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June 2019

Does a Full Email or Voice Mail Inbox = Low Engagement?

You've dealt with it too many times to count.

You want to leave an email or a voice mail for someone, and your wish is denied.  Their inbox is full. Emailbox

And you start judging them.

"get your #### together"

"that is one of busiest people on earth"

"organizational skills?  Probably not"

"they've reorged to the point where this is happening at this company"

"he has ceased...caring"

If you notice those hypothetical reactions you could have to a full email or voice mail inbox, you'll notice they are part accusation and part empathy.  

The reality is the same - a full inbox can mean a variety of things.  The person with a full inbox can be overwhelmed - a white flag if you will that no person could reasonably be expected to deal with the volume and demands they're under.  Combine that situation with an aggressive IT policy related to the size of email and voice mail storage, and you'll see the white flag early and often.

Of course, there's a harsher reality at times as well.  A consistently full email (also non-responsiveness to email) or voice mail box can mean someone has checked out - part of the issue may be workload, but another part of the issue may be general engagement levels.

How do you tell the difference?  My take is that you can usually tell once you have the opportunity to talk with the person - 1-on-1.

The disengaged person isn't going to have much passion or sense of urgency about what they're doing.  The simply overwhelmed person, on the other hand, is going to have plenty of passion and still show the spark for what they do for a living.  But they're in obvious need of help - the type of help may differ by situation.

Full email and voice mail inboxes always mean something.  You just have to talk to the person to confirm what the reality is.


PODCAST - e2 - This is HR (Employee Activism at Google, Netflix HR Series and Mandatory Sick Leave Laws)

(Email subscribers, if you don't see the podcast player, click here to see the podcast)

In this episode of THIS IS HR, Kris Dunn (CHRO at Kinetix), Tim Sackett (President of HRU), and Jessica Lee (VP of Brand Talent, Marriott) hit the following topics:

--A recent report on employee activism at companies like Google, Microsoft and Salesforce. If a small section of your employees starts protesting against your business plan or specific clients you serve, what do you do as an HR Pro? The gang digs in and finds that it's complicated (2:53)

--The team tries to bring the outrage at a new Netflix series, hosted by Dustin from Stranger Things, that take advantage of unemployed people who think they've finally landed a job.  They find their outrage uneven and too pedestrian so they start brainstorming Netflix pitches with an HR theme that would be cool (11:53)

--An exploration of the trend across some cities to enact mandatory sick leave laws.  Good thing or bad thing?  The gang digs in (18:51)

KD closes it out by going to the mailbag and getting a simple question from a manufacturing HR Pro on favorite interview questions, which Tim and JLee turn into a potentially ill-advised primer on passion in your job (27:21)

BONUS: We uncover that that one of the gang is stressed about prepping for Maternity Leave, while another one's not stressed but always preparing for the unexpected like a boy/girl scout.

What could go wrong with topics like these?  Give it a listen!


Google for Jobs: A Stat That Will Make Go Hmmmmm...

First, a quick definition - in 2017, Google launched Google for Jobs, a service dedicated to making Google a primary job search source for all.  It works like this - Google scrapes all the jobs from career sites across the world, and by coding your jobs/career sites in a certain way, you can do your best to ensure the jobs at your company perform well when candidates search for jobs (think, "Financial Analyst") in the geographical area they are interested in.

The big news in 2017 and beyond that Google was getting into job search/job postings.  Since so many candidates start searching for jobs with search engine query, the reality of what Google was doing - putting a big listing of jobs from G4J at the top of search results on anything resembling job search - was thought to be a threat to all who market and sell job postings.  This obviously impacts the future business results of Indeed, LinkedIn and the traditional job boards.

Early results show that the change, i.e. the potential to put other companies out of the job posting business (or hurt their financial results), has been slower than expected to materialize. 

But to really understand the potential impact, you simply need to look at other industries.  Here's a stat that should make us think it's only a matter of time before Google for Jobs is completely dominant:

On mobile devices, 62% of searches never leave Google. Google’s desktop dominance is also growing: Between 2016 and today, desktop searches that never leave Google have risen from 9% to 35%.

You may have noticed that in a lot of Google searches you do, Google provides enough information in a dialog box, and you don't have to leave Google to get to another site.  That's by design - Google’s goal is to provide info directly, without having to refer users to other websites.  The stat above tells you how good they are getting at providing enough info/value so you don't have to click and go somewhere else.

The latest news covering this trend  - song lyric site Genius.com has accused Google of scraping its site.  More from Mashable:

"Lyrics annotation service Genius.com has accused Google of scraping its site and stealing its content, the Wall Street Journal reported this weekend. However, a lyrics data provider at the center of the controversy claimed on Monday that those allegations were without merit.

The Journal reported that Genius had been complaining to Google about the alleged theft for some time, with Google consistently denying the allegations. To prove its point, Genius proceeded to alter lyrics hosted on its site with a variety of different apostrophes.

The company alternated between apostrophe styles in a frequency that allowed it to embed a secret morse code message into the text. The message in question: “Red handed.” Soon after, the modified lyrics, complete with the hidden message, showed up on Google.com, according to Genius."

Why the drama about song lyrics? Genius.com says its traffic is dropping because, for the past several years, Google has been publishing lyrics on its own platform, with some of them lifted directly from the music site.

In other words, when Google provides its own data rather than referring web searches to other sites, life gets hard.

The fact that Google does that in 35% of all web searches today - with an eye to take a lot more market share - should make everyone who relies on referral traffic really nervous.

Google for Jobs hasn't put anyone out of business in the job posting industry  - yet.  But, it feels like we're in the first quarter of this game.

Diversification of business model seems like a smart play for those in the crosshairs.

 

 


So You're a Tough Interviewer, Eh? How's that Working Out For You?

Let's talk about the myth of being a tough interviewer.
 
So you're a tough interviewer. You automatically go on the offensive in any interview setting, some would even call your style "on the attack."  You are confrontational, basically calling bulls**t on the candidate you have in front of you.  Are they sure they really belong in front of you with this background? What's missing?  You routinely attack what's missing in the first 10 minutes of the interviewer, satisfied you're doing your job of preventing people (who don't really have what it takes) to join your company.
 
The tough interviewer could also be called the negative or confrontational interviewer. It's most common tenured employees who don't feel any risk of alienating candidates. If this interviewing style is you, you don't build a lot of dialog with the candidate. You just go negative and watch them squirm.
 
How's being a negative interviewer working out for you?
 
Great, you say.
 
The people around you probably beg to differ.  
 
You see, your hard interviewing style is costing your company candidates. In a peak economy, good to great candidates have a lot choices in where their next job comes from.  It's likely that if a candidate made it all the way to you that they are good or great. They're in front of you because they have already been vetted and someone believes they might be a hire for your company.
 
And you bomb them with negative and hard vibes.  Damn.
 
The path for the most effective interviewers is simple - selling your company and yourself as an leader or peer while getting what you need to evaluate the candidate.  Are you an effective interviewer by this definition?
 
--No. You’re hard on candidates. No one wants to work with you or for you.
 
--Maybe. You’re neutral enough not to hurt your company. But that's probably not good enough in today's competitive hiring landscape.
 
--Yes, Absolutely. You get great stuff to evaluate the candidate, asking tough questions but framing that dialog in a way that makes them think you're on their side and rooting for them.
 
If you've ever prided yourself for being a "hard" interviewer, time for a little self-evaluation. If candidates leave your interview thinking that the session went awful or worse yet - they wouldn't want to work for you or with you, you've got a problem. You're net negative to the employment brand.
 
You're better than that. You can still ask the hard questions, but cadence, taking the time to build positive dialog and demeanor means everything.
 
You can do this. Help us out. 

PODCAST: This is HR (Pilot Covering Sephora D&I Training, Ford OD and more)

(Email subscribers, if you don't see the podcast player, click here to see the podcast)

In the pilot of THIS IS HR, Jessica Lee (VP of Brand Talent, Marriott) is joined by Tim Sackett (President of HRU) and Kris Dunn (CHRO at Kinetix) for a discussion of industry news that only true HR pros could love.

The gang covers:

--research from the Lean In organization indicating 60% of male managers are afraid to have a 1-1 with female direct reports (5:45)

--recent layoffs at Ford Motor Company including a kinder, gentler approach allowing downsized employees to hang out for a few days after getting the news (14:06)

--D&I training rolled out by Sephora after recording artist SZA reported being profiled (22:15)

KD closes it out by reaching in the mailbag and pulling out a gem from a HR pro who is trying to tackle inclusion within an office full of straight people (30:18)

BONUS: Disclosures that one of the gang’s HR job includes Yachts (as opposed to Yacht Rock), kids with MTV internship stories and references to a guy named “Puck” from one of the first Real World seasons from MTV.  Shout out, Gen X… we haven't forgotten you.

What could go wrong?  Take a listen!


But Will They Stay? (Weak Things HR and Business Leaders Say)

Ever hear managers, executives and even HR say some weak things?

Of course you have. For me, there's one thing that rises to epic level when it coms to weak: Kawhi

"I like them as a candidate. I'm just worried they won't stay."

This mindset values retention over talent, performance and more. The candidate is strong and wants to come. Yet, there's something about the work history (too heavy), the comp (we can't provide as much as we would like) and a myriad of other factors that make your hiring manger wring their hands about offering a job to the candidate in question.

As I write this, the Toronto Raptors are set to clinch the NBA championship tonight over the dynastic Golden State Warriors. The Raptors are up 3 games to 1, and their success is driven by the acquisition of Kawhi Leonard, for whom the Raptors traded another all star for, even though Leonard only had one year remaining when the deal was made.

That means contractually the Raptors traded for an employee who would open up their recruiting process one year later, and faced a heavy chance they wouldn't retain him.

"I'm just worried they won't stay."

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that if you can keep great talent in your company for a stint of 2-3 years, you're better off for having had them, reaping the contributions they make - than never having them at all.

This obviously refers to the top 10% - the most talented among us.

The Raptors traded for Kawhi Leonard and knew that it was highly likely they would have him for a year. They did it anyway. Now, they're about to win a title.

Unwillingness to bring in top talent - long term retention risk be damned - can say a few things about your organization:

1--I don't think we're very good and I'm sure they won't stay.

2--We're OK, I know we can get better, but I'm not sure we'll improve quick enough to retain them.

3--We're not going to be able to comp this person they way they'll need to be comped to retain them.

4--I'm personally threatened by hiring someone this good. I'd prefer to have village idiots around me.

But what if you put any and all of those fears aside and hired the best person available, then got the **** out of the way and let them do their job?

They might be gone in a year. But that year might have been a hell of run.

Just ask the citizens of Toronto.


Men Who Are Uncomfortable Mentoring Women: I'd Guess You're Doing This...

Is the number of men who are afraid to mentor women really on the rise in the #metoo era? As crazy as it seems, a new report from Sheryl Sandberg’s LeanIn Organization says this is the case. Here’s what the report says, we'll discuss after the rundown:

--Female employees are now facing a new threat to their careers in the post #metoo era. Me too

--Their male bosses are avoiding 1:1 time with them, for fear of how being alone with a woman will look.

--This is based on new research released by Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn organization which finds that "60% of male managers in the United States are afraid to do a one-on-one activity, and that the number of men that feel that way is on the rise since last year.

--Sandberg says senior male managers are also hesitating when it comes to business travel with their female employees as well as 1:1 dinners and that this number is on the rise since last year, up 33%.

--The obvious concern is already low mentoring rates when it comes to senior male managers mentoring women - and those rates dropping even further.

--This SurveyMonkey/Lean In online poll was conducted February 22-March 1, 2019, among a national sample of 5,182 adults in the U.S. ages eighteen and older. The modeled error estimate is +/- 2 percentage points. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are from the February 22-March 1, 2019 SurveyMonkey poll. Data for all surveys have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age eighteen and over.

How do you feel about that?  I'm a guy, which means I should be careful, but I'm probably part of the problem if I'm afraid to share my opinion.

My advice to the men who aren't comfortable mentoring women is pretty simple. That vibe you're feeling in the #metoo era doesn't have much to do with the movement - it has everything to do with you.

If you've noticed women acting differently, being skeptical of you, etc.- it's probably time to take a hard look at your tendencies in meetings that include both male and female colleagues, direct reports and underlings.

You might be a brotastic mess. We get it, you're a guy. But if you're in meetings and all your small talk is with the other guys, that probably naturally flows into the work conversations when the meeting actually starts and work conversations are being executed. How often do you ask a woman in those meetings the subject matter expert over a man? How often do you make sure that a woman who's quiet and not participating gets a professional, clean shot at being a part of the conversation?

The answer is that a some of you don't do that. As a result, woman are likely to be a bit distant professionally from you. You feel that, and make the assumption that the distance is related to #metoo. Which leads you to report that you're really not comfortable with the whole 1/1 thing in the #metoo era.

Which is weak.

The answer is more engagement with the women on your team during the normal course of business. You're responsible for the distance you feel. Being comfortable in a 1/1 is easy - just go out of your way to engage with the women on your team during the normal course of business, and 1/1's will feel like an extension of that.

I'm far from perfect, but I know this. If you're afraid to do a 1/1, I can look at your meetings, conversations and more in public space and see subtle differences in how you engage men vs. women.

I'm just a guy. But if you defer shooting the sh*t with me in preference of engaging with our female co-workers before our meeting starts, you'll be well on your way to becoming comfortable with 1/1's with female.

Stop being creepy in your assumed stance of avoiding being creepy.


Bro-tastic vs. We Care: A Quick Review of Uber's Current and Past Corporate Values...

I'm always fascinated by the choices that companies and leadership teams make when they create company values.  

The challenge, of course, is to cut through the noise and get to what's real for the employees who work for your organization. To me, values can be aspirational, but are always best served by words that describe what makes the high performers in your organization different/successful, regardless of position.

In that way, company values can be incredibly powerful. But too often they're mostly aspirational and don't tell you anything about the top talent in Uberyour organization.

Of course, it can go the other way as well.  Leadership teams can do a great job of making company values actionable and representative of culture, but the words can mean too much - at times justifying negative behaviors.  

It's a slippery slope. You want to find the sweet spot in the middle - actionable words that don't create rationalization for behaviors that seem counter to accepted people practices.

Need an example? I thought you would never ask... Let's take a look at the company values of Uber, both back in the old days under CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick, and then look at the current values under leadership of Dara Khosrowshahi, who was brought in to provide adult leadership when the company was spiraling in multiple controversies brought on by cultural failings of the earlier leadership.

First, the Uber company values under Kalanick:

Customer obsession (Start with what is best for the customer.)

Make magic (Seek breakthroughs that will stand the test of time.)

Big bold bets (Take risks and plant seeds that are five to ten years out.)

Inside out (Find the gap between popular perception and reality.)

Champion’s mind-set (Put everything you have on the field to overcome adversity and get Uber over the finish line.)

Optimistic leadership (Be inspiring.)

Superpumped (Ryan Graves’s original Twitter proclamation after Kalanick  replaced him as CEO; the world is a puzzle to be solved with enthusiasm.)

Be an owner, not a renter (Revolutions are won by true believers.)

Meritocracy and toe-stepping (The best idea always wins. Don’t sacrifice truth for social cohesion and don’t hesitate to challenge the boss.)

Let builders build (People must be empowered to build things.)

Always be hustlin’ (Get more done with less, working longer, harder, and smarter, not   just two out of three.)

Celebrate cities (Everything  we do is to make cities better.)

Be yourself (Each of us should be authentic.)

Principled confrontation (Sometimes the world and institutions need to change in order for the future to be ushered in.)

Damn. I love values that show what it takes to be successful at a company, but you can kind of see where it could go off the rails. More on that in a second.

Next, the current Uber company values under the all-grown up Khosrowshahi:

We build globally, we live locallyWe harness the power and scale of our global operations to deeply connect with the cities, communities, drivers and riders that we serve, every day.

We are customer obsessed. We work tirelessly to earn our customers’ trust and business by solving their problems, maximizing their earnings or lowering their costs. We surprise and delight them. We make short-term sacrifices for a lifetime of loyalty.

We celebrate differences. We stand apart from the average. We ensure people of diverse backgrounds feel welcome. We encourage different opinions and approaches to be heard, and then we come together and build.

We do the right thing. Period.

We act like owners. We seek out problems and we solve them. We help each other and those who matter to us. We have a bias for action and accountability. We finish what we start and we build Uber to last. And when we make mistakes, we’ll own up to them.

We persevere. We believe in the power of grit. We don’t seek the easy path. We look for the toughest challenges and we push. Our collective resilience is our secret weapon.

We value ideas over hierarchy. We believe that the best ideas can come from anywhere, both inside and outside our company. Our job is to seek out those ideas, to shape and improve them through candid debate, and to take them from concept to action.

We make big bold bets. Sometimes we fail, but failure makes us smarter. We get back up, we make the next bet, and we go!

See the difference? Wow.

The values from Kalanick's time that I've highlighted note fairly aggressive values that champion assertiveness, machismo and the confrontation that was really the genesis for Uber getting off the ground. Let us not forget the amount of confrontation Uber was taking on with almost every city as they launched their service. They truly begged forgiveness and were the barbarians at the gate. It's only natural that this spilled over into the values and into the culture. Of course, that was a choice - they effectively hard coded that macho vibe into the culture, and as we saw later it became a shitshow of harassment suits, bullying, etc. 

Could they have pivoted on the values once they saw the negative behaviors inside the company? Of course they could have. But that type of pivot means you can't have a founder-driven cult of personality.

Exit Kalanick, enter Khosrowshahi. The second set of values are from a grown up company. The words are softer. They're reflective of a pivot in values for a company that lost it's way, but also reflective of a company where the tough founder-driven stuff has already been done.

Could Khosrowshahi have grown Uber from scratch with this cultural DNA?  Nope.  Should Kalanick pivoted his culture once market share had been obtained and his values began to be a liability? Yep.

Welcome to the goody room of "words matter".  Nothing is easy when it comes to using values to drive culture.  


Better Marketing For Corrective Action in HR...

I recently dropped a post titled "Is Corrective Action a Death Sentence?", which explored the fact that all too often, corrective action/progressive discipline is the beginning of the end. When an employee gets that document, all too often they have the opinion they can't save their job.
 
Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. What if we entered into the corrective action world actually
expecting that the employee could make it? That's the way it should be in my eyes. Of course, that The planmeans a couple of different things:
 
1--Our companies have to go into any type of corrective action plan thinking the employee can make it, with the right type of support.
 
2--The employee in question has to want to raise their performance to meet the requirements of your plan - not always the case.
 
3--No one can act surprised if the employee makes it.
 
Which brings us to the garden variety corrective action/progressive discipline plan.  Here's a couple of things to think about:
 
--It's not over just because you "wrote them up".  Identifying what the performance is and why it's not great is only half the battle.
 
--The other half of the battle? Actually telling them what they need to do to get off the plan.
 
What's acceptable performance look like?  Too often corrective action/progressive discipline documents don't describe what performance that meets expectations looks like.  That's a miss.
 
So if you're going to do corrective action/progressive discipline the right way, you have to provide a path where they are off the plan. Most of us don't do that. We're just taking a "step".
 
If you're different than that, you probably should consider renaming what you call corrective action/progressive discipline at your company. I know what you're thinking - just because I call it something else doesn't mean anything has changed - and you're right.
 
I'm only telling you to change what you call it if you're actually open to someone getting their performance together and coming "off'" the plan. By all means, if you're just taking steps, keep doing what your doing. I hope the corrective action/progressive discipline process goes well for you.
 
But, if you're doing it differently and providing the aforementioned path, you should rename it.  Here's some real options, all with elements of truth in them:
 
Real Options/Recommendations
 
--Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) - Frequently used by sales teams with hard numbers to back it up, the ole' PIP means what it says. Do this, and you're good.  Don't do this, and we probably can't keep you.
 
--Back on Track Plan - This name for the plan does what it says it's going to do. You're off track. We need you on track. Here's the plan to do it.
 
--Individual Development Plan (IDP) - I know, I know. This is usually centered around true employee development in the L&D space. But if you don't currently have IDPs as part of your human capital stack, this name is available to you for to use for performance situations.
 
If you had the exact right culture, you could also use naming conventions like the "Get Them Off Your Back Plan", which is 100% honest but likely way too cheeky for the seriousness of what's in front of you.
 
The bottom line is this - if you don't have corrective action that shows the path to get off the plan, you're signaling a lot of bad things. I understand those bad things are likely to happen in a lot of circumstances, but aren't we better than that?
 
Change the name if you're willing to work on it and provide clarity in feedback to those that are struggling in your organization.  Keep it as is if you're not - don't destroy the opportunity for others.

Venice Cruise Ship Fiasco: Create a Workplace-Related Caption for This Rough Landing Video......

In case you missed it, 65,o00 ton cruise ship MSC Opera recently crashed into a Venice dock, taking out a smaller ship and injuring a few people to boot.

On June 2, the 2100 passenger/13 story cruise ship laid on its horn as it came crashing into a busy dock, the Washington Post reports. Take a look at the video and then give me a workplace/HR caption that fits what you see below (email subscribers, click through for video):

I actually own a boat, and landing it was and is one of the most humbling things you can do.  Of course, my boat is 25 ft long and I bought it used as hell because I knew it was going to be a complete sh**show at times, and who needs to worry about hurting the value of your vessel when you're a complete newbie?  For that reason, I captioned it as the following in some of my group texts:

"Me landing it at the Marina on a windy day"

My group texts, littered with HR and talent pros, came back with the following gems:

"Me giving a presentation with no prep"

"My LinkedIn rep proposing to triple the cost of my annual contract"

"My CEO talking about his boat in an all-hands employee meeting"

"My Sales Leader changing his team's commission plan via email over the weekend with no warning"

You get the vibe. Give me your workplace related caption to this "rough" landing.