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August 2015

Your Company Has These Employees. Your Job Is To Remove Them ASAP...

Let's face it - we spend a lot of time talking about employees from a "top talent" perspective.  Who is top talent?  Can we fill a team with all "A" players? (The answer is no, btw...)  How can we attract or develop a larger share of top talent than we currently have?  What's the definition of top talent?

Lots of unknowns. Makes you want something you can know for sure, right?  I've got one for you - here it is...

You have some employees in your company that don't belong in the role they're in.  If you don't remove them before their incompetence strikes, they're going to hurt you in a big way.

Your job is to find them and get them out before they cause you great pain.  

Here's a visual of what those employees look like when they strike (email subscribers click through for photo and video):

Bolt

Here's the newswire caption: For elite Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, Thursday's 200-meter sprint was like many other races he's won — until a mobile cameraman lost control of his Segway and took the world's fastest man down from behind. Bolt, who had been waving to the crowd, collapsed in a heap. He had been walking barefoot on the track.

All you have to do is look at the picture.  Bolt is whoever you value in your role with the company - could be your customers, could be a VIP within your own company that you need to take care of.  The cameraman? Well, he's the guy that's landed in the role where his judgment is going to write a check that you can't afford.  There's a big screw up out there waiting on this guy.  It doesn't happen to all people, just folks like this guy.

Maybe you look at this picture and say, "it's the guy who greenlighted the segway with a camera that I have to remove."  Fair enough.  Or maybe this guy came up with the idea.

The point is that part of your role is to find the dramatically incompetent and get them out.  Out of that role or if the incompetence is broad, out of your company.

No apologies.  No whining.  They have to go.  You're the predator on the ridge looking down on the weak one.  Go get them. It's the circle of life.

Below is a Vine with the video footage.  Never apologize for finding this guy and taking action before your company's version of this happens...


Stuff the Capitalist (aka KD) Likes: Men at Work, Acoustic...

Who am I?  Who cares?  Good questions.  It's my site, so I'm going dig in once in a awhile by telling you more about who I am - via a "Stuff I Like" series.  Nothing too serious, just exploring the micro-niche that resides at the base of all of our lives.  Potshots encouraged in the comments.

I'm a sucker for a good acoustic version of a known standard.  I'm Gen X, so the whole MTV unplugged thing was during my formative years.  Nirvana unplugged?  Yes.  Alice in Chains? Please.

But you can't get better acoustic in my mind than hearing that Aussie flavor of Men at Work go without the amp - or the sax for that manner.

Some of you know the Colin Hay voice, you just couldn't put a name with it.  Some of you know the acoustic Men at Work or Hay (same thing?) from the hit show Scrubs.

Wherever you know it from, I'm serving up a couple for you below (email subscribers - click through for the cuts).

First up, acoustic version of "Who Can It Be Now" - kind of dark: 

Finally, the scrubs version of "Overkill"

Good times.  Have a great weekend. 


They Did Not Suck: 5 Rules For Saying Why You Got Fired or Left Your Last Job...

Gather round the monitor kids, because I’m about to break off some knowledge that a lot of you don’t fully understand.

Let’s start with a general rule: If you’re interviewing for a job you really want and you’re not currently employed, the elephant in the room is why you aren’t still employed with that company.  Now let’s enhance that a bit and say your previous company did not lay you off, and they won’t be willing to say you were laid off.  That means you left or were fired.

Which means you have to talk about why you aren’t at that company any more.

With that in mind, here’s your 5 Rules For Candidates to Talk About Previous Jobs Gone Bad:

–Rule #1 – Never go on a rant about how you got screwed by a company, manager, co-worker, etc. at your previous job (A rant is described as a speech where you dominate the airtime for more than 30 seconds with information that seems negative).

–Rule #2 - Never go on a rant about how you got screwed by a company, manager, co-worker, etc. at your previous job.  The bottom line is this – every company has some dysfunction.  If you dominate the interview session with a bunch of negative stuff about how bad it was at your last job, how you got screwed, etc., I’m only thinking one thing as a hiring manager – what will you think about our  freak show in your 3rd week after the afterglow of the orientation period has faded?   Am I going to take a chance on that?  I think not.

–Rule #3 – The reason you are no longer with that company is always about FIT (and no one’s to blame for a mismatch in FIT – not them, not you).   Fit is your graceful way to say that your past employer was an absolute freak show.  Whether the issue was company culture, your manager, your job, whatever – it doesn’t matter.  Your talking points about why you aren’t at your past employer anymore always revolve around fit.  Examples – “I wasn’t a fit at ____ because they were looking for someone who _____.”    Then be positive – “I really liked the company, but the FIT just wasn’t there”.   PS – make sure the FIT points you’re detailing aren’t the most important things at the company you’re interviewing with.  #duh

–Rule #4 – Once you tell them you weren’t a fit at your previous company, make a graceful transition to the strengths you possess that weren’t being utilized at that company.  “So I wasn’t a fit for ___ for those reason, and I’m really looking for an opportunity that will allow me to <insert your strengths>.   From what I’ve heard, I think the role I’m talking to you about might have that fit.”   PS – make sure your cited strengths line up with what’s needed in the role you’re interviewing for.

–Rule #5 – You do not talk about fight club.  Or go on a rant about how you got screwed by a company, manager, co-worker, etc. at your previous job.  Seriously.

Rules #1, #2, and #5 are about not going negative when asked why you’re not at your previous employer.  It’s that important – they (we) are trying to bait you.  If you want to bash, you’re not going to get hired most of the time.  Leave the whining on the shelf, then talk about mismatch in fit, then get your positive points in as quickly as possible.

You got fired.  Not the end of the world.  Don’t pick at the scab by going negative (and you may not even realize you’re going negative, BTW) and by all means – stay on message.

Good luck out there, fired one.  Follow these 5 Rules to maximize your chances of landing on your feet.


SELECTING MANAGERS: What's The Right Mix of Functional Area Expert vs. Ability to Deal With People?

It's the classic Catch 22... We know we shouldn't simply make the best widget maker the best widget maker manager, but.... but....

We have nothing else to base on decisions on who gets promoted to manager other than... Functional Area Expertise.

Ugh.  This is on my mind again due to my friend Paul Hebert writing on the topic over at What Is Paul Thinking? (which you should subscribe to).  From Paul:

"You're doing it wrong!

You keep promoting the people who are good at the “function” of a job into a managerial role. Pointy

But they suck at the role of being a manager.

They just do what their subordinates do, but a little better. They aren’t just Level III, more experienced employees – they’re managers! And that means they manage. Yet few of them have been trained or groomed to be real, effective managers. And this problem is endemic in most companies. We fill upper level positions based on expertise in that function – not expertise in MANAGING that function and the people that support it."

Realities to the situation in my mind include the following sticky points:

1. Most companies have no format or opinion on what makes a good manager.

2. With that in mind, it's safe to assume that almost all companies have no formal training for managers, or for those who aspire to be managers.

3. Most of the people making promotional decisions where at one time functional area experts, and were thus promoted based on that expertise.  So, we have a tradition problem as well as a performance/intellectual debate.

What's the right answer?  What's the right mix of ability to manage vs functional area expertise?  

As Paul points out in the comments, it's not that you're going to put someone in a job that hasn't done the work before, it's that the manager doesn't have to be in the top quartile of individual contributors to be managed.   It's OK to put someone in the job with enough functional area credibility to not be embarassed without being the expert.

But the reality is we have a production problem.  We don't know how to produce managers of people.  With that in mind, if we wanted to fix the problem, I think the solution would look something like this:

1.  We'd find a diagnostic tool to help us measure those that have the capacity to manager others.  

2.  We'd let people know that tool was a big part of how we view those that have the capacity to manage.  We'd let anyone take the assessment and we'd freely share their results with them from a career development perspective.

3.  For those that were enough of a match, we'd offer manager of people training - before we have the need for them to be managers.  Just so they could get a taste.

4.  That curriculum would also obviously be mandatory for those in manager of people roles for the first time as well.

What's the right mix of "ability to manage" vs "functional area expertise"?  I'd call it 50/50, but it's probably a sliding scale - the better you are at managing others, the less you need the area expertise.

Of course, until we build the platform described in #1-#4 above, we'll do what we know best.  The best widget maker will get an office and direct reports.  

Nothing new happens until you and I try to do something about it - so do that.  And go subscribe to Paul's new blog here

 


DEEP THOUGHTS: Are Great Places to Work Holding Back Talent Development?

In the wake of the New York Times article on Amazon, I thought it would be worth sharing the past post by Redfin CEO Glen Kelman, who wonders aloud if all the fun, benefit focused features of the GPTW actually hinders employee development:

"The problem is that the young engineers earning that much become well-fed farm animals at the very moment in their lives when they should be running like wild horses. Many now remind me of middle-aged men, collecting expensive scotch or taking up John-Kerry hobbies like kite-surfing and race-car-driving at the age of 24.

What changes these folks isn’t just the money. It’s the cosseting, which can permeate the most minute interactions between engineers and their mentors. If you as a manager have spent all day wooing new hires, you aren’t likely to turn around and tell a young engineer on your team how much more she is capable of, even if this is just what she needs to hear.

This is why Silicon Valley’s War for Talent hasn’t always been good for the talent. After all, the only way to get much better at your craft is to be challenged in ways that make you uncomfortable. Yet not many people in high technology are uncomfortable these days."

So, I know what you're saying - the concept of the Great Place to Work transcends all the fun stuff, right?  Well, that's true, so I loved this quote as a reminder of what's easy and what's hard related to building a GPTW.  Writing a check for benefits, great workspace and more is actually the easy part.

The hard part?  Creating a culture of feedback that gives brutal, yet constructive guidance to talent as it boots up in your organization.

Easy to do, hard to say, right?  Build the features of the GPTW that are visible, but don't forgot about the hard stuff. 


THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR PROS: Meet Mary Faulkner, Head of Talent at Denver Water...

Let's face it - Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren't the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPOThe HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical ResourcesTimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That's why they created this series - The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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People aren't born thinking about ways they can interact with the communities around them, and they certainly aren't born thinking about branding.  9 times out of 10, people who are well-branded get their start by being pushed or inspired by others to share their ideas.  Branding is an outcome of sharing in a consistent fashion across time.  

That was the case with Mary Faulkner.  Check out her profile below and we'll break it down after the jump:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Mary Faulkner

A few years back, Faulkner found herself interacting with a consultant named Jennifer McClure.  As Mary talked about her ideas big and small in the world of talent, McClure told her she should write that idea down.  After a few days of hearing this, McClure shared the reason she was encouraging Mary to scribe -"you should start a blog".  Tricky.

It took awhile to be convinced, but Faulkner finally gave in and a blog was born - Surviving Leadership.  Launched in 2012, the blog does what it promises to do - help you survive leadership.  As an OD and Talent pro in Denver, Mary's done that in multiple companies including Dish Network, ClearChoice and Denver Water.  

As it so often does for bloggers who put in the time, Mary started experimenting with speaking and I caught her in a big room at SHRM national earlier this year.  The speaking doesn't end with simple speaking gigs though - that would be too easy.  Mary also connected with the Steve Browne/McClure HR posse in Cincinnati at DisruptHR and took the ultimate challenge, starting a DisruptHR chapter in Denver.  

She's remained the leader of that show with the third installment coming this month.  That's staying power.  It's also being a Brand Ambassador, not necessarily for a company, but for a profession.

Writing - Check.  Speaking - Double Check.  Brand Ambassador - Check.  Those are the three toughest boxes for HR pros to pull of from a community/branding perspective.  Mary's done them all well.

What about social?  She's active on Twitter with 1,400 followers (and only following 407 - that ratio is always interesting to us) and LinkedIn would promote her profile there if they could make a buck out of it (that indicates it's good).  Instagram? Not so much, but that's a common theme with most of the people we're profiling.

Mary's one of the Top 20 for all these reasons. Hat tip to Jennifer McClure for the push shove.

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.


4 Big Ideas to Look Smart: The $15 Minimum Wage

If you watch Fox News or MSNBC, I already know how you feel about the prospect of the $15 an hour minimum wage:

-Fox News Viewers - It's Jobs or CPI armagedon!  Small businesses are going to fail!  The business world will have to pass along costs to consumers! Min wage

-MSNBC libs - This is a living wage, people. Let's take a stand against income inequality.

The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle.  Here's 4 big ideas to keep either of the extremes at bay (arch conservatives or liberals) when this topic comes up.

--A one size fits all minimum wage nationally doesn't make sense.  $15 an hour means different things even within California.  In LA and SF, that minimum wage might make sense, but it's well above the median wage in inland California counties.  Likewise, what makes sense on the coast doesn't make sense in states like in the South.  Finally, those who tout the $15 minimum wage don't care much about Alaska, but you'd need more than that to make a dent in Anchorage, where $15 per hour is just 67% of the median wage.

--There's no doubt the minimum wage is need of an adjustment.  A wildly diverse group of economists signed off on a $10.10 minimum wage in 2014 as being good for the economy without having a large impact on jobs.  There's no such consensus on $15 per hour.

--Has no one thought about compression?  What about the inside sales rep currently earning the equivalent of 35K per year if you make the minimum wage 30K annualized?  No soup for for anyone else?  The recent moves at Gravity Payments in Seattle make for a nice case study in the unintended consequences of raising the wage floor beyond what the market truly bears.  

--Here's a nice compromise.  Raise the national minimum wage to $10.10, and let cities and states figure out the rest.  The smart play is for individual cities, not states to make the move past $10.10.  See notes above on Cali for the cliff notes.

Have a take on the topic of the $15 minimum wage.  You're an HR Pro, dammit.


THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR PROS: Meet Pete Radloff, Technical Recruiter at comScore...

Let's face it - Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren't the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPOThe HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical ResourcesTimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That's why they created this series - The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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Most of the HR pros with the best professional brands have one thing in common - work ethic.  It takes time to brand yourself, and the results aren't necessarily evident until years in the future.  DC's own Pete Radloff surely knows this, because he's been giving gifts to the recruiting community for 5+ years.  He didn't start doing those things to build a brand, but here we are - featuring him in a series on the Top 20 Branded HR Pros.  Check out the graphic below of his profile and we'll talk after the jump (email subscribers click through for the graphic):

Glassdoor Top 20 - Pete Radloff

Most of the HR pros we feature don't have even strengths in all the areas we rate them in, and Radloff is no exception.   The area of his branding that has the most impact to the community around him is his involvement in a local conference - a great show called recruitDC.  recruitDC is one of the most powerful local HR/recruiting shows in America, known for it's responsive community throughout the year as well as great content and attendance in DC when the shows are held 2X per year.  Radloff has a 5+ year track record of involvement in the leadership of the group/show, and his willingness to serve consistently is a big part of his branding.

But Radloff's persistence in giving gifts back to the recruiting community doesn't stop there.  He's the author of a deep recruiting-focused blog at Recruiting in 3D, where he writes deep, long-form pieces about what's he working on, thinking about or reading at least a couple of times per month.  A great example is his analysis of a recent Quora post by a candidate asking whether he should accept an offer from Uber or Zenefits.  Radloff breaks down the good, bad and ugly of the issue and the resulting fallout, and it's representative of the depth he brings to the table.  He also runs his writing game at RecruitingDaily.com on a regular basis as well.

Conferences/communities at recruitDc.com and deep writing make Radloff branded in a way that most of us can't touch.  But Pete has strength in other areas, including social - with a strong LinkedIn presence (6K in connections) and Twitter game (3K in followers vs 1.7K he's following).  

Another area that shows the impact of the branding work that Pete has done is his network of friends.  In addition to others, Pete has worked with some of DC's finest, including Lars Schmidt and Susan Strayer Lamotte, both of which surely resulted from his willingness to work on behalf of the community with conferences and consistent writing.  Career opportunities are the natural extension of doing branded work with no expectation/hard sell.

What can we learn from Pete Radloff?  Volunteering for the greater good works from a branding perspective, as does writing for the community you serve. Things natural flow from those honest gifts, including things you might not expect - like new jobs.

You can be an overnight success like Pete Radloff - it just takes consistency - otherwise known as showing up for 5 straight years in activities that have no guarentee of payoff.  You have to do it because you love it. 

Check out Pete Radloff here - WritingConferenceTwitterLinkedInInstagram 

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

 

Thinking About High Performance: GPTW, Netflix and Amazon...

There's a happy tale that we've all grown used used to in the HR game.  It goes something like this:

The best way to build a company is to build a Great Place to Work.  

Most of us believe that, right?  I'm not her to debate that.  A lot of what I know is aligned with everything we think we know on the GPTW front, especially on the OD side of the house - not on the benefits, cool work space and catered meals part of GPTW.

But if it's raw performance you're looking for at the corporate level, there are some different cultural stories being told that are too big to ignore. Amazon

Let's talk about Amazon and Netflix.  

The New York Times just ran a long piece about the hard knock culture that exists at Amazon.  Most of you know that Amazon's been a rocket ship of corporate performance for a decade plus.  I'd encourage everyone to go dig into the article, because it's straight up Darwinian compared to the GPTW narrative we're used to seeing.  Here's one little taste - multiple it by a factor of 20 and that's the article:

"On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult them into Amazon’s singular way of working.

They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported. To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.”)

Most of the NYT article is about the white collar workforce at Amazon - but you have to love this snippet from the blue collar side:

Amazon came under fire in 2011 when workers in an eastern Pennsylvania warehouse toiled in more than 100-degree heat with ambulances waiting outside, taking away laborers as they fell. After an investigation by the local newspaper, the company installed air-conditioning.

Good times on the reg.

Amazon's a rocket ship of performance.  Let's just assume that they're Darth Vader of Great Place to Work cultural theory.  Welcome to the dark side - now get to ####ing work. Orientation is over. An ambulance is waiting for your convenience - remember that when the GPTW survey comes around.

If Amazon is Darth, then who's the Han Solo of GPTW?  You know, the player that's a little bit dirty, but still has enough goodness to make you trust they'll get it done?

Enter Netflix.

Netflix became the darling of HR people in the know with their iconic cultural slide show deck.  Unlimited vacation? Check. Take it when you need it. Unlimited Maternity and Paternity leave?  Sure - take care of the little ones. 

We celebrate Netflix for these things, but consider this from that same iconic cultural deck (email subscribers, click through for the picture below):

Screen Shot 2015-08-16 at 7.52.48 PM

Up or out, you rat bastards.  Is is possible that the best way to drive corporate performance is go give people max freedom, give them a chance to be great and then pluck them from the herd the ones that aren't stars?

There are a lot of Great Places to Work that allow B and C players to remain.

Amazon doesn't sound like a great place to work.  Netflix sounds like the place you want to be.  If you're amazing.

If you aren't amazing, you should interview well, land at a GPTW and hunker down for as many years as you can.  It's safe for you there.


DREAM JOB(?): You Can Be The HR Pro That Pulls the Company With a 70K Minimum Salary Out of the Crapper...

My readers are smart.  From Steve:

"Is there an HR Pro in the house?" Uh, no: HR Manager http://gravitypayments.com/careers?p=job%2FoX8l1fwb

--Steve YPO-Dan-Price-Gravity-Payments

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This is the job posting for the HR Manager job for Gravity Payments in Seattle.  The company where the CEO decided to make 70K the minimum salary for all.  Then experienced what happens when you make an arbitrary decision without seeing the rest of the game.

The high performers didn't like it.  Some of the managers didn't like it.  Hell, some of the people who are in the process of getting bumped to 70K felt dirty about it (click the link for the backstory if you missed it).

If you're a HR Manager in the Seattle area, this job is available.  If you make it work, you're on your way to great things, my friend.

Let me know if you apply.  I like to know who the people who like big challenges are.