Admit it - if you're a reader of this blog, you'd love to know what the turnover at KrisDunn.com is.  If that company existed, that is.  You'd see the number, get to gossip a bit about it, wag the proverbial finger a bit, etc.

Good news - that company does exist - kind of.  I got an email from LinkedIn that included the picture below and the startling assessment that my network has 18% turnover.  Take a look and let's talk after the jump: (email subs click "display pictures" to see the graphic)

I know what you're saying - It's a handsome group.  If this were my company (2 of the people in this montage actually work for my company), you'd be worried that the hiring powers at KrisDunn.com naturally sway to the "hire good looking people" thing.  Or maybe good looking people are the only ones that update their LinkedIn profile with a picture.  It's also a diverse group, as evidenced by the guy channelling U2's Bono with the shaded glasses in the biggest pic at the bottom of the montage.

To be fair, not all of these people switched companies. With that in mind, I'll estimate the actual annualized turnover in the Kris Dunn network at 10%.  Which means my network is a cocoon of sorts, immune to the craziness of the world.  Stable. Dependable.

Playing it close to the vest.

You people are living the suburban dream.  Risk adverse, the inhabitants of krisdunn.com long for the job security of the 90's, and are keeping their head down, lest "the man" see them with too much time on their hands and wondering what "you would say you do here?"

What's the right number for annualized turnover (people switching companies) in your network?

20%?  30%?  

I'm looking to do what I can in 2013 for raise my network's annualized turnover.  It's healthier for everyone when it's approaching 30%.

Change is good.  Safe sucks.  Your kids and cats gotta eat... 

I'm on record as having a game plan for helping your company become a Great Place to Work.  See that Kinetix whitepaper here.

It's a PR game you have to play and the first part is easy if you have the means (Ferris Bueller reference for those of you who track these things) - you have to buy attention.  Write a check.

One of the easy ways to buy attention that stacks up towards a GPTW award is to give more vacation time then reasonable companies are inclined to provide.  That leads to big vacation packages, the no set vacation package (take it when you want it!) and all the other flavors that you've seen toward the GPTW goal, wished you could give, then gradually grew to hate because you work at a standard place that can't buy GPTW attention (or decides not to).

But one vacation policy recently caught my eye - a week off ever quarter in addition to the company's standard vacation policies at a startup called Quirky.  Notes from the CEO of Quirky:

"We’ve found that our cadence as a business is very centered around 90 day sprints. Retail seems to have 4 major seasons, our best products seem to be baked in 90 day time frames, the longest we can lock in tactical plans without completely guessing as to what products we will be talking about/investing in is quarterly.

Pressure slowly builds throughout these 90 day periods, culminating in an extremely stressful and magically productive final 2-3 weeks of a calendar quarter. It’s been this way for 3 years.

Historically, we’ve jumped right back into it. But beginning in 2013, the first week of every new calendar quarter will be lights out.

We are going to shut down the entire machine for 4 weeks next year. Instead of running for 52, it will run for 48.

This is a full, mandatory shutdown of all internal activities. Lights out. Deep breath.

Time for us to explore other creative interests. Relax without worrying about what we’re missing. Time for us to get our head back into the game. For some of us, time for us to clean our apartments, see the dentist, and buy a new pair of kicks."

I know. You hate it. "I got your kicks right here" is what you are saying. I hate these guys and gals too. For being small. For being edgy. Most of all for doing sh#t that puts pressure on everybody else.

But here's the thing.  This one actually makes sense. They're doing the smart business thing for their type of business.  

Software development shops run in what are known as sprints. The product team decides what's going into the next release, and the development team literally "sprints" across a defined period to get the roadmap features built. In shops like these, it's more than a 40-50 hour week to get it done - for the entire sprint period.

Shutting down at the end of the clearly defined sprint period is actually pretty smart and innovative.

So why I'd love to scream, "GIMMICK" from the top of my building like so many other countless vacation policies that are chasing the Great Place to Work designation, I can't on this one.

Shutting down once a quarter actually makes sense for a software development shop.

I highly recommend it if you have the means. (FBR)

See below - stay thirsty my friends...

iPad revenue about to overtake total revenue at Dell. Film at 11am.

No more writing necessary today. The slide says it all.***

***Dude: You may not be getting a Dell.  

My friend Laurie had an interesting post up earlier this week over at The Cynical Girl about Job Boards.  So good that I'm copying her writing in the next paragraph to intro this post:

"Every year, Gerry Crispin releases something called The Source of Hire report. His study shows us how companies find their employees. While the sample size is limited, it’s the best report in the industry. And Gerry basically tells us that people get jobs in three ways:referrals, online career websites and job boards."

Gerry is the master. Laurie goes on to say that the Source of Hire report shows that Monster (and I think CareerBuilder falls into the same category) is still a very viable way to find a job.  She's right.

But - when I looked at the charts provided by Gerry's source of hire report, I saw something that I had been feeling, but hadn't seen in data yet.

Indeed.com has overtaken the Big Job Boards as a destination of choice for job seekers.  Look at the following screen shot from Gerry's Source of Hire report (all of which is available via SlideShare here):

Interesting, right?  Indeed.com has reached and even eclipsed the reach of the big job boards.  It matches what we're seeing at Kinetix in terms of referral traffic, and in a recent search I did for a VP of HR, almost every direct apply candidate of note came from Indeed.  So if you don't speak the pay per click language of Indeed.com, you need to find out more about how that works.

Other interesting things: Indeed looks to have won the aggregator war with Simply Hired, which has got to be a traffic issue when comparing the sites.  Also notable - DICE is obviously the source of choice when you need a job board for tech talent, as evidenced by 58% of the companies surveyed saying they get 1-10% of their job board hires from the source. 

Check out all of Gerry's Source of Hire report here, fellow Capitalists.

I was on the road late in 2012 and met an old friend who had called me back in the day when some bad stuff was happening at his place of work, specifically to him.  Hadn't talked to him for 3-4 years since that time, and while I remembered talking, being supportive and helping him figure out what to do, he had a perfect memory of what I said.

He clung to one thing specifically that I said in his time of need.  That quote?  "Whatever happens with this situation is not going to define you."

That's what he remembered, clear as day.  It mattered to him that someone said that and focused him on the good stuff to come.  

Flash forward to this week. Some people I like a lot professionally got impacted by a change. They're worried about their career, and what people might think.  My help wasn't as profound as what I gave the previous friend.

This time I said they needed Jay-Z. Or, to be more specific, music in general. Baseball players have music they choose when they walk up to the plate for an at bat. I think you need the same thing for your career, especially when bad stuff happens.

I liked "On to the Next One" by Jay-Z for my friends, specifically the following lyrics:

"I got a million ways to get it...
... Choose one......
Ay, bring it back, bring it back (uh-huh)
Now double your money and make a stack
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
I'm on to the next one, on to the next one
(Hold up) Freeze! Ay!
Somebody bring me back the money please..."

The rest of the song is a mess of slurs and stuff that HR pros probably shouldn't be quoting, but I like those lines. Every time I hear that song, I think about the future.

I first heard the cut a couple of years ago at spring training in Arizona when Matt Kemp was using it as his walkup music. Videos below of Kemp talking about his scientific process for picking his at bat music ("I like hip-hop" and cuts that have "hits" in them"... Great Matt, who doesn't?) and Jay-Z doing the song on Letterman. I'm giving you Letterman because the bad stuff is bleeped out for the most part (Email subscribers click through for video).

You gotta million ways to get it. Choose one, bring it back, double your money and make a stack.

That's my outplacement program.  Boom.

The short answer - if they full engage with the body of knowledge that is HR and attempt to grow over time, you're damn right they're HR pros.  They're as much of an HR pro as a HR Coordinator (or HR Manager for a small company) if that's the case.

However, if an Office Manager doesn't attempt to grow and morph into a full-fledged HR pro over time, they're not an HR pro.  

The story below from an HR Capitalist reader tells you all you need to know:

----------------------------------------------

KD -

Had to share this as not many people get it. 

So, one of my neighbors has worked for her husband’s company for years –moved here from Arizona to start the business, etc… Subsequently, new management came in and both of them – he’s the Founder (lost control when they needed a capital investment to keep the business afloat) and she’s the “short skirt, high heeled, always giggling” office manager – were fired. 

So, she’s been on the job hunt and over the holidays said she was applying for an HR Manager position. I thought, wow, okay – how does that happen? Turns out she’s get an interview – company is in the pharma field. 

She texts me this morning to say, “Hey I’ve got my interview today –any last minutes tips? You know I’m not as HRish as you”. I just let that one go. 

I told her to be sure to know the employment laws for CA, and to be sure she was up to speed on the FMLA policies as well, and with the company in the healthcare biz, be sure she could speak to Obamacare and how that will affect employees and employers this year.   

She just texted me and said “ interview was bad. I didn't feel qualified.  They were talking about the stuff you mentioned - FLSA, right?  I should have asked you what that stood for.  I don’t think I'm going to get a callback.” 

Classic – there’s a blog post in there. Just because you’re an office manager, doesn’t mean you can “DO” Hr.  

----------------------------------------------

I've got a lot of office managers who are readers.  My sense is that if you're reading this and your title is Office Manager, you are an HR Pro.  Not because of this blog, but because you're reading things to learn and stay in tune with what's going on.  +1, and probably indicative of a bigger worldview.

Not sure what FLSA is?  You're an Office Manager, not a member of the HR community.  It's a pretty easy litmus test to perform.

And yeah, if that's you, you should have asked what FLSA stands for. 

Got a new term/phrase for most of you - Ball Don't Lie. I like it, and if you like sports even a little bit - I think you should use it.  Here's the meaning from Urban Dictionary:

BALL DON'T LIE - A phrase commonly used by professional basketball player Rasheed Wallace; once famously yelled by coach Flip Saunders. 

How can you use that in the workplace? Let's say you give a manager some prime HR advice, only to have them go against your counsel. You know they're wrong, and things go horrible for them as a result. People around you know that you gave them advice on how to handle the situation, and ask you what you think.

You could tell them you gave them good advice. You could say, "I don't want to say I told them so, but...".  BORING.

Just respond as follows: BALL DON'T LIE. Tell them to look it up.

Backstory on why this is on my mind. Some of you know that I coach a lot of youth basketball in the winter.  After hundreds of games in my coaching career, I picked up my first career technical in December. The circumstances we're pretty grim.  Last game of the day, the officials had done 3-4 games before ours.  They're not calling a lot a result.  One of my players gets savagely hacked on the other end going up for a shot - for like the fourth time in a row.

Me: Can I get a foul call when someone hacks across both arms on a layup?

Ref: I'll do the calling coach, you coach.

Me: All I need to you to do is call the obvious fouls, blue (blue is an accepted nickname for refs, same as calling them a ref).

Ref: I need you to sit down and be quiet.

Me: There's no need to waste energy trying to put me in my place.  Just call obvious fouls.

Ref: Sit down coach, or I'm going to give you a technical.

Me: Again, there's no need to try and show me up.  Just call the fouls.  Maybe actually run to the half of the court where the play is happening.

Ref: Sit down coach, or I'm going to give you a technical.

Repeat the last two sentences of the exchange 3 more times before the ref finally T's me up.  As a result, the other ref comes and tells me I have to sit down, not stand, for the rest of the game.

One of my finer moments. My kids were coming to the bench to give me high/low fives. I waived them off. Stay classy San Diego. I sat down.

The team picked their shooter for the techincals to be shot in front of me.  He shot and missed both, at which time I stated the following, with the villian official in front of me:

"Ball don't lie!" (somewhere between loudly spoken and a soft yell).

Use it on the next hiring decision gone wrong when you told them so.

(email subscribers click through for the video below)

Read an interesting book over the holidays that reinforced a perspective I have on the age-old concept of turnover.  The book is The Postmortal by Drew Magary, a novel that outlines a future dystopia where most of the population has opted to take a cure for aging, which means they stay the age they are when they take “the cure” for the rest of their lives.

The citizens who take the cure can still die – they can get shot, get cancer, etc, but the younger they are when they take the cure, the longer it takes those odds to catch up with them.

Of course, stopping the aging process is a lot like the thought of zero turnover – it sounds great.  But as you might expect when you stop to think about it for more than 5 minutes, there are some unexpected negative consequences of 95% of the world’s population freezing their age for an indefinite period of time:

-The concept of retirement goes out the window.  Dude – you’re going to live forever. There’s no longer golden years where you get a break and get to reflect about what it all means. You still need money to live. Forever.

-Marriage becomes a bit of a problem. Yes, we promised to be together until death do us part – but nobody said I was going to have to live with you for 200-300 years.  Plus, I look fabulous and can easily attract another hottie. Check please!

-Natural resources become a problem quicker than we thought we would. The population is booming since no one is dying, and leave it to the Chinese to start “resetting” their population numbers by nuking entire cities within their own borders (the ones the central government considers outliers).

The “cure” in The Postmortal was developed via a scientific accident where a scientist was attempting to modify DNA to create a cure for being a redhead.  Once the world found out about the discovery, the genie was out of the bottle before anyone could control distribution and think about what it all meant.

Scary, since there’s undoubtedly going to be discoveries in our future that are going to change the social contract we all live under.

But to the point of this blog - What would happen if some engagement wonk stumbled across the holy grail of retention? The workplace equivalent of stopping the aging process is ensuring 100% retention and zero voluntary turnover, right?

A lot of people think that would be a good thing.

I think it would suck.

Why? Voluntary turnover is the elixir of change. It puts constant pressure on everyone in the employment system – managers, employees, companies, etc – to not suck too badly.  Just like death (plus faith) in the real world. Eliminating voluntary turnover eliminates that pressure, and it would also eliminate a company’s ability to bring in new talent in a frequent fashion.

If I had the cure to voluntary turnover, I’d put it in a Al Gore-style lockbox, bury it and hide it from all of you.

The Postmortal taught me it’s just better that way.  Trust me.