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September 2017

Social Loafing - Do People Give Less Effort When You Add More Resources To a Team?

Social Loafing -the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone.

Hmmmm....

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From a book I'm reading...

One of the first scientists to explore the dynamics of group effort was a guy named Maximilien Ringelmann.  In 1913, Ringelmann conducted an experiment in which he asked Social loafingstudents to pull on a rope, both individually and in groups, while he measured the force they exerted.  The conventional view was that people in a group would have more power collectively than they did alone - in other words, adding people to the pulling group would have a multiplying effect on the force.

But the results were surprising - While the force applied did grow with every new person added, the average force applied by each by each person fell.  Rather than amplifying the power of individuals, the act of pulling as a team caused each person to pull less hard than they had while pulling alone.  Later researchers coined a name to the phenomenon.  They called it social loafing.

A later Fordham study decided to look at whether social loafing could be overcome.  They wanted to see whether one person giving a maximum effort could incite other to improve their performances. The scientists grouped their shouters in pairs and, before they began shouting, told them that their partner was a high effort performer. In these situations, something interesting happened. The pairs screamed just as hard together as they had alone. The knowledge that a teammate was giving it their all was enough to prompt people to give more themselves.

Is social loafing real in the workplace? I'd say 100% it is.  While high performing teams can do amazing things, the question is what does it take to be a high performing team?

You know some of the answers, right?  Goal setting, consistent feedback, task and role clarity within the team, etc.  Read deeper on social loafing and you'll find that the lack of clarity related to individual expectations causes many team members to assume/rationalize that other team members will do certain activities - so there's no need for them to act.

The impact of a reported high performer in the Fordham study is interesting as well.  Let's say you're at your company (ACME) and while you're a talented gal, you've had it on cruise control for awhile - the work is mundane, the people are mundane and even though some of your work teams aren't producing stellar results, you're still considered a high performer.

Why work harder? You're in a rut. 

Suddenly, a new hire shows up and you're told they're from a progressive company and are considered a key hire.  They're inserted into 2 of the 4 work groups you participate in at ACME and damn, they start trying to shake things up and get more done - even if it means doing more themselves than others are doing.

What do you do in those circumstances?  Deadbeats who are already long gone from an effort perspective might let them do it.  But anyone who still has ambition and a desire to be a high performer is forced to step up their game.

Social loafing exists in your company until you create some type of competition to wake people up.  

What type of competition is required?  Depends on your culture and your team.  Could be a key new hire, could be a project chart showing what people are working on or an overall scoreboard that puts the team in direct competition with others - or simply with themselves.

If you want to stop social loafing, introduce competition.  Competition is not a dirty word.  Don't let a sleepy culture at your company tell you otherwise.

 

 


The New Amazon HQ - Is the Key to Your City Winning The Competition Eliminating Non-Competes?

In case you missed it, Amazon announced in early September that it is planning to open another headquarters called Amazon HQ2 in US city TBD.

Amazon HQ2 will cost $5 billion and eventually house up to 50,000 Amazon staff, and the company has said it wants HQ2 to be in a metropolitan area with a "stable and business friendly environment" and more than 1 million people. The company also wants HQ2 to be within 45 minutes of an international airport and in a location where there is potential to attract strong technical talent.

Simply put, it's the biggest single economic development item that will happen for an American city in the next century.  While many cities will bid, it stands to reason that there's only a handful - including my homer call for the Amazon hqATL - that have a realistic shot at landing the new Amazon HQ.

Competition will be fierce.  Is it reasonable to assume that cities will pull out all the stops to attract Amazon?  Of course it is.  That's why a recent Op/Ed piece from University of Chicago Law School professor Omri Ben-Shahar calling for Chicago to outlaw Non-Competes as a means of attracting Amazon was so interesting to me.  More from the Chicago Tribune:

But there is an additional strategy to entice Amazon, one that does not cost a penny and that could make Chicago all the more attractive. Ban the noncompete agreements in employment contracts. Open the job market for competitive mobility, allowing Amazon to poach the best workers for its new hub. Gov. Bruce Rauner has recently put forth such a proposal to ban noncompete clauses, and it is time for Illinois legislators to write it into the law.

The workers Amazon plans to hire in its HQ2 will not arrive by trains from Seattle to their new city. They will mostly be hired locally. With so many new jobs to fill, a major reshuffling of employment will occur in the hosting city. But only if workers are free to leave their existing employers and take new jobs with competitors. The problem is that many are not free, locked into their present workplaces by the notorious noncompete agreements they signed when originally hired. A statewide ban of such noncompete lock-ins will release a major barrier to economic growth, and make Chicago more competitive in bringing in out-of-state tech companies.

Since you and I deal with human capital issues daily, we know the reality of non-competes - they are easy to write and hard to enforce.  Still, Amazon will undoubtedly have to spend tremendous resources to litigate a bunch of non-compete issues.  Once Amazon announces a city for the new HQ, watch the activity that happens to lock down critical parts of workforces - pay increases, culture enhancement and yes - forced signing of non-competes for those that don't have them in place.  If you're an incumbent employer with a professional, technical product workforce in the city named for the new HQ, you've got to be prepared to go to war - winning hearts and minds as well as doing some nasty stuff to play hardball with the looming Amazon threat.

But it could be that a city that can line up 3-4 incredible items like the elimination of non-competes creates the tipping point necessary for Amazon to grant the new HQ to the city in question.

I'm not sure it matters.  When it comes to legal skirmishes over things like non-competes, the company with the biggest checkbook and raw will usually wins.  And Amazon has a bigger checkbook than anyone.   

More from OBS on the benefits of not having non-competes:

But, surprisingly, researchers have found that greater job mobility improves overall worker training. True, employers may invest less in training workers if their investment is not protected by the noncompete clauses. But there is an even stronger flip side: Workers who are free to switch jobs invest more in self-training. Noncompete agreements reduce, not raise, the overall investment in human capital. Their ban would therefore enhance the quality of the workforce, and firms would benefit.


Is Behavioral Interviewing Dead? The Internet Said So...

Deep thoughts today, people... Deep thoughts.  

Was at a conference last week and heard a keynoter basically proclaim the following (I'm paraphrasing):

"Behavioral interviewing is dead.  Just google the term and you'll find thousands of pages designed to help candidates beat behavioral interviewing."

OK.  Let me break that general thought process down a bit.  There's one word that comes to mind when I hear a thought leader proclaim that behavioral interviewing is dead with that logic as the reason. Rationalize

Rationalization.

People are tying to help candidates beat behavioral interviewing!!  That means it's ineffective as an interviewing technique, right?

Um, no.

When behavioral interviewing doesn't work well, it's because you haven't giving your managers the training they need to be successful.  Actually you might have given them the training.  What you haven't done is given them the gift of failure.

For anything related to manager training, failure=role play as part of your training.  You've got to give them real practice using the skills you're teaching them.  If they don't fail as a part of your training, there's ZERO chance they're going to try and use the skill in the real world.

If you don't force people to fail in your training, they'll never be effective in their real lives as managers.

Is behavioral interviewing the end all/be all?  No.  But it's an effective way to drill down on candidates (no hypotheticals! What did you do specifically in that situation?  Not the team - you!) if you give your managers the training they need.

I'm cool if you don't like behavioral interviewing - shine on, you crazy diamond.  Just don't fail to give managers what they need and then blame it on the Internet.  That's called rationalization not to train.

PS - If you're in the market for cool training your managers will actually like, check out my training series called BOSS - Leadership Skills for the Modern Manager.  It's full of stuff that will engage your managers and give them the skills (and initial failure) they need to get better!  Bonus - below is the first video we show as part of our behavioral interviewing training - featuring Vince Vaughn and Owen Willson (email subscribers click through for the video).


Long Weekend PTO Strategy Guy/Gal - Is Currently Crushing It At Your Company....

There's a person that's currently cheating life at your company.  But it's not who you think.

--It's not the person who's stock options just vested (because the stock could tank);

--It's not the person who just signed the big deal (because you're only as good as your last month); and

--It's not you. Because life if complicated and s##t happens.

No - the person that's currently crushing it is Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal.  Not sure who that is?  Allow me to elaborate. That guy

Most people take weeks of vacation, because let's face it, that's how we're trained.  Gotta get to the beach.  Gotta get to the mountains.  Rentals only happen in week blocks in some of those nice places.  I need a week to really unplug from this place.

Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal knows all of that is a lie.  Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal has hacked life, and only takes PTO in one day increments - and the time requested is always on Friday or Monday.

Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal works 4 day weeks at least 25% of the time, and if life/family doesn't happen to them, they'll soon be running that percentage up to 33% of the weeks in a work year, because with greater seniority comes more PTO.

Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal is kicking your ass.  If you manage Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal, you've admired the strategy.  Some of you may have bristled at the approach.

Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal doesn't care.  They're so locked into the strategy (having experienced all the benefits) they're going to make you change the policy to force them to take a week at a time.  They're daring you, in a game of PTO chicken - because if you invoke that strategy for them, it's going to impact others who occasionally want to package the long weekend.

Most of you won't change your policy, because you'll look like a complete ass to the people who usually take a week but occasionally want to live the Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal lifestyle.

--Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal has fewer Mondays than you do.

--Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal really doesn't have a "hump day"

--Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal is fully committed to their rock and roll lifestyle.

The only thing that can stop Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal is marriage and the 2.5 kid FTEs that comes with matrimony.  If/when that happens, it gets complicated.  That's the future, though.  Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal will worry about that when it comes.

I see you, Long Weekend PTO strategy Guy/Gal.  Keep hacking life.


Early Data On Impact of Google for Jobs on Indeed Sponsored Listings...

As most of you are aware, the launch of Google for Jobs a few months back was thought to be a significant blow to Indeed for 2 reasons:

1--Indeed was not listed as a partner that would automatically have its jobs included/indexed in the Google for Jobs product, and

2--The presence of the Google for Jobs interface on search results for jobs pushes the once dominant SEO power of Indeed way below the fold, which means the ROI of Indeed spend should go Indeeddown over time.  Translation - the first thing candidates see won't be Indeed, which is like Uber customers losing access to its app.  In fact, they'll have to scroll a loooooong way down.

What's happening in the field?  At Kinetix, we manage our own Indeed spend as well as the Indeed spend of many of our RPO clients.  Here's what's happening across the Indeed spend we manage:

A--We currently have mixed results.  Some clients experienced a drop in results related to Indeed spend in August, while others did not.

B.  The Indeed spend at Kinetix actually improved (where we spend our own money to sponsor Kinetix jobs, as well as jobs for clients as part of our overall recruitment marketing spend).

Summary on Google for Jobs impact on Indeed - it's too early to tell.  In addition, keep the following in mind even if Indeed spend is impacted over time, which we and others expect:

--Even if Indeed performance goes down, it doesn't mean it's not still worthy of spend.  Taking a look at CPC (cost per click) and the resulting applies/hires, Indeed performance could drop and it's likely to still be worthy of budget compared to other places to spend your money.

--Indeed tactics will evolve over time to deal with the competitive threat.

--Active management of results and adjusting your Indeed strategy is key.  Companies who actively monitor their sponsored results at Indeed and make adjustments/changes are likely to perform better.  

In a twist of "you get what you deserve", the companies who don't monitor/adjust/tweak their Indeed spend are the most likely to wake up 3 years from now and wonder what happened.

We'll keep reporting what we see at Kinetix.


5 Ways To Determine If You'll Be Leading an HR Function in 2022...

The world is changing, and the people paying the bills want different things from HR.  Here's five things to look inward at and determine if you've got what it takes to lead an HR team and be a viable partner to the business leaders who will hire you in 2022. Remember, I'm talking about leading HR, not participating in running it:

1. You've got a mack daddy processor upstairs.  Meaning you can take large amounts of information in and make quick, accurate decisions.  Not IQ.  Speed with accuracy. 

2. You're as assertive as the salespeople in your organization.  Great HR people have always needed to be assertive, but the need for comfort with confrontation continues to escalate.  Bonus points if you can sell.

3. A comfort with no rules at all.  HR people have always been good at creating structure, but HR leaders are being asked to value structure less as we get further into this century.  You might hire people to do that for the function, but valuing structure over figuring stuff out on the fly for future HR leaders?  Things change too rapidly these days for the old status quo to stick.  High challenge, slightly ADHD HR leaders are on the rise.

4. You are organized enough at the leadership level to execute.  You'd think low rules means low details.  Actually, low rules with mid to high level detail orientation is in vogue.  It's called the ability dream AND to execute, baby.

5. You've got skin like a fat, old rhino (low sensitivity).  When you receive bad news or the rare glimmer of negative feedback, you're down for about 30 seconds and then you're moving on.  Companies are increasingly looking for HR leaders who aren't afraid to fail.  Failure is a necessary byproduct of attempting to add value.  Safe sucks increasingly these days.

Want an easy way to to score it?  Say yes or no to whether you really deliver each of 5 features, add up the yes votes and use this key:

+5 - Welcome to the club.  If you are who you say you are, I'd like your resume for my clients, even if you're 28 freaking years old.

+4 - Yes, please.  You missed on one thing - you're still a player.

+3 - I'm going to call you an HR "citizen".  Good enough to get what the business line owners are talking about. Missing a DNA strand or two, but servicalble.

+2 - The world needs ditch-diggers too.  There's still something for you to do in most HR departments with any size, but it's not leading the function.

+1 - Darwin called. He said the kids these days are growing the HR equivalent of opposable thumbs, and I don't see any thumb buds on the sides of your hand stumps.  Too bad.

That's my list of the behavioral traits I see in play as we move toward the middle of the decade.  Will there still be +1 and +2 HR leaders?  Yes.  

Will the replacements for those leaders look like their predecessors?  My intel says no way.  


Does Apologizing Make You Look Weak as an HR Pro?

I'm sorry to tell you this, but yes.

See what I did there?  I apologized in advance for telling you that you apologize too much as an HR pro.  THAT'S A PRO MOVE, PEOPLE. Apologize

But I digress.  Here's the deal - as HR pros, we're hard-wired to do things automatically that no one else wants to do - tell people nice job, recognize people for their contributions, listen to someone vent when no one else will, etc.

Because we do all those people friendly things, a lot of us apologize more than we should.

A candidate is late for an interview. The turnover numbers are bad. An employee is having a hard time with a challenging manager.

Because we are in the people business, a lot of us find ourselves apologizing for things out of habit - we are simply too nice.

I'm here to tell you to apologize less for the things outside of your control.  You're conditioning people to think that you're not a player - and you most certainly are.

In addition, you shouldn't apologize for things that are in your control if outside factors conspired to make what you delivered less than stellar.

Explain why?  Yes.

Talk about what you're adjusting?  Yes.

Apologize? No.

Stop being weak. The next time you feel like you're going to say, "I'm sorry" in a business setting, catch yourself and explain why it is what it is - and where you/we/they go from there.  

Image from Jessica Hagy at Fortune:

 


BOOM: Amazon Announces Intent to Build Second HQ in a City Outside of Seattle...

 

Damn!

Amazon announced on Thursday that it is planning to open another headquarters called Amazon HQ2 in US city TBD.

Amazon HQ2 will cost $5 billion and eventually house up to 50,000 Amazon staff, Amazon said in a press release.

Amazon said it wants HQ2 to be in a metropolitan area with a "stable and business friendly environment" and more than 1 million people. The company also wants HQ2 to be within 45 minutes of an international airport and in a location where there is potential to attract strong technical talent.

Amazon is inviting city representatives and those working for regional economic development organizations to submit a proposal if they want to host Amazon's second headquarters.

To me, the obvious choice is the ATL.  But I'm biased because that's my second home.  

I'll leave you with this - if you have any doubt of the economic impact of the Amazon HQ2, take a look at the numbers in the chart below related to their presence in Seattle.  This is a much/much/much bigger deal from an economic standpoint that a city landing a sports team.  It's probably the biggest economic development event that will happen in America in the next century.  (email subscribers click through if you don't see the chart below)

Let's go ATL.  Click on the chart below to blow it up and be amazed...

 

Amazon impact

 


3 Candidates: Know Your Role and Your Recruiting Strategy...

"The problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us. It's an unfair game. And you guys just sit around talking the same old "good body" nonsense like we're selling jeans. Like we're looking for Fabio. We've got to think differently. We are the last dog at the bowl. You see what happens to the runt of the litter? He dies."

--Billy Beane, Moneyball

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Recruiting is sales.  To be effective at either, you've got to know your market.

More importantly, you've got to know where you slot in within that marketplace.  Knowing both of these things allows you to create a recruiting strategy. Bell_curve

Without knowing the market, where you slot and your strategy, you're a spaz.  You're just flopping around and as you do that, you're wasting a lot of time and energy.

Let me give you an example - the following are three candidates, functional area doesn't matter.  Take a look at tell me which one you'd target for your company.

--Candidate A - the best candidate available.  Has the experience you need, but cost 120% of what you'd like to pay.  Works at a company that seems to have a better brand than yours.

--Candidate B - a good candidate with some experience you need, but not the perfect candidate "A" is.  Costs 105% of what you'd like to pay. Looks less accomplished than candidate "A".  Has only been at currently company for 15 months and is in the marketplace.

--Candidate C - recent grad with 18 months of semi-related experience in the area you need.  Can be acquired for 65% of Candidate "A".   No other details available.

Which one do you hire?

We're all attracted to "A", right?  We want all of that, but it's more than we can really pay and the candidate's used to being at a company with some brand swagger.  You, my friend, have no brand swagger.  

If you're chasing "A" without the means to satisfy them, you're going to be disappointed.

That's why the key for most of us is thinking about the options that remain - B or C - and creating a strategy around that.  Are we hiring experienced talent that we can afford and doing our best to pick the players from the rejects in this group, or are we saying "#### it" and committing to a strategy of hiring new grads - and creating the training/development that's necessary to bring the kids on?

If you can chase and land "A", good for you.  Most of you/us can't.  And yes, there are functional area considerations and many candidate profiles you could add to the list above.  Do that and come back to the question - what's your strategy?

Stop wasting time by knowing who you are and where you can be most effective in the talent game.

Knowing who you are and what you can land on the recruiting scene and then creating a strategy to deal with those realities is key.  You've got to make lemonade out of lemons. 

Or you can keep trying to date the hottest candidate and get crushed.


Are People Who Have 8-10 Years at Their Current Company Dinosaurs?

I think an interesting thing has happened when it comes to careers, and it's probably not a good thing.  People have historically judged you by switching jobs too often.  That's why I always counsel people to stick it out a year (preferably two) before jumping out of a less that perfect situation.

But in today's high change environment, there's another way candidates are getting judged:

Candidates who are approaching the decade mark (10 years) with the same company are increasingly being viewed as Get off my lawn being low-change, less-than-nimble dinosaurs.

Too harsh?  Well, I'm working on my 8th year at Kinetix, which far outlasts any other stop I've made in my career (previous record - 5.5 years.  I don't feel less nimble, but I can understand how the marketplace might think I'm "settled in."

"Settled in" is code for:

--set in my ways

--telling young kids to "get off my lawn" at work

--digging the long lunch

--not stirring up necessary change

--understanding it's "beer-thirty" somewhere.

OK, I'm an owner/investor at Kinetix, so maybe my situation is a bit different.  Like the Eagles once said, I can check out, but I can never leave - but I don't feel like I've checked out.

Unfortunately for those of my ilk (minus the ownership part) that would like to make a move - The 8-10 year professional grade worker who has risen to Director level, etc - the market might view them as settled in/tired.   For some, that's absolutely an accurate description.  For others, it's unfair.

If you're part of the latter group - open to a change but wearing the scarlet letter of too much time at your current company - there are things you can do to signal to the world that you don't sleep at work and could actually #### some #### up if they take a chance and hire you.  Things like:

1--update your LinkedIn profile (turn off notifications if you don't want your company to be notified)

2--write something that shows your passion for what you do

3--if you're cranking out killer work product that's non-proprietary, share the slides/excel/word docs publicly

4--participate in professional groups/events outside of work

What am I missing 1-company people?  What else can people who have been at the same place 8-10 years do to show they are open to new opportunities?  

It's hard being a middle-aged professional and straddling the line between being content and being eligible for the external game.

If you want to be in the external game, you've got to act accordingly.

Now get the #### off my lawn.