FOT mainstays Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett talk shop in this video, riffing on 3 things HR Leaders are focusing on during the COVID recovery, including overall HR agility, HR Communications/Branding and topgrading talent in a down economy.

Video below! (email subscribers click through if you don’t see the video player)

———————————-

Looking for help in enhancing your brand as an HR Leader? FOT recommends you take a look at SHRM Education Spring 2020 Catalog and pay close attention to these programs and e-learning modules:

• 32 – Consultation: Honing your HR Business Leader Skills
• 33 – Investing in People with Data-Driven Solutions
• 34 – Powerful Leaders – Transform your personal brand and executive presence. Strategies for Leadership in HR.
• 35 – Future of Work Fast Track

Use the code “HRRocks” when registering for a Spring or Summer SHRM Educational Program and receive $200 off until May 30^th! (excludes SHRM specialty credentials and SHRM SCP/CP prep courses)

In episode 16 of The HR Famous Podcast, I track down Head of HR for Mikron Ed Baldwin for a continuation discussion about return to work plans. we discuss Mikron’s early decision to start working remotely, what changes they have made in their manufacturing plants, and what tactics allowed them to be on top of the pandemic.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)! (email subscribers, click through if you don't see the podcast player below)

Show Highlights:

2:00 - KD starts off the episode by asking Ed about his position and what Mikron does and their unique position that helped them to be better prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic. 

5:15 - KD and Ed establish the timeline of the WFH and circumstances that Mikron faced. 

6:00 - Ed outlines the plan and decision Mikron made for remote working, why they made that decision, and how they implemented that plan. 

9:30 - KD asks Ed what he attributes Mikron s early call to have employees work from home to. Ed says that WFH wasn’t as dispurtive as they had thought and frequent leadership team meetings helped their quick and effective response as well as their decision to make remote work a permanent fixture where they could.

11:50 -Ed and KD discuss work/employee density as a driving force in COVID response for a manufacturing company. 

13:00 - Ed explains a few things that Mikron has done to keep their workers still working on site safe, like modifying work schedules, increased hygiene and cleaning services, and open doors where possible among other changes. 

17:30 - KD asks Ed on how his midwestern upbringing in Iowa has prepared him for his work at Micron and his decision making during this pandemic. Don’t forget where you come from! 

19:45 - Check out Ed Baldwin’s profile on LinkedIn and his writing on Fistful of Talent!

Ed Baldwin on LinkedIn

Mikron

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Kris Dunn on Twitter

Kris Dunn on Instagram

KD's Book - The 9 Faces of HR

Updating this post for COVID-19, although most of you are bigger than that. But that doesn't mean we're not all small in some way...

I'm asking. You know you have some type of petty thing - that's caused you to rank a candidate lower than they should have been.

Candidates who got impacted by COVID? You'll get through that and not hold it against them. But you'll still be holding something small against a cross-section of candidates.

I'm not talking about bias with a capital "B".  I'm talking about bias with a smaller than lower case "b".   It's so petty that the "b" in bias is actual two font sizes smaller than the rest of the word.  

Mine?  I have a hard time with candidates who take me out of my normal messaging environment.  Namely, the ability to use iMessage across different devices and communicate with team members is a preference - not a necessity.  I've hired people that I can't message on the iMessage platform before, and will in the future.  Best candidate wins. 

But when I pick up my phone to SMS a candidate rather than iMessage from my mac, I need to remind myself best candidate wins.  Twice.

What's your pettiest reason for being lukewarm on a candidate?  Hit me in the comments, or message me.  Unless you're not IOS - if that's the case, definitely hit me in the comments.

In episode 15 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss Tim’s extravagant Southern Utah adventure, return to work plans, Twitter’s WFH forever proclamation, and Microsoft Teams. The team discusses the different return to work plans and ideas, new office norms, and a potential boom in the workplace real estate market.

Listen below (email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player) or click here for a direct link. Be sure to and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review via iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:00 - No Tim on this episode! Are we sad or happy? Stay tuned to find out ;)

2:00 - Is JLee still a kid? Sound off in the comments

3:30 - Tim Sackett is a jerk!!!! His Instagram is making the HR Famous crew jealous with his Southern Utah golfing, jeep trips, and luxurious escapades. Safe travels Timmy!

4:30 - Today’s topic: return to work! Some companies have their plans ready to go but all companies are going to have to get ready for “the new normal”. What is that going to look like? Are you ready?

7:00 - RTW = return to work

7:30 - Jlee sounds off on the differences of work returns there can be and the potential anxiety employees could bring with them. Will there be a major fear from workers?

8:45 - KD is taking the approach of surveying his employees on how they want to return to work. Who wants to stay home? Who wants to return to the office? Who is unsure and has concerns? 

9:40 - One size fits all? Not for RTW plans.

11:15 - KD fills us in on how Kinetix is facing RTW: Branded face masks: check! How do you feel about the decorative/branded face masks?

13:15 - Sexy brand check! Jack Dorsey has announced that all Twitter employees can work remote forever. What really is forever? Jlee thinks it’s a cool idea but may be too early to make this call. Only a diamond is forever ;)

16:00 - Will there be an increased need for real estate for workspace? Due to physical distancing needs, there may need more space needed to ensure employee safety. 

18:00 - Have you ever had an employee sit on the floor in your office during a meeting? Jlee hasn’t but she thinks that cramped small office meetings are on the way out and virtual meetings are here to stay.

20:30 - KD and Jlee are turning this into a Microsoft ad! Microsoft Teams chat is the new norm for Jlee but may be NSFW because of their raunchy gifs.

22:30 - KD thinks that Eric Schmitt’s perception of a workspace real estate boom is a little tone deaf. With more WFH employees and financial troubles, there may not be a real estate boom especially in spaces made for small to mid-sized businesses. 

24:00 - Should we be celebrating companies and CEOs who pledge not to lay off employees? The crew thinks it’s unrealistic to raise the expectation that companies should not lay off some workers in this pandemic, especially in service industries. 

26:10 - “Up your sunscreen game” - KD to Tim Sackett. 

Damn you, Glassdoor!  

Quit toying with me. I have enough s##t going on without you cratering my expected value.

A couple of years ago we were recruiting software sales pros at Kinetix and SF was a target market. So I used my Glassdoor account to confirm that the Bay area was an expensive place to hire hunting sales pros, listing my occupation and location to match the target. I never changed it.

I expected my value to fall a bit during COVID, but c'mon. See my estimated market value as a sales pro in San Francisco below (email subscribers click through if you don't see the chart):

Summary:

--Glassdoor is really good at some things, like aggregating a marketplace for people to leave reviews on companies, rate confidence in CEOs and give you a general sense of what you might be walking into when you consider joining a new company.

--Glassdoor isn't great at most of the things they're trying to do beyond that, as evidenced by my projected worth displayed above, the fact that I get whacked out job recommendations they think I'd be interested in (spot welder? sure!) or the fact that when I check the job scrape for companies I'm super familiar with, it seems to lag weeks, if not months behind while the non-paid scrapes of LinkedIn and Indeed that look to happen daily.

Glassdoor aggregated the eyeballs, but their execution in what they want to do with those eyeballs once they have them is lacking. I'd assume that's not going to improve with the COVID caused layoffs that just happened at the company (300 employees or 30% of the company let go).

Me? I'm just going to figure out how to make it on 8K.

And now comes Major League Baseball with a 67-page Return to Work (RTW) plan, which includes details about how pro baseball will handle their workplace in a RTW, including testing, travel, workplace details (on the field, in the dugouts), protocol for the road and contact with nuclear family as well as friends.

The plan, which was reported by The Athletic (subscription site, I pay) basically summarizes a day in the life of a pro baseball player as this:

No exchanges of lineup cards. New baseballs any time a ball is put in play and touched by multiple players. Players wearing masks except while on the field, standing six feet apart during the singing of the national anthem and “God Bless America,” sitting six feet apart in the dugout and, if necessary, even in the stands.

These are just some of the proposed protocols in a 67-page document concerning health and safety that Major League Baseball delivered to the Major League Baseball Players Association on Friday night. The procedures outlined in the document are subject to union approval and thus could change.

But my favorite are the diagrams that show how the dugouts are going to be handled. Some of you have been volunteers in youth baseball, and if you've every had a bad day trying to make 5 and 6 year olds keep their hands off each other, you may have tried a plan like MLB is pondering for Post-COVID baseball.

Highlights:

--Assigned seats 6 ft apart in dugout.

--Assigned places for water bottles and gloves.

--Banishing some players to areas outside of dugouts.

--No spitting or smokeless tobacco.

--No standing in entrance to dugout.

This plan is straight from the Baseball Mom handbook for 5 year-olds. 

"If you can't keep your hands off each other, I'll fix it."

See diagrams below for dugout details in 67-page guide (email subscribers click through for images):

Of Course, HR pros will love this method of brining order to a dugout. Whether it's MLB, a 5-year old dugout or your office break room, you're going to have to tell them what to do and where to go for awhile.

Or no juice boxes after we're done.

Hi Gang - ramping up a new podcast called BEST HIRE EVER, where I'll be talking about hiring top talent with undeniably talented corporate leaders, recruiters and candidates. Today's guest is EPIC as
I talk to Liz Desio, a resident of NYC and HR Pro. Great talk about Liz’s personal experience with a COVID-19 lay-off, writing, and HR.

Liz's story makes this a must listen - use the show highlights below to spin to what interests you most, but Liz's story about heading to NYC and hustling to be a journalist before landing in the world of Recruiting/HR is a doozy. Talented lady that you should figure out if you can hire 100%. Enjoy the pod and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review (if you love it) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:08: KD introduces Liz, HR Pro and Candidate! KD gives some backstory on how they were introduced and why she’s on BHE

4:45: Liz takes us through her career. UVA grad, move to Brooklyn, hustling, getting hired in first HR job (hard knock life), getting out, getting a really good job in HR and then hitting COVID.

14:33: Liz’s take on being a new manager and the challenges she faced dealing with imposter’s syndrome.

16:05: KD asks Liz to share the story of getting laid off during Covid – You can check out her article here: https://medium.com/@lizdesio/making-peace-with-getting-laid-off-9bead164c43a

25:33: KD then pivots to reflective Liz, the one that wrote the post comparing herself to an early character on The Wire who gets killed off in season 1 - https://medium.com/@lizdesio/when-trying-to-switch-career-fields-makes-you-feel-like-dangelo-from-the-wire-4102c0bded99

33:48: KD and Liz discuss his take that recruiting prepares you to be an HR Generalist better than most.

40:15: KD asks Liz what your dream job is in HR. They discuss.

Kinetix

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Kris Dunn on Twitter

Kris Dunn on Instagram

KD's Book - The 9 Faces of HR

Liz Desio on Medium

Liz Desio on LinkedIn

Any manager of people has a lot on their plate. After all, a general pre-requisite to getting your first manager job is being a great individual contributor. Then, at some point in your first month in your new manager role, you realize the reality – you still have a bunch to do on your own as well as managing your new team.

Just because you're a manager doesn’t mean you stop cranking out individual contributor greatness. You’re expected to that PLUS lead a group of people to team greatness, individual success and career fulfillment.

Inside all of us there’s a preset – a type of manager we’re most likely to be based on our behavioral DNA, the folks who have managed us in the past, etc.  Who you are and how you were raised in corporate America has a lot to do with how you manage.

What type of manager are you?  What’s your brand as a manager?

To dig into this topic, I reached out to my good friend and BOSS Leadership facilitator Dawn Burke to record an episode of my new podcast - BEST BOSS EVER - and talk about the "6 Manager of People Brands" I have identified - Doer & Individual Contributor, The Friend/Pushover, The Control Freak/Authoritarian, Trend Spotter/Reader of the Best Seller, Performance Based Driver, and The Career Agent.

Take a listen and be sure to subscribe via the links below as well!

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

Welcome to Best Boss Ever, the podcast dedicated to helping you develop managers who build great teams. In this episode Kris Dunn talks with colleague and friend Dawn Burke, facilitator for BOSS Leadership and senior consultant at Recruiting Toolbox, about managing people and the six types of manager brands.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcasts - Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

4:00: KD brings in the topic, what is your manager brand? Dawn claims a lot of managers don’t know what their brand is, it even took her some time to figure out her brand.

6:22: A Manager’s brand is based on their behavioral DNA and how they were raised. Dawn says that’s a classic case of nature vs. nurture. Both play a part into a manager’s brand, and a lot of times we fall back on our nature but it’s important to focus on the qualities of leaders we admire and seek training and guidance to form a brand.

8:45: KD and Dawn run down the list of the 6 manager brands: The Doer & Individual Contributor, The Friend/Pushover, The Control Freak/Authoritarian, Trend Spotter/Reader of the Best Seller, Performance Based Driver, and The Career Agent.

11:09: “The Doer.” The first-time manager brand. Dawn talks about her personal retail experience with her first manager roles and the struggles first time manager. KD says: don’t change too much – it’s okay if this is your brand to an extent. Be a doer – but you need to grow your people, too. You can’t do it all yourself. Find training and learn to delegate and lead.

15:38: “The Friend/Pushover”. KD talks about how this brand showing up in a lot of former teammates that become managers. It’s also in folks who have high levels of empathy in their DNA. Dawn says you can make the best of the past team relationships by keeping the trust throughout your working relationship. She also asks “How much are you complaining about working together?” It might effect your credibility.

18:50: Dawn says “The Friend” also applies to managers who come in, and is a manager who tries to be friends, which isn’t inherently bad, but if you’re relying too much on the friendship, you’re heading in the wrong direction. KD says past friends especially have trouble as new managers if they are low on the assertive scale, Dawn says you can mitigate this with a 1:1 reset with those friends, acknowledging the new structure in the team and what it means. KD says you’ll have to be assertive to do that, which is why training from other managers is good to have!

21:22: “The Control Freak” introduction. KD talks about a recent WWII watch that was riddled with authoritative manager brands. Dawn says she’s seen this in new managers, too. When they become a manager they are thinking about their past managers and maybe more old school managers. She claims this brand doesn’t work anymore, even though it still exists in certain work places.

26:52: “The Trend Spotter” KD says reading and growing is good, but you can’t change up your brand every time you read a new book. Dawn says this has good intention but it’s gone off the rails. You can be a life long learner, that’s a sign of a good leader, but you take the best of what you’ve learned or read and build your own style/brand – you can’t copy and paste.

29:59: “The Performance Driver.” This brand is all about the performance, they aren’t hesitant to ask their team to reach those organizational goals. Dawn says every manager’s brand should include a little bit of the Performance Driver. KD says sometimes you can be a little detached with your humanity here – just driving for results is okay, but it’s not growing your employees and as a result, over time it can fall flat.

32:22: “The Career Agent” KD claims this is the fully-evolved manager. The Career Agent is approaching their team to get the results through the lens of the employee. It benefits the company and the employee. Overall, Dawn agrees this is the fully-evolved manager. KD says part of being a career agent is investing, developing, and helping people grow and approaching every conversation from the view of the employee – what’s in it for them?.

37:50: KD runs us down the six brands again and the team closes it out.

Resources:

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kinetix

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Dawn Burke on LinkedIn

Recruiting Toolbox

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

KD's Book - The 9 Faces of HR

In episode 14 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett, and Kris Dunn are joined by Tim’s son Cameron and HR professional Chris Hoyt to talk about holidays during quarantine, finding a job straight out of college during a recession, and recruitersrecruitingrecruiters.com. The team discusses the struggles of finding a job in a recession for a college grad, changes to candidate experience, and better ways to hire during a pandemic.

Listen below (email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player) or click here for a direct link. Be sure to and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review via iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:30 – Mother’s Day is coming! Jessica wants some peace and quiet for her special day and Tim’s wife wants diamonds. Sounds like some good gifts to me! 

3:30 – Where do you get your Mom’s Mother Day flowers? KD shouts out 1-800- Flowers and tells a story about a disastrous bouquet of Wal-Mart flowers. Moral of the story: don’t buy flowers from Wal-Mart. 

6:00 – Happy (belated) Birthday KD! What we’ve learned is that KD prefers store bought cakes to homemade cakes.

7:00 – Welcome Tim’s son to the podcast! Cameron is a recent grad from the University of Michigan and joins the conversation to discuss finding a job during a pandemic and fills us in on what his job search has been like for the past few months.

10:00 – Has candidate experience decreased since the recession started? Cameron hasn’t seen anything shady from employers but has seen a lot of uncertainty and jobs being cancelled or postponed. 

12:20 – Have you been ghosted from a lot of jobs? Cameron has only heard back from a real person for 3 out of 70 jobs he applied to. Not many rejections too! Is that because of the uncertain nature of the times?

14:50 – Would Cameron go work for Fox News if they offered him a job? 

16:00 – Are career services still active during the pandemic? Cameron uses Tim as his personal career coach but has seen lots of friends get early job offers from college recruiting and career fairs. 

18:10 – Hot gossip alert! Cameron spills the tea on how Tim is as a personal career coach. 

20:00 – Quarantine time is a good time to learn new skills! Cameron has been working on podcasting. Look out for the Disney Channel rewatchables coming to your favorite podcasting service near you! KD and Cam discuss their favorite episodes of The Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast. 

23:00 – Tim gives us a branding lesson. Buy your kids URLs and reserve their email addresses and social media handles early! 

25:15 – Time for the second guest! Tim welcomes long time friend Chris Hoyt to the podcast.

26:00 – Chris discusses his work Career Crossroads and what they do for talent acquisition and recruiting. Tim loves it!

28:20 – Story time! Tim tells us how his wife, Kim, met Chris in Park City, Utah and really liked him. 

29:30 – Recruitersrecruitingrecruiters.com! Say that five times in a row! Chris talks about his newest project inspired by the cooperation between CVS and the hospitality industry during the coronavirus pandemic. 

32:20 – Looking for a recruiting job? There’s about 150 jobs available on the platform with over 250 employers. 

35:00 – #firstworldproblems. Are you experiencing Zoom fatigue? 

35:30 – How can you guarantee candidate experience with such high unemployment? Chris discusses how it’s uncertain whether the same levels of candidate experience can be kept up and Tim talks about mistakes he made in the last recession.