Author Archives: Ben

Performance Review Series

In the coming weeks I’m going to be running a series of posts on performance management. I have had a few ideas rattling around my brain recently, and as I’ve been gearing up for our midyear reviews at work, I felt like it was the right time to get it all together. We’ll discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to managing performance at work.

The series

I hope you can join the fun as we explore these concepts and processes.

I’m also excited to note that these posts will be sponsored by our good friends at Sonar6, lovers of performance reviews and the creators of an amazing performance appraisal tool. I encourage you to check them out as a “thank you” for supporting this blog!

Leadership in the trenches

Mike Durant Headshot

Our July NASHRM program is going to be very special. We have a speaker coming to talk about leadership, teamwork, and how it applied to his situation as a prisoner of war.

Mike Durant, speaker, veteran, and CEO, is going to take us through his experience and share some lessons about how it applies to each of us in our own organizations. His own story was chronicled in his books (namely, In the Company of Heroes). There was also a movie made about the event called Black Hawk Down.

This would be an excellent opportunity to invite your own manager to come and hear a dynamic speaker with a great message, so start planning now to get them signed up!

Hope to see you there!

Getting hit by a bus-the importance of succession planning

Last week I attended a NASHRM luncheon called Growing and Buying Talent for Tomorrow, and it focused mainly on succession planning. I thought it sounded interesting, so I went to the lunch meeting. Little did I know that it would raise some interesting questions that I hadn’t considered before. Sure, you think about the usual reasons to plan for succession:

what if person x leaves suddenly?
what if person y retires?
what if person z needs a defined career track to stay engaged?

But the thing that I stopped to seriously consider was the proverbial “getting hit by a bus” scenario.

I kid about it often at work as a way to emphasize the importance of documenting processes and the arcane knowledge tidbits that are floating around the brains of our engineers. “We need to write this down in case Bob gets hit by a bus” might sound silly, but it gives you a chilling visualization about how true it really is.

Maybe it’s a stress-related illness that puts the person out of work for a while. Maybe it’s a family illness and the employee needs to become the primary caregiver. Whatever the case, it needs to be something you consider. If you want to share the phrase to get a laugh, feel free, but understand the underlying implications and plan accordingly.

What would you do if one of your key people was “hit by a bus” and couldn’t work for you ever again? Would you survive? What would the cost impact be?

4 reasons you don’t need a social media policy

Every once in a while I hear someone talking about needing a “social media policy” at work. Ugh. If you know me at all you’ll instantly guess that I’m against such things. I would rather offer training instead of more regulation. Here are four reasons you probably don’t need a social media policy at all:

Conversations can happen anywhere. You don’t have a “parking lot conversations” policy, so why create a separate, special policy just for social media? People can do as much damage talking about your company in a crowded restaurant as they can with a Facebook post, but you don’t see anyone creating policies on that.
Is it worth your time? Is your core business function monitoring social media or creating/delivering a product or service? You can stand over peoples’ shoulders as long as you want but it’s not going to add value to be business.
We’re listening to the lawyers on this? When has a lawyer ever said, “You know what? You really don’t need a policy for that specific situation” with regard to the employer/employee relationship? I’m guessing never. If we listened to the lawyers and their scare tactics we’d have a handbook that rivals the size of the Alabama state constitution.
Are they adults or not? If not, then you’re breaking a few child labor laws. If so, then we need to treat them like it. If you act like they are childish and incapable of handling themselves, then they will be. If you treat them as respectable, functional adults, then they will be (for the most part). Don’t make policies for outliers. That guy who clips his toenails on his desk? Don’t make a toenail-clipping-at-your-desk policy. Pull him aside and tell him it’s inappropriate. I’ll say it again: don’t make policies for outliers.

I’m sure there are more! What are your reasons for companies to forego a social media policy?

How to Kill the Status Quo

This session at ALSHRM was amazing. It was unlike the rest of the day. No slides, just a conversation among the attendees and speaker, Dale Dauten. Below you’ll find a kind of stream-of-consciousness post full of great quotes and thought-provoking ideas. Enjoy!

Dale did a little prep work before the session by polling the attendees. That opened up some great discussions during his time with us, such as the poll question “What do you like least about your work/job?”

Too much work
Getting stuck as “the compliance person”
Left out of the loop on big decisions

That led to a chilling (and probably true) comment: What do executives say about HR when they are not in the room?

Nothing.

That’s because we are perceived as an overhead cost and “in the way” of real work.

Dale used the term “gradual day” to describe one we all face on a weekly basis. These are the days that wear and weaken our spirits due to steadily increasing problems and issues. These should not be the norm.

Next time you are buried under a mound of work with no end in sight and a manager walks into your office asking you to talk with one of his/her employees, refuse/redirect them. Don’t keep taking on work that is their job, because it will burn you out and you never get out of the same old rut you’re stuck in with too much work and too little time. If it’s remotely possible, refuse the problem. Yes, it’s crazy, Â but it is necessary!

———-

Taking the time to critique someone and offer feedback shows that you care enough to invest time in them. Managers should remember this every single day. It might be a burden on you to take time to provide feedback to every one of your people, but it is what you get paid for. Want your people to feel appreciated? Pay attention to them in the form of positive critical feedback.

Help your managers get the most out of people. You don’t have to know how to do the employees’ jobs, you just need to know what to measure against. Find a credible standard for greatness and hold people to it.

———-

Quote of the day: HR gets two options when it comes to bad policies. Enforce it and be a jerk or ignore it and be a hypocrite. (Although I think there’s a third option, which is getting rid of bad policies altogether. But that’s a post for another day.)

My favorite part

If you know me at all, you know I’m a big fan of HR as the keeper of the culture at work. We nurture it, communicate it, and share it often (especially with new employees). One of Dale’s recommendations was to develop aÂ list of touchstones (short sayings full of wisdom). HR should become the keeper of the touchstones in the organization. It lets you share wisdom across the board and make a lasting impact.

The concept is interesting, because I’ve been doing something similar already at work. We have little sayings in our vocabulary that I have started incorporating into the new hire orientations and onboarding process to help new employees learn more about what we value. I love HR as the keeper of the culture/touchstones, and I’m looking forward to writing more on it in the future.

All in all, it was an amazing session and I’m thrilled Dale came to speak with us!

Uncovering manager development opportunities

Managers need development like any other employee, but sometimes it is difficult to find out just what they want or need to learn. Click the link for part two in the series on how to develop managers.

Recently I've realized that one of the biggest needs we have as an organization is manager training. We have supervisors who have forgotten what it's like to be human, new managers with little or no experience in the role, and ones who keep screwing up even the most basic of leadership tenets.

In other words, we need it bad.

But when I brought up the idea of offering a survey to the managers to help figure out the development holes that need to be filled, I quickly realized the fallacy of that wide open approach.

Some managers would say they didn't need any training
Some managers would say they needed training in irrelevant/impractical areas
Some managers would immediately become defensive

So just saying â€œWhat do you want to do better?â€ isn't an option. But there's a better way to do ask the question and still get a solid response.

The question I usually ask when I am looking for stealth development opportunities is this: â€œWhat is your biggest frustration as a manager?â€

That opens the door to all kinds of answers, and I've never met a single manager who didn't have a heartfelt response (or a dozen!) to that question. Those answers will help guide the process from there. For instance:

My biggest frustration is dealing with apathetic employees. This opens the door to providing some training on leadership skills and ways to motivate and inspire their people.
My biggest frustration is hiring poor performers. This is an opportunity to work with them on interviewing techniques to select the best people.
My biggest frustration is [insert problem here].

You get the picture. Instead of having to start from scratch, let them tell you what they need in terms of development and training. Then give it to them.

How do you identify manager training needs? More importantly, how do the managers respond?

Influencing people at work

AKA: All Knowing but not All Powerful

There’s much to be said about influencing people at work. It’s part art, part science, and part random chance.

HR is like that. Our role is more subtle. We offer support to managers but never take over their roles (even if they ask you to). They are paid to manage people. Let them earn it. :-)

With great power comes great (responsibility)Â headaches

It can be frustrating to see the big picture and have no power to directly influence the outcome.

Bad employee? You can’t fire them yourself.
Poor manager? Good luck putting them on a corrective action plan.

But that doesn’t mean you are completely out of luck. A little influence can go a long way. And coupled with training, reinforcement, and good communication, you can overcome many of the problems that would otherwise be untouchable.

I talked with someone new to the profession recently and she was going through a tough time trying to define her role. She wanted to be in the thick of things, working closely with the managers she supported. While I understand and support the “in the trenches” viewpoint, I had to help remind her that she wasn’t the one responsible for doing the heavy lifting (performance feedback, discipline, terminations, etc.). That honor goes to the managers and leaders within the organization.

I’m not saying we don’t take a stand and fight for what needs to be done. I’m just saying that we might not always do that in a direct, observable manner. For those of you just getting started, don’t let that escape you. I was frustrated for a while until I realized that there were alternative routes to get to the results I was seeking.

One book I read and continue to reread is How to Win Friends and Influence People. If you haven’t read it, then you should grab a copy and take notes. It’s good stuff.

Do you have a way you like to secretly influence others at work? Any particular situations you wish you could change but don’t see a way how?

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