Monthly Archives: October 2011

Why HR people don’t blog (and how to get around it)

One of the sessions at HRevolution Las Vegas a few weeks back focused on blogging, and a great question that was bandied about was why HR people don’t do it more often. Is it because they are afraid to? Maybe they just don’t know how? Or maybe it’s because HR people have been trained to keep quiet about their real thoughts and opinions, because knowledge is power, right? Whatever the excuse, it’s a terrible reason to keep quiet. Today we’re going to look at what it is, combat a few of the general excuses, and share some resources on how to get started.

What is blogging?

A really basic definition of a blog is a journal. It’s updated every so often with new ideas, insights, or lessons learned. People come by from time to time and read some of that wisdom and can comment or share it with others who might find it valuable.

That’s pretty simple, right?

Even with all the bells and whistles (see below for some tutorials and the tools I use), that’s really all a blog is. If you have thoughts, then you can blog. All it takes is writing those thoughts out! Even if you keep a private blog and don’t share it with anyone, you will become a better, more well-rounded professional as a result of taking the time to organize your opinions into coherent thoughts.

Why not blog?

If it really is that simple, then why don’t more HR people blog?

  • They don’t know how to use the tools-Check out the video below. 81 seconds to start a blog? Yep, it’s that easy!
  • They don’t know what to say-Start slow. Talk about what you do. Talk about what you enjoy about the profession. Talk about employee horror stories (within reason and without revealing too many juicy details). Read other blogs. As my manager put it, it’s about reading for the job you want, not the job you have!
  • They don’t have time-If you have thirty minutes per week, you have time. And I know you do, because you spent at least that much time checking Facebook, getting coffee, and watching TV commercials in the past 24 hours! Seriously, it takes very little time if you are just trying to get your thoughts out there. Don’t be one of those people who keeps going “Ready, aim, aim, aim…” Just fire the post off already!
  • They don’t want to upset their employer-My new friend Buzz writes a blog and has for about 6 months now. She doesn’t tell her employer and they don’t ask her about it. It’s quite possible to share helpful, valuable content with the world without telling everyone where you work!
  • Know another excuse? Drop it in the comments section below and I’ll respond to it!

Blogging tools and tips

I cover everything you need to know to get started here on the blogging page, including what domains and hosting are and who to purchase from, how to install WordPress, how to use themes and plugins, and a big Q&A section that runs the gamut! However, if you are interested and rearin’ to go right away, you can start your own blog in less than two minutes.

Check out this link for a short video on how to set up a free WordPress.com blog in 81 seconds. Less than two minutes. Anyone can get started with that short of a timeline!

Have other questions about blogging? Feel free to email me! I’ve helped several others get their own blogs going, and I would love to help you as well. 

Candidates wanted-Experience not preferred

I’ve been talking about my experience at Hire Minds lately, and there were some amazing quotes I picked up while at the event. One of my favorites was during the Chipotle session when the speaker mentioned their hiring philosophy.

Experience NOT preferred.

Short and sweet, yes, but the gist of the saying is that it’s easier to find someone who is enthusiastic, friendly, and passionate than it is to find an experienced professional and try to train them to fit that bill. Hire for attitude and train for skill is one of my favorite sayings.

I know when we’re looking for entry level people we give culture fit considerable weight. Someone may have great experience and an acceptable salary range, but if they don’t fit the culture, we won’t be considering them for the position. It does no good to fill the position with a poor fit and have to re-recruit for it six months later. We look for people with a hunger for knowledge and a penchant for helping others whenever possible, and it’s been very successful thus far.

Next time you’re getting a job posting ready, consider looking at qualities other than experience and education in order to make your decision. You might be pleasantly surprised with the result.

The corporate library-how (and why) we set one up

Offering a corporate library to employees is a great way to encourage learning and give people low-cost opportunities for growth and development. We have been kicking around the idea of establishing one for a while (especially after my article about how to develop an employee reading program), and in October the right things came together to make it happen.

National Book Month

At Pinnacle, we do a monthly social awareness campaign to give employees some food for thought. October is National Book Month, so I was trying to see if we could get a book for every employee. That was going to be tough to do on our timeline, so instead we decided to pull a few books together and start the Pinnacle Library.

How It’s Set Up

We have a very basic set up since our office is relatively small. Clara, our property whiz, agreed to give me a hand, so she catalogs new books and puts them on the shelf. She also maintains the checkout list in SharePoint, so anyone can see what is checked in or out at any given time. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s a great start!

Zappos.com’s Model

Zappos offers a large stash of books for employees to borrow or keep. They are large enough to afford the purchase of hundreds of books per year, but they tie it into their core values for people to be constantly learning and growing, so people know that it’s expected of them to grab a book and start developing their knowledge. It’s a great way to be, and I hope one day we are large enough to offer free copies as well. You can also do book reviews in newsletters and other company communications to help generate some interest.

Our Books

The books to start were all donated (and most by me) :-) so it’s a random mix, but as we add to our corporate library I have a short wishlist of books that will be more targeted toward our software engineering focus and some of the other programs we have going on. To name a few:

  1. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  2. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
  3. Perform Like a Rock Star by Orna Drawas
  4. Be Bodacious: Put Life in Your Leadership by Steven Wood
  5. The 1% Solution for Life and Work by Tom Connelan

Even Easier

If you don’t have the time or resources to have your own in-house corporate library, definitely take advantage of your local one instead. If you have an admin or staff member who you can send to the library once a week, they can take the library cards for your people and check out books for them. That opens up access to a larger body of resources and saves you the time and effort of administrating a corporate library on your own.

If you didn’t check out the post on why you need an employee reading program, I encourage you to do so. It has a fantastic framework for proving the necessity of such a program to your leadership.

Does anyone else use a corporate library? How has it been going for you?

Competitive pay isn’t enough

Think offering competitive pay to candidates is a winning strategy? Think again. Sure, it might get someone in the door, but it won’t keep them for long if you don’t have a work environment that appeals to them on some level (more on what motivates employees from Daniel Pink).

As compensation budgets tighten and perks get cut across the board for many employers, the only differentiator many can turn to is their culture.

Competing on pay is a losing game. Compete on culture.

I’ve heard it said that candidates take the job for the money and stay for the culture. Anyone else think that’s true?

Internal promotion-how Chipotle reduced turnover by 64%

Internal promotion is a valuable, yet underutilized, tool to engage employees and managers in the recruiting process, provide career growth, and save on costs associated with bringing in external talent.

As I alluded yesterday, the content covered at Hire Minds was astonishing. The first session was an interview/case study of Chipotle restaurants and how they use internal promotions and development bonuses as incentives to bring in great people and move them up through the organization as they grow. The examples below are pulled directly from that session content.

Reduce employee turnover by 64%

When they started promoting from within instead of looking for talent outside the organization, turnover for salaried managers dropped from 52% to 35%, and turnover for hourly managers dropped a whopping 64% (111% down to 47%).

HR pros often wonder if we should share succession plans with employees in case something doesn’t work out and it demoralizes them. However, in this case, all of the employees know that they are eligible for leadership positions if they are willing and able to put forth the effort.

Pay managers to mentor new leaders

As an incentive for managers within the organization to train the next generation of leaders, Chipotle offers people development bonuses of $10,000 for managers who bring someone up into a managerial position from within the ranks of the staff. Because they are rapidly growing and expanding into new markets, Chipotle is able to use these bonuses to lure seasoned veterans out to the “front.” Because the areas grow quickly, it offers the leaders multiple opportunities to earn the bonuses.

When asked by the audience how often the bonuses were paid out, he replied that Chipotle paid out over $1 million in people development bonuses in 2010. That’s significant! The bonuses are structured where the referring leader receives half up front, and half after 6 months of solid performance from the new manager candidate.

How to keep recruiters busy if you start promoting internally

Everyone in the audience laughed when a recruiter stood up and asked where his job was going if the company achieves its goal of 100% internal promotions into leadership positions. The speaker told us that since the recruiters are no longer spending their time sourcing candidates for management/leadership roles, they are working directly with store owners to develop better hiring practices for their hourly workers.

I’ve said it before–I’m a fan of internal recruiting (video) if it’s possible. Anyone else?

Hire Minds-Snagajob Hourly Hiring Summit

Wow. I was only able to stay for half of the Hire Minds event presented by Snagajob, but it was a fantastic experience. I took notes throughout the day and shared sound bytes on Twitter when I could, but the Live Tweeting Paradox was in effect (okay, I just made that up, but it really does make sense). Usually when I attend an event I will share ideas that I’m learning on Twitter; however, when an event is particularly engaging or learning intensive, I have to stop tweeting and focus on the session. Ironically, some of the best sessions I’ve ever seen are the ones where I’ve shared the least on social media!

Anyway, in the next week or so I’m going to post on some big ideas I learned at the event. I met a great lady, Buzz, who also has her own comments on the event to share.

Later this week look for posts covering…

  • How to reduce employee turnover by 64%
  • How to pay managers to mentor new leaders
  • How to keep recruiters busy if you start promoting internally
  • What gardening has to do with management
  • Why competing for candidates on pay is a losing game

In short, the Hire Minds event was phenomenal. If you work for an hourly employer, you should 1) look at Snagajob’s offerings for employers as a way to find and screen qualified candidates and 2) talk with the good folks at Snagajob about how you can get into the event if you’re interested. It’s a small affair (~75-100 companies represented there), but there is amazing content focused specifically on the hourly employer segment.

Company corporate culture-14 ways to research as a job candidate

My friend and I were talking recently about how to determine company corporate culture before you start working there. In the past we’ve both been burned by companies that looked good on the surface but eventually turned out to have a terrible culture of one sort or another.

company corporate culture

Take a peek at the culture

Honestly, if it was foolproof, people wouldn’t be suckered into it as often as they do. And since my friend and I (and others) actually work in HR/recruiting, we should know better than anyone how to unearth this stuff, right?

Mindset change required

All too often when we’re looking for a new job we become blinded to the negative and would move over even if the hiring manager promised to kick us in the kidneys four times a day. I understand when you have no job that it’s important to take what you can get, but never settle for working at an organization with a poor company corporate culture (or if the culture really isn’t “wrong,” but you just don’t fit in anyway). You’re giving them skills and experience that they can’t get from other candidates, and they’re trading that for money. Don’t forget that employment is a two way street!

Think about it. For many of the questions below, there are no “right” answers. Everyone appreciates different things about specific working environments, and what may appeal to you actually repulses others. Consider what the ideal company corporate culture would be for you, and filter the responses through that. Oh, and several of these methods will require you to ask unorthodox questions of the hiring manager or recruiter, but it’s the price you pay if you’re going to be serious about finding the right company corporate culture fit for you.

14 Ways to determine the culture

  1. Ask to interview an employee or two on what they enjoy about working there
  2. Ask for a walkthrough of the office-listen for laughs and look for smiles; that says a lot about the work environment
  3. Ask about previous people who held the position if you are replacing someone-find out what they did right and what they could’ve done better
  4. Look at sites like Glassdoor.com for reviews by current or former employees
  5. Keep in mind that there are “pockets” of culture within individual departments, so the overall company culture could differ from your specific work area-that’s why it’s important to try to do things like #1 and #2 above
  6. Ask what sorts of behavior are rewarded and which are punished
  7. Ask how (or if) news that affects the company is shared-does everyone learn of it at once or is it distributed to managers to trickle down to employees? Are they transparent?
  8. Find out what sort of events the company holds for employees-is it a once a year Christmas party or are there monthly opportunities to celebrate with coworkers?
  9. Ask if there are known slackers in the office and try to find out why they are still around (good luck with this one, but if you get a straight answer, you will have a leg up)
  10. Ask about how difficult it is to get attention or funding for new ideas and initiatives-are they a “we’ve always done it that way” type of company?
  11. Ask what the company’s overall mission/vision is. If a random employee can tell you (at least in general terms) it could signify a strong, unified workforce.
  12. Ask about the dress code and other abrasive policies/details that, while palatable at first, can end up chafing you down the line
  13. Find out if the company offers any sort of reimbursement or support for training, seminars, or college tuition. If they value smart employees who work to better themselves, they probably will.
  14. Ask how previous employees who committed ethics violations were held accountable (general terms are fine to protect any guilty parties, but do they even care about ethics in the first place?)

So, what other ways do you know of that a candidate can use to discern a company’s corporate culture before deciding to take a job?