of the overall plan structure without causing a riot. So much so that she walks into your office and asks the following question:

"You follow these things: What can we do to reduce our benefit costs without dropping coverage levels significantly or increasing employee contributions?"

Yikes! That’s a credibility call for HR—an opportunity to be at the table. Or to clean the table after the meeting if you don’t have a meaningful response."

Click over to get my cliff notes for the top seven strategies to drop benefit costs without decreasing coverage.  Let me know ideas I've missed as well...

There are lots of opportunities out there, my young jedi.  All you have to do is sell out to the dark side...

A couple of days ago, I riffed on the single worst example of human behavior I had witnessed as a HR professional.  The winner?  Some dude who was faking funeral programs on fictional deaths in his family to get a couple of extra days off from a call center.    That's just wrong...

So that guy got fired, which is what you would expect..

What you wouldn't expect is that he might be cashing in on his brainstorm via a web business called the Excused Absence Network, which, for about $25, provides students and employees excuse notes that appear to come from doctors or hospitals. Other options include a fake jury summons or an authentic-looking funeral service program complete with comforting poems and a list of pallbearers. 

My former employee seems to have landed on his feet.  From a CNN report:

"Millions of Americans work dead-end job, and sometimes they just need a day off," said John Liddell, co-founder of the Internet-based company Vision Matters, which sells the notes as part of its Excused Absence Network. "People are going to lie anyway. How many people go visit their doctors every day when they're not sick because they just need a note?"

The company's customers receive templates so they can print the notes after typing the name and address of a local doctor or emergency room. Those who choose jury duty as an excuse to miss work enter their county courthouse information on the form.

Though the company's disclaimer advises the notes are "for entertainment purposes only," its Web site shows pictures of people sunbathing and playing golf using the fabricated excuses. One testimonial says: "I've managed to take the nine weeks off using these templates! It couldn't be any easier!"

Actually, for one New Jersey woman it wasn't so easy. She was arrested this year after using one of the company's notes to support her claim she was too injured to appear in traffic court for a speeding ticket. She was caught after court officials called the chiropractor listed and he told them he never heard of the woman."

The founder started the business for $300 and currently runs it off a laptop in a small Oklahoma town.  The site gets about 15,000 hits a month.

Somewhere out there, a HR Manager who subscribes to the Capitalist has just turned to the dark side as they were reading this.  Like Darth Vader, they've thought up a money making idea, but one that uses their powers for bad, not good.

Resume' doctoring and fake absence notes are taken.  What's next?  Maybe fully-faked employer references that reverse engineer the background check process?

(hat tip to Capitalist reader Scott for the link...)

...if you're a guy.  Not many females playing that I can see.  Workforce recently ran an article that focused on the down side of fantasy sports leagues in the workplace (guys going over the top, resulting in solidifying cliques and confrontations).  Can't say that I've seen that in our workplace NFL league, as it's provided a unified topic for those who participate, without the negative aspect highlighted by Workforce. 

If I could change anything, it would be to level out the gender participation (way more males than females), but finding females who want to act like a pro sports GM, via ESPN on the web, is rare indeed.

So, I'll take what I can get, and keep the good times rolling with the guys.  Our NFL fantasy league at work is half over.  This week, we start a NBA fantasy league.

The participants claimed that the "smack talk" feature on Yahoo Sports NBA was weak.  So what did I do?  I created a blog for the league complete with chat and comment features at the top of the page so the good-natured smack talk could roll.

Plus, having a blog for the NBA league means I can take full advantage of YouTube.  First up?  This classic commercial series, from Fox Sports, from a couple of years ago, featuring a couple of Vanilla Ice/Eminem wannabees. 

Classic....

A couple of days ago I featured the 2008 Towers Perrin Annual Health Care Cost Survey, which summarized that next year's gross health care expenditure is expected to rise by an average of $577 per employee, to an average total cost of $9,312 per employee.

Here's a nugget buried towards the bottom of that report.  The TP survey divided respondents in its annual health care cost database into three categories -- low-performing, average-performing and high-performing companies. Performance designations were based on relative costs and cost increases, as well as whether an organization is meeting its health benefit objectives in such areas as efficient purchasing, employee engagement and managing health risks in the employee population.

Here's the TP findings related to high performers and low performers:

"Among high performers, 45% have cost increases of 5% or less -- evidence, in Towers Perrin’s view, that active management of program performance is an exercise in the “art of  the possible,” and an increasingly urgent mandate for companies still experiencing double-digit growth rates. The cost spreads between high-performing companies and low performers can be significant and can have a tremendous impact on an organization’s profits and positioning in the marketplace. And if left unchecked over a number of years, the competitive differential can become a significant business threat to the organization.

Here's what the TP report identified as behaviors separating the high performers from the low performers:

"Commitment to employees -- High-performing companies are highly committed to employees -- supporting employees’ ability to make sound health care decisions, taking steps to motivate employees to manage their health care purchases responsibly, and working to manage health risks and conditions in the employee population overall.

Managing by measuring --  High performers are far more rigorous than low performers in developing and documenting their health care strategies. They also manage by fact. For example, the vast majority of high-performing companies conduct extensive measurement of program costs versus less than half of the low-performing group.

Ensuring critical success factors are in place -- While the 2008 data show that all companies are doing more than ever to ensure that critical success factors -- such as senior leadership involvement, support from managers and supervisors, and disciplined execution processes -- are in place, high-performing companies are much more committed to these program pillars.

Increasing accountability -- High-performing companies design their programs to make the true costs of care visible to employees, and hold them accountable for the decisions they make at the point of care, using, for example, coinsurance rather than copays to share costs with employees

Engaging employees -- High-performing companies require employees to be more accountable for their decisions, and take steps to help employees do that by expanding communication initiatives and providing a variety of tools and resources to support employee awareness, understanding and action.

Building a culture of health -- High performers are much more likely to say they’re committed to building a culture of health in their organizations and to report that their employee education efforts are succeeding. For example, a strong majority of the high performers say employees accept their roles and responsibilities under their health plan, are comfortable with the level of risk under the plan, and understand and use decision support tools."

So those are drivers that allow companies with the lowest heathcare burden to keep costs down.  It's a good list, and I need to dig in a little bit more to ensure we are doing everything we can at our company.

Only one thing bothers me.  Look at the graph above.  The companies with the good cost structures have a cost per employee that is 20% cheaper than the high cost companies.  Yet on average, the annual cost increases of the low performers is 7%, vs. 5% for the high performers.

Is it possible the companies with the lower cost structure just have healthier employees?  Average age, blue collar vs. white collar, geography, etc. all come into play. 

The truth, as it always does, probably lies somewhere in the middle.  The factors above are things we should all pursue, but at the end of the day, the overall health of the employee base is what it is.  That takes years to change...

Face it.  You've had one of those weeks, one of those days, or one of those mornings.  You don't want to talk to people.  It's OK, that makes you human...  Sometimes people aren't the best choice to hang out with.

But don't start the day avoiding the faces you know (if not love) by evading elevator time with others at work.  Here's a chronology I got one morning this week in the walk from the parking lot to the building, then to the elevator.  Bad karma.  Check and see if this is anyone you know:

1.  I park.  Jim (not the real name) has already parked and is 20 seconds ahead of me walking up to the building from another area of the parking lot.  Jim looks intense/troubled/slightly anti-social in his body language.

2.  As I am walking up to the building, I don't give it the old "Hi Jim!" from 30 yards out since he looks peeved.  My first thought - "Let's give Jim some space and not do the fake pleasantries".  After all, he'll have to force some small talk out in the elevator (we're on the 3rd and 4th floor of our building) in close quarters.  I don't want him to peak to soon, because nothing's worse than uncomfortable silence in the elevator.  I'm all about taking care of Jim at this point.

3.  Jim sees me out of the corner of his eye and decides to turn the corner to the building doors without saying "Hi Kris!".  That's cool - he's probably doing me the solid of allowing me to save my best stuff for the elevator as well.  Nice.  What am I going to ring up with him in the elevator?  Weather?  Kids?  Red Sox?  Who knows - I'll figure it out in the next 40 yards.  I'm best under pressure...

4.  Jim enters the building.  Through the glass windows as I walk up, I see Jim punch the button for the elevator, then get really close to the doors to make it come quicker.  Can an elevator be willed to come sooner than the national average?  Some would say no, Jim says "yes".  A battle of wills ensues as I make my way to the doors.  At stake?  Jim's ability to ride the trolley up solo, without having to deal with me being all chipper and engaging.

5.  I come through the doors.  I can't see Jim at the elevators since he's locked in the battle of wills, but suffice it to say there's only a 5% probability he's riding the box without me on his shoulder, making small talk.  I've decided to talk about the Democratic presidential hopefuls, just to take Jim's heart rate up a few.  Always thinking about wellness and aerobic health.

6.  I turn the corner and NEWMAN!!  No Jim.  Up button to the elevator still illuminated, with Jim nowhere to be found.  I hear the door to the stairs slam shut.  Jim's decided that climbing the stairs is better than making small talk.  That's 60 small steps for Jim, hopefully a lifestyle change for mankind and wellness.

Could it have been me?  Surely not.  Well, maybe.  More than likely, Jim didn't want to make small talk with anyone, espeically those voted most likely to tweak him on topics where his views are polarized and he's easily agitated. 

So here's my new parking lot/elevator rule for decency.  No eye contact or small talk required when separated by more than 20 yards in the parking lot, however, you have to the take the elevator when you've been spotted.

Especially when you've already pushed the button.  Have you no shame?  Do I have to send the guys from a martial arts movie, pictured in the elevator photo above, to straighten this out?

But as I make the rule, I give the olive branch - Dude, we've all been there..  Honk if you've ever avoided human interaction at work...   

By now, you know that the Yankees are out of the playoffs, and Joe Torre is out as their manager.  Torre said no to a one-year extension that guaranteed him less ($5 million versus the $6.4 million in 2007), but an opportunity to make $8 million overall, if he led the team to the World Series next year.   He called the $3 million in bonus incentives “an insult.”

Pay for Performance sure can suck from an employee's point of view, especially when "the man" is trying to down your base and dangle an increased total comp target at you..

Here's the best analysis - first from John Hollon at Workforce:

"Pay-for-performance plans only work when someone is both motivated to perform by the amount of the performance bonus and believes that the performance plan is constructed in a way that is both fair and achievable. But as a Harvard Business School report stated back in 2003, commitment and company culture are also variables that enter into the mix. Pay for performance doesn’t work as well in a company culture that places more emphasis on building “commitment rather than on monetary incentives.”

Joe Torre seemed to make this same point Friday when he said: “If somebody wanted me to manage here, I’d be managing here. That’s my feeling. Yes, it was a very generous offer, no question about it. It still wasn’t the type of commitment that we’re trying to do something together as opposed to what can you do for me. … It’s not the money that’s going to be the determining factor. It’s the commitment and trust. You can’t have one without the other.”

Pay for performance versus commitment and trust—does one exclude the other? Joe Torre thought yes, while the Yankees’ management thought no. There may not be a right answer here, but one thing is certain: Torre’s decision will fuel more discussion on how compensation systems can be better designed to get both workers and managers to work and sacrifice together to achieve a common goal."

Next up - Jack and Suzy Welch at BusinessWeek:

"We agree that Joe Torre is a star: Who else can claim four World Series rings and 12 straight post-season appearances? He also happens to be a high-integrity, good-hearted, first-class human being, deserving of all the admiration he receives.

But did the Yankees stick him with a raw deal? No way. A very reasonable deal is more like it. The offer accurately reflected the marketplace; with a $5 million base salary, Torre would still be the highest-paid manager in baseball. And with a $1 million bonus for every playoff series won, it reflected the ownership's priorities. If the Yankees won the World Series in 2008, Joe Torre stood to receive an $8 million payday, more than any other manager by a factor of two.

Sure, you can debate the Yankees' choice of performance metrics, given the role luck seems to play in a short play-off series. But in the cold light of day, you really cannot call the Torre deal any of the epithets it inspired, from "raw" to "insulting" to "cruel."

Most of the public outcry in favor of Torre is based on the reputation of George Steinbrenner and the perceived high integrity level of Torre.  Put both of those to the side, and it's obvious this was a fair deal, one with a base that remained the highest in baseball, close to the previous base, and gave him an at-risk opportunity to earn more than 2M more than he did in 2007.

Pay for performance sounds great (to Hollon's point), but it's tough to get employees to accept.  Especially when you are reducing base pay in any way.

Would you take a 10% cut in base pay for a shot to earn up to 25% more in total comp?  That's the question you have to ask yourself to put it in a personal context...  Would you do it if your team had unlimited resources and could spend more than 3X than most of your competitors?  Hmm.....

I'm a NBA fan, so it's no surprise that I read Henry Abbott over at True Hoop, a blog that was recently acquired by ESPN.  Henry does a great job at weaving what's going on in society into the daily grind of the NBA, and was one of the people who inspired me to take a shot at a similar mission with The HR Capitalist.  NBA/HR, it's all about dollars and bling in our field as well.. :)

Last week, Henry reminded me about a book entitled The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, authored by Carol Pearson.  The book's content will seem familiar to those of you sipping the Myers-Briggs kool-aid (myself included), as it breaks down six "types" that lurk in all of us, with dominant traits emerging and defining who we are and how we handle the world. 

Henry's recent post focused on two of those types - the Warrior and the Wanderer (I dubbed it Continuous Learner above), and he wondered aloud if you can be a Wanderer/Continuous Learner in the shark-infested NBA and emerge with a championship.  His target for the analysis?  The super-skilled, super-nice and super-diverse Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks.  From the True Hoop breakdown:

"One archetype is the wanderer. The wanderer, essentially, seeks new experiences, trying on some level to figure out what's different about him or her from everything else going on. The wanderer, as you can imagine, is an open-minded learner.

Another archetype is the warrior. Whereas the wanderer walks into a room and says "hmm ... what's going on here, and is there a place for me?" the warrior walks into a room and says "let's rearrange this joint." It's about realizing there's something different about yourself, and remaking the world in your image. This is single-minded.

I was learning about this when Michael Jordan was a young NBA player. People were talking about Jordan "imposing his will on the game." Think about the many anecdotes of Jordan telling his teammates, essentially, to be more like him. Warrior. Straight warrior.

And ... not so much of a wanderer. Jordan cast a famously narrow net in search of expertise -- Tim Grover, David Falk, Phil Jackson, people Jordan knew in high school or at college. (Hiring from a narrow pool of friends is one of his weaknesses as an executive in Charlotte.)

One of my favorite Jordan stories is about the fact that when he was getting to know Abe and Irene Pollin, who were courting him to become part of the Wizards' organization, they served him salmon. He had spent decades in the finest restaurants in the world, and had even owned restaurants. Yet, reportedly, this meeting in January 2000 was the first time Michael Jordan ever ate salmon.

Single-minded warrior, check. Wanderer? Not really.

Now, compare that to Dirk Nowitzki, who just spent a good chunk of the summer literally wandering remote Australia. Here is Nowitzki, interviewed on NBA.com, preaching the gospel of new experience:

Best piece of basketball advice you received was...
It wasn't really basketball advice, but just keep your eyes and ears open, always learn. It is a good lesson for life too. You always want to improve. You can never think you learned it all in life. There is always something else coming. That is the same with basketball. You can always work on your game and be a better player and person.

Later in the same interview, Nowitzki talks about his parents (don't we all wish we had these parents?) who essentially encouraged him to wander.

How proud is your family that you made it to the NBA?
You can't really describe it. My whole family is my biggest fans. I could go 0-20 one night and my mom will still call me and be like "hey you did this and this good." They supported me from day one. They drove me around to practices all over when I played tennis, handball. They let me make my own decision. I was pretty decent in tennis and handball. When I said I wanted to stop, they didn't say a word, they said "hey it is whatever you want to do." Then I started playing basketball. They drove me to basketball practice, to the games. So they have been really supportive of my sport career. They come over here every year for like two or three weeks and they love to be here, love to see me play. With the National Team in the summer, they travel wherever I go and try to watch. I grew up in a very close family and it has been great.

As I recall, Pearson suggests success comes from balancing these and other archetypes in your own life. I suspect that's good advice. (I also suspect that you do best in life by playing the cards you are dealt. It's not like Nowitzki could or should just decide to become brutal.)

But in the particular and bizarre game known as being a basketball superhero -- and here being a team leader may differ from being a supporting player -- I am quite certain that rules of the game are tilted heavily in favor of warriors.

And that's where I can't help thinking back to how Dallas was booted from the playoffs in the first round of the playoffs earlier this year. No, it wasn't all Dirk Nowitzki's fault. Yes, Golden State (irony alert, they're called "the Warriors!") was inspired.

But when I was watching those games on TV, I feel like I could see Dirk Nowitzki saying to the Warriors: What are you going to give me? I have this move and that move and this other one, and I'll use whichever one you will let me use. And the Warriors essentially replied that he couldn't have any of those."

That's a golden performance management breakdown.  Two highly skilled, hall of fame players, but one will be remembered as the best of all time, and one will be remembered as a hall of famer - more than likely a hall of famer without a championship ring.

At the end of the day, finding the right candidate is all about motivational fit.  Your company, the available position, the market conditions - none of that is really subject to change to fit the candidate.  The candidate has to be the right emotional, motivational and type fit for the role.  If they aren't, then you'll likely feel like you missed in the hiring process later, if you decide to bring them aboard.

Which begs the question - why wouldn't the Mavericks trade Dirk straight up for Kobe right now, especially given the inflexible job requirements of a franchise player in the NBA?

So, when you're filling that customer service or sales role, ask these two questions.  And think about whether your open spot requires a warrior or a wanderer....

I always celebrate the TP Annual Health Care Cost Survey by going down to Circuit City to buy a new pocket protector.  Seems like no one is around to help me these days, but if someone is available, they haven't worked there long.  Go figure...

I jest, but the Towers Perrin Annuall Health Care Cost Survey (I'm calling it the TPAHCCS for short.. kinda like TPS reports) is always chock full of benchmarks that matter.  How much healthcare costs, what companies are paying on average on behalf of their employees, how much the same level of coverage is expected to increase in the next year, etc.    Good stuff, good times.  Let's dig in with these highlights:

--In flat dollar terms, next year's gross health care expenditure is expected to rise by an average of $577 per employee, to an average total cost of $9,312.

--Employers are expecting to subsidize 78% of next year's premium costs, and employees will have to cover the remaining 22%, plus usage-based copays, deductibles and co-insurance.

--Employee contributions, on average, will jump by $156 per employee per year to $2,040, an 8% increase that is roughly more than twice that of annual employee merit increases. The combined effect is that over the last five years, out-of-pocket costs for employees have essentially doubled, a clear indication of how pronounced the affordability issue remains, particularly for low-wage workers.

-Analyzing the data by coverage level, the average reported 2008 cost of medical coverage for active-employee-only coverage is $4,704 per year ($392 monthly), $9,660 per year for employee-plus-one-dependent coverage ($805 monthly) and $13,704 per year ($1,142 monthly) for family coverage.

So compare and contrast my friends, and sleep tight knowing you are doing what you can to keep coverage affordable for your employees.  Even if it means taking tough medicine like mandatory mail order, etc.   Sometimes you have to roll like that, to keep the benefit levels for all, where they are...

Kobe Bryant lets the world know how he is feeling through the media.  There's even a cool Kobe Advisory System in the LA Times to help you know his mood.   Guess what?  Facebook can provide the same details about how your employees feel!

I've been digging into Facebook lately to evaluate it as an alternative communication platform to employees.  The goal?  To use a social networking platform as a means to serve employees.  At this point, I would include all the normal platforms (email, landline, cell, face-to-face) as well as some 2.0 technologies (blogs, text-messaging, IM) as methods we employ to serve and communicate to employees.

Pure social networking (Facebook) seems like the next step.  After all, got to go where the kids are and get straight on the technology, right?   After digging in, there's just this one little problem...

Employees can be WAY too candid about how they are feeling about their job, their co-workers, and even their boss on a social networking site like Facebook.   One of the features in Facebook is "Status Stories", which shows up in the user's main profile window called "My Feed".  Lots of Facebook users use Status Stories to tell the world how they feel on a given day, about light and serious issues alike.  The result is a self-reported chronology of the trivial, conversational and serious alike.  While I can't provide an actual thread, here's a hypothetical sample from an employee I'll call "Robbie":

-October 19 - Robbie just ended a bad relationship
-October 18 - Robbie thinks his manager is a #$@#
-October 17 - Robbie saw his manager looking in a lustful way at a female in the office
-October 16 - Robbie thinks his monitor smells like tuna

Nice... So work with me on this one.  You've made the decision to dip into social networking as part of your drive to become 2.0 and connect with employees, and this is how you are rewarded?  Now you've got to figure out your legal obligation to investigate the Status Stories included on the feed once you've seen them.   Imagine approaching John to tell him you checked him out on Facebook, and you would like to inquire more about the lustful looks from the manager...ugh...

Which indicates it may be better to let the dust settle a bit on the Social Networking sites until you can avoid that type of information.  Maybe someone will use the open development architecture on Facebook to develop an Employee Advisory System, which will give you a dashboard on how employees are feeling, similar to the graphic of Kobe above.  All without having to dig into individual profiles.  Now that would be sweet!!!!