« November 2017 | Main | January 2018 »

December 2017

A Very Special Christmas Eve Story From the HR Capitalist...

Capitalist Note: This story is a Christmas Eve tradition at the HR Capitalist. Merry Christmas...

It's Christmas Eve. Time for anticipation. Time for reflection.

Time for an outrageous demand towards a candidate that could only occur from the bowels of corporateGrinch3_18101208 America.

Gather round the tree kids, because it's story time, HR Capitalist style. Bring me a Diet Mountain Dew while you're at it, because this eggnog sucks. 

Everyone here? Good.

The year is 2002 and it's Christmas Eve.  The Capitalist has just become a VP of HR in corporate America, and just got a new boss, who let's say - is a little INTENSE.  The Capitalist finds himself at home on Christmas Eve, piddling with some work, etc.  His cell phone rings.  The Capitalist flexes his bicep (remember, phones were much bigger then), picks up the phone and answers the call.  It's the boss of the Capitalist:

Capitalist: Don, what's up?

Bossman/EVP (1B Line of business): Kris, glad I got you.  I'm ready to make an offer to the Director of Finance candidate we like.

Capitalist: Sweet.  I'll call her today and let her know.  Nice Christmas present.

Bossman: Great.  Just one little catch.  I need to know today that she accepts.

Capitalist:  You need an answer today? You know it's Christmas Eve and it's 12:30pm right now, correct?

Bossman - Yeah, I know.  But I just got word from a friend that corporate is thinking about making me take Sparkman from Atlanta as part of a succession plan, and you know what I think about him.  So rather than wait on that, we're going to move on Carol, and we need her to accept today so I can go into the next week and tell them that it's already filled when they call me.

Capitalist: Why don't we just say we have an offer out if that happens and give her a couple of days to think about it?

Bossman: Not good enough. Corporate will make us retract the offer.  Get it done today.  Gotta go! We're opening some presents!  <Click>

After the call, the Capitalist gathered himself on the reality of making a demand like a three hour window to accept an offer on Christmas Eve, and you know what he did?  He made the freaking call, boys and girls.  It went a little something like this:

Capitalist:  Carol!  How are you?  Kris Dunn from <company name retracted>.  Got a couple of minutes to talk? I've got good news...

Carol: Kris, can you repeat that?  I'm at Church with my three kids.  They always get so excited around Christmas.. (Church bells ringing in the background)

Capitalist:  You bet Carol, got great news for you going into the holiday.  We want you to join the team, and here's some detail for you... (Capitalist outlines broad specs of the deal, selling as hard as he can)

Carol:  Well Kris, that is great news.  Send me the offer package and I'll look it over on Christmas Day and call you back the day after Christmas.

Capitalist: Well Carol, it's funny you say that.  Because I'm in a little bit of a pinch here (long, apologetic intro into the issue), and well, I need you to decide by close of business today to accept the offer or not.

Carol: Kris, you know it's Christmas, right? That I'm with my kids? I'm currently in church?

Capitalist:  I know.  Still, you're the one we want and we have to close it today to ensure we can bring you aboard. 

Carol: <silence for 10 seconds>.  Send the package.  I'll look at it.  Goodbye. (Capitalist trying to apologize again but unable to before hearing <Click>)

And that, boys and girls, is how you know you've arrived in the show.  Cost of a Monster posting? $200-$400 depending on volume.  Cost of a third party recruiter placement? 10-15K..

The realization you've just crossed a line on Christmas Eve that only Gordon Gekko and Ari Gold could appreciate?  Priceless...

PS - Carol accepted and rocked the house at our company.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays....


The Self-Sabotaging Nature of Loving Drama In the Workplace...

"Some men just want to watch the world burn"

--Alfred in Batman

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

Short post today as you go into the holidays, shut it down and think about 2018.

You've got people in your professional life who love drama.  They're wired to create angst, conflict, infighting and many times, they're not even aware Batmanthey're doing it.  It's how they are genetically wired behaviorally.  Rather than observing, learning and maximizing themselves in any situation, they create chaos by inviting others to react to their presentation of facts - which are usually drawn to create a reaction - otherwise known as drama.  They do this even if it hurts them long term.

If you think about all the players in your life, you can probably identify who these people are.

I'm here today with a new year's resolution for you - don't allow people who love drama to draw a reaction from you in 2018.

What these people hate most is not getting the reaction.  There's also learning that goes on as you deny them the combustion they seek.  After the 2nd or 3rd time you deny the drama queens and kings the reaction they seek, they'll stop trying to get it from you, and your life will improve.  

So that's the resolution.  Stop letting the drama people stoke you up.  Try giving them a "hmmm" when they stoke you, and instead of participating in a communal rant, try saying the following:

"I'm going to think about that"

"That's interesting. I'm going to ponder that a bit"

"Get the #### out of my office"

That last one is a joke, because that actually creates drama.  You should avoid reacting when they try to suck you in at all costs.

Measured response is a good leadership technique, both for the drama lovers and also for people who are bringing you bad news, observations and gossip.  Don't get sucked in.  Stay calm.

Of course, if you're a leader, of the things you'll have to deal with is drama kings/queens spinning up other drama kings/queens as a normal course of business.

But that's for another day.  For today and moving into 2018, the thought is this - don't allow people who love drama to draw a reaction from you in 2018.


Indeed Is Preparing to Shift Your Spend from PPC to Resume Database...

Price increases and changes from Indeed have been reported elsewhere - for good reporting on Indeed changes, check out this article and others from Joel Cheesman.

Thought I would weigh in with what I know from my own life in Talent Acquistion and the team that I work with.  Here's what we know and what it feels like: Indeed-

What We Know:

--It used to be that if you spend on Pay Per Click (PPC) with Indeed up to a certain threshold, you got Featured Employer status.  That status came with one important featured - unlimited use of the Indeed Resume Database, which by all accounts, is pretty damn good.

--Most of what Indeed has focused on in the past is PPC via the featured jobs model.

--Conventional wisdom says that the advent of Google for Jobs will and has hurt Indeed's PPC model.

--Indeed reps are currently forwarding proposals to clients with changes in the Indeed Featured Employer/Resume Database model.  Basically it goes like this - in addition to whatever PPC spend you want to make on featured jobs, you're going to have to buy "seats" to access the Resume database.

--Indeed reps are pushing for commits by the end of the year, but when pushed are saying nothing will change related to Featured Employer providing access to the Resume Database until Q2 of 2018.

--Quick math for one recruiting firm suggests to get what the team has grown accustomed to related to access to the Indeed Resume Database, the spend would equal the company's current budget for PPC via Indeed Featured Jobs.

What All That Tells Me:

--Indeed sees the damage/downside to the current PPC model and is wisely monetizing another product stream they previously haven't charged for - The resume database.

--The quick math calculated by the recruiting firm referenced above suggest that Indeed is being pretty aggressive with Resume Database pricing, attempting to fully replace the revenue that might ultimately be lost if the PPC model fails from firms who use the resume database often as part of their core business.

--If your recruiting team doesn't hunt (meaning they just take what comes in off the PPC model and don't use the database much), Indeed still has a problem related to replacing the revenue that might be lost from you if the PPC model ultimately fails and you take your budget dollars elsewhere.

Keep your eye on the efficiency of your Indeed PPC spend as it related to impressions, clicks and applies.  We're seeing some clients way down, but others are holding tight.

If you use Indeed's resume database, our math says that Indeed wants to replace potential lost revenue in PPC with Resume Database seats.  If you don't use the database?  Well, Indeed is still working on how to replace your spend if the PPC model fails and you leave.

 


Male HR Manager Takes Down Female Congressional Candidate with Harassment Claim... #metoo

As warranted by the stupid, inappropriate behavior of some men, the #metoo movement has mostly outed those men for the harassers they are.  But now, we have our first public female victim of the #metoo movement.

This one is juicy folks, because as HR pros, you know more about this one than anyone else in the world.  Read on, analysis after the clip below.  More from the Washington Post: Andrea-ramsey-congress

A Democratic candidate hoping to flip a hotly contested congressional seat in Kansas has dropped out of the race after allegations that she sexually harassed a male subordinate resurfaced during her campaign.  Andrea Ramsey, 57, who was running to unseat Republican Kevin Yoder in a district that includes Kansas City in 2018, is one of the few, if only, women in public life to step down thus far amid a national conversation about sex and power dynamics in the workplace.

The allegations against Ramsey were outlined in a 2005 lawsuit and a complaint filed by a dismissed employee, Gary Funkhouser, to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, when Ramsey was working as an executive vice president of human resources at medical testing company LabOne, according to the Kansas City Star.

In the federal complaint about sex discrimination and retaliation, Funkhouser accused Ramsey, then Andrea Thomas, according to the Star, of making “unwelcome and inappropriate sexual comments and innuendos” when he was a human resources manager for LabOne.

Funkhouser alleged that he had suffered consequences at work because he had rebuffed an advance he said she made during a business trip in 2005.

“After I told her I was not interested in having a sexual relationship with her, she stopped talking to me,” he wrote, according to documents filed in court. “In the office, she completely ignored me and avoided having any contact with me.”

The EEOC closed its investigation in 2005, saying that it was “unable to conclude that the information obtained establishes violations of the statutes.” Though Ramsey was not charged directly in the lawsuit, she had been named in the complaint. It was settled by the company after mediation in 2006 and had begun to be discussed in political circles recently, the Star reported.

Without naming Funkhouser, Ramsey said that a man decided to bring a lawsuit against the company after she eliminated his position.

“He named me in the allegations, claiming I fired him because he refused to have sex with me,” she wrote. “That is a lie.”

Hell hath no fury like a HR pro fired, especially one that thought he/she was on the inside, only to be on the outside.  Do I know the guy made it up?  Do I think Ramsey hit on the guy on the road?

I don't know what happened, but here's what I know:

1--The fact that it was an HR pro bringing the claim makes it different from any we have seen.

2--HR pros know things.  Things like how to bring EEOC claims - their awareness of how to do things like this is higher than almost everyone else's in your company, mainly because they have defended those claims.  They also know those claims are usually settled.

3--Ramsey didn't have to directly hit on him to have this coming.  It's possible that the HR manager in question felt like he was being harassed in other ways and just made that "she wanted to sleep with me on the road" detail up.  Or - as we've learned so many times with harassment, he may have interpreted her offer to come have a drink in the hotel lobby as a solicitation to get busy.  Maybe it was.  #funkhousertoo

4--She apparently didn't open her door in a partially open robe like Weinstein when she asked him to come up and "pick up the comp study to read for the meeting in the morning".  At least I didn't read that detail.  LOL.

5--The name Funkhouser is cool.  If you're wondering where you heard that before, Marty Funkhouser is a recurring character on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Imagine being at that company and saying, "Did you hear about the Funkhouser lawsuit against Andrea?"

The bottom line is this. Hell hath no fury like an HR pro fired or caught up in a reorganization.  The savvy HR leader knows the answer - Andrea Ramsey should have loaded up young Funkhouser with an exceptional severance package on the way out.  

I'll repeat one of my core sayings - "In America, allegations are free."  Anyone can file a claim.   And it's that fact that we all should remember as HR leaders as we go through various reorganizations.

Anyone can file a claim, but HR pros?  They know more about how to do it and the process that happens afterwords than anyone in the world.

 

 

 

 


5 Ways Using Adobe Document Cloud Makes Your HR Function Look Best in Breed

If there’s one thing we know, it’s that negative stereotypes about HR Pros are common.  You know them because you live them:

--HR’s great at making rules

--HR’s great at saying “no”

--HR usually trails other functional areas in evolving with the times.

Am I talking about you? Probably not – if you’re doing things like reading blogs, looking for industry news via social and seeking best practices, odds are you’re in the top quartile of our profession related to looking progressive and staying current.

But that doesn’t mean others don’t judge you by the stereotypes.  Appearances matter, and outsiders routinely assume that you are part of sleepy portion of the HR nation.

That’s why you need a plan to separate you from the HR masses. I talk a lot about ways to do this at the HR Capitalist – everything from enhancing your LinkedIn profile to the projects you work on (and how you promote those to the world) impacts how others see you.

I’m here today with a few simple recommendations that can probably do as much – if not more – as anything to drive others to view you as a progressive, forward-thinking “he/she gets it” HR leader.

You should use Adobe Sign as part of your HR practice and infrastructure

For the uninitiated, Adobe Sign is the world`s most trusted e-signature solution, providing the easiest signing experience, effortless mobility, and unsurpassed security. 

Regardless of where you are in the HR Tech continuum, many of you know you’re still stuck in a sea of paper documents. Upgrading any part of your HR Tech stack doesn’t mean you automatically eliminate paper. Ironically, one of the biggest impacts you can have on how your HR practice is viewed is to change your signature gathering game.

That’s where the Adobe Sign solution starts to make a lot of sense.  Here’s 5 Ways Using Adobe Document Cloud Makes Your HR Function Look Best in Breed:

1.    Make all your forms mobile. This just in – most of the people you need signatures from are reading your request for a signature from a mobile device.  Imagine the power of creating a form using Adobe Acrobat and having the ability to easily execute a signature right from a mobile device.  Advantage: you and your HR practice.

2.    Don’t send paper to candidates. First impressions matter, and many of us in HR fail this initial test with candidates. We have career sites that allow candidates to apply for jobs digitally, but eventually we have this thing called “definition of an applicant.” That’s a fancy way of saying that we’re going to email you a document with a formal application and background authorization forms to make it official. The offer letter faces the same problem.  We typically ask candidates to print those out, sign, scan and return.  Feels like 1999, and I’m not talking about the cool Prince song. Adobe Sign can fast forward your HR practice to today – or tomorrow. 

3.    Eliminate the new hire paperwork package that looks like it came from a mortgage provider. You know the drill – your new employees are excited about working for your company, then you hit them with 300 pages of new hire paperwork and make them sign 30 times on their first day. Imagine the perception and reaction if you gave them an iPad and had that entire package available digitally. You’ll be a hero.

4.    Get legally important training executed and acknowledged without the usual cattle call. Every HR Pro has a recurring need to get company-wide items like safety and harassment training completed. A few of us have clunky LMS systems to help them navigate this cattle call, but most of us are left with email blasts and pleas for people to sign acknowledgments to help us close the project. Adobe Sign can help you spend 10% of the time you currently do on these time-intensive projects.

5.    Make HR service immediate by converting paper forms to Adobe Sign and delivering via mobile. I get it, you put all your forms up on your Intranet. Too bad people just want to call you to ask where to find the form.  If you email them a link to that Intranet form, you’re still relying on them to print and return it to you. If you use Adobe Sign, you send them a form they execute as soon as they open your email.  Which way sounds smarter?

For those of you that feel like you’re behind on HR technology, I have great news. By onboarding products like Adobe Sign and Adobe Acrobat and doing a light project to make your forms and signatures digital in nature, you can leapfrog your peers and competitors who have spent significant money on recruiting, performance management systems and other forms of advanced HR tech.

Turns out, making it easy to do business with your HR practice on core paperwork via Adobe Document Cloud has the biggest ROI available in HR Tech.

This post was brought to you in partnership with Adobe Document Cloud.


Publicly Shaming Good People Removes Them From the Conversation on Change...

Look - I get it - there's a lot of stuff going on in the world that's been a long time coming for society in general:

--Protests against police brutality and the impact of that on minorities - check. Duncan

--the #metoo movement and shining a light on the pig-like behavior and conduct of way too many men in our society - check.

--Equal rights for the GLBTQ community - check.

There's more, but I'll stop there.  Us talking about those things and hopefully course correcting are good things on all levels.  But what's become a by-product of that process is going after people with good intentions by a form of public shaming, and that shaming is focused on calling out people as being non-friendly to any or all of the groups in question.

Of course, social media makes the shaming easy to do.  And the shaming is subtle - it rarely calls someone a racist, a harasser or a bigot in general directly - it simply accuses you of not being as sensitive as you should, which implies that the target of the shaming is any or all of the things I just mentioned.

Here's what happens when you call out a normal, good person with good intent and try to shame them - You push them away from the conversation.  They'll leave the arena, usually never to reengage. And if it's change you seek, that's not a good thing.

Quick story - was doing a webinar a couple of weeks ago for about 400 people.  Going through some slides, and had a shamer hijack the Q&A section by suggesting that my slides didn't have enough diversity.  That's fair on the surface (my slides did include diversity, with about 25% of the slides including non-white people as one form of measuring diversity, and my case study featured a woman), but the intent was clear - the commenter felt one way and tried to hijack the show.

Meanwhile - and I can't make this stuff up - the webinar was slides plus video of the presenter and the following is true....

Behind me on my wall (I'm the presenter) was a canvas oil painting of Tim Duncan (that painting is pictured to the right of this post).  Tim Duncan happens to be black, and he was in my video frame and visible to all participants for 55 MINUTES OF THE WEBINAR.

Translation - my webinar had diversity visible for the entire show.  But the shamers came out.  Lucky for me my skin is thicker than a rhino.

But most people in our workplace don't have my skin thickness and haven't put themselves out there for criticism like I have.  Most of the good faith/good effort people we know will withdraw from any type of risk - and therefore meaningful conversation - as soon as they are shamed.

Shaming shines a light on the obvious bigots.  But when you shame normal people, I'm here to tell you that you're reducing the level of conversation - and probably guaranteeing we don't progress as quickly as we could in our society.

Change is good in the all the areas listed. Be careful you aren't eliminating great people from the conversation by attempting to publicly shame.

 


Bitcoin 401K Rollovers - What the #### Could Go Wrong?

This appeared in my gmail as a paid ad today (Email subscribers, click through to see the poison below):

Bitcoin_11

I'm not a financial advisor.  There's probably money to be made in Bitcoin, although the SEC has issued investor warnings.

The vast, vast majority of your employees aren't qualified to evaluate Bitcoin as an investment option.  When ads like this pop up, I'm assuming they aren't offering Bitcoin as a speculative 5% of someone's portfolio - I'm assuming they want to cram all 100% of that rollover in Bitcoin for various reasons that have to do with money.

Many of your employees have 401ks parked with a previous employer.  25% know about Bitcoin and are interested in the hype.  1/5 of those would consider this ad.

It's worth you getting in front of this with a HR comms piece -  to let people know that ads are rolling encouraging 401k rollovers straight into Bitcoin and there's some danger via the SEC.  

Respect the game.

 


Let's Hangout and Talk - Getting Ready to Staff Up at the Start of 2018...

If you’re a client or follower of Jobvite, you know the Recruiter Nation Live series.  It started with the Recruiter Nation Live Conference in San Francisco last June, and continued with the Recruiter Nation Live Roadshow that brought real recruiter talk to 9 cities in North America over the last three months. 
 
The feedback was great – you loved it, so we’re back with the latest in the series – the Recruiter Nation Live Hangout Series, hosted by Fistful of Talent and me.  Once a month, FOT will host a live Hangout designed to keep the conversation among recruiters going – focused on things you can use, like the best-kept secrets of today’s smartest and most efficient recruiters, Jedi-mind tricks proven to make you more persuasive/get great candidate response and strategies to hold your hiring managers accountable for their choices–so everyone wins.

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

Our next hangout is at 1pm ET on December 14th (this Thursday!).  It's an informal thing - we fire up the video and a few slides (emphasis on "few") and run through a few things in 20-25 minutes...

Topic - GETTING READY FOR THE JANUARY 2018 HIRING RUSH!! (WITH FOTers DAWN BURKE AND KRIS DUNN)

REGISTER FOR THE HANGOUT BY CLICKING THIS LINK!!!

TOPICS/THE GOOD STUFF -
 
--How to build your internal and external recruiting “posse” for 2018. 

--What year-end “house-cleaning” (especially within your technology platforms/ATS) must be done to start 2018 with a clean slate. 

--How to partner with your executives and hiring managers to get great results - together. 

--What reporting would help you manage expectations and influence your internal clients to recognize the great work you're doing?

REGISTER FOR THE HANGOUT BY CLICKING THIS LINK!!! 

 


VIDEO: Jamming Your Business Approach/Best Practice Down Someone's Throat...

The scene - team discussion about a direction with client work.

The problem - client doesn't know what they want.  They're attempting to neuter rock star work, which will hurt the end product.

What do you do?  Your choices

1--Neuter the work.  Work product suffers, but you take a "the client is always right" approach and give them what they ask for.  Cross off the client as a reference - They'll be happy, but you won't be proud of the work.

2--Battle with them.  They're wrong.  You're right.  Let's go to war.

Of course, there is a third approach - you've got to educate them why you're approach works, maybe give them a concession or two and try to work as a consultant to take most of what you know they need.  Senior level influence in this regard - you can show them others in the industry are already deploying your approach or find others in their organization who support you.

Need a video to parody this approach?  I thought you'd never ask.  Take a look at the video below (email subscribers click through to see the video) - it's from my life as a card-carrying member of Gen X.  It's a music video from a alt-rock group called Sum41, and the intro is what I want you to look at, as the band visits a music executive who tells them he wants them to change their name to the "The Sums" based on the success of groups like "The Strokes" and "The White Stripes".

Favorite quotes from the exec:

"Do you smoke? You do now, smoke 'em up Johnny".

"What's your name? (kid says Derrick)  Not anymore it's not. It's Sven"

Get out there and influence.  They need what you got, people.