Author Archives: Ben

Do I Have to Buy a Standing Desk for My Employee?

Spoiler alert: people have a love/hate relationship with standing desks. Some people swear by them, others can’t stand the thought of standing all day long on top of their otherwise demanding job.

With a standing desk you can practice these kinds of awkward standing poses all day long!

With a standing desk you can practice these kinds of awkward standing poses all day long! :-)

But this is a real issue that HR teams are dealing with almost every day. Managers are bringing up the question: do I have to buy this standing desk just because the employee wants it? What about more nuanced questions, like “do you need a doctor’s note for standing desk requests?”

Well, if you experience pain or other associated issues from sitting at a desk, there are legitimate medical reasons for standing desk usage. Below, I talk about some of the medical benefits of a standing desk and how to build a solid business case to get your (or your employee’s) request approved.

The Anatomy of Reasonable Accommodation

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5 Secrets for How to Be a Great Place to Work

One of the annual occurrences here in North Alabama is the “best place to work” competition. It’s a regular staple for HR leaders and employers to try and prove they are, well, one of the best places to work. One of the firms that I know fairly well has actually won the contest multiple times, walking away with awards virtually every year.

I recently had a chance to connect with their VP of Employee Experience and took away five tips and ideas on how to be a great place to work. The video is below–I’d love to hear your thoughts on which tip resonates for you! Continue reading →

We’re Only Human 58: Open Sourcing the Recruiting Playbook from Northwestern Mutual

What if you had a way to continuously research and qualify candidates, creating a never-ending pipeline of interested individuals ready to take the jobs your company is hiring for? That’s the vision of Paul Shane, a talent acquisition and onboarding leader from Northwestern Mutual. 

In this interview, Paul opens the sourcing and recruiting playbook at Northwestern Mutual, sharing how his team targets, identifies, and connects with the right candidates over and over again. It’s a powerful story and one we can all learn some lessons from.

Plus, Ben tells the story of the time he almost hired a candidate with no pants. Yes, really. 

Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshane1

Connect with Lighthouse about the research: http://lhra.io/contact

We’re Only Human 57: Prioritizing D&I at Online Gaming Firm NCSOFT

Many HR leaders are guilty of being overloaded and failing to keep tabs on the external environment outside the business. They may be buttoned up on the inside, but forces and factors outside the walls of the firm can also impact how the organization functions (or not). 

In this episode, Ben brings in conversations from Chauncey Gammage, SVP of HR at NCSOFT. NCSOFT is a firm operating in the online gaming industry, the audience of which is overwhelmingly male. That’s probably a reason that the workers in the industry are also male-dominated. However, Gammage talks about how the firm’s female employees interact with the user population and how the lines of D&I can extend beyond the watuplls of the firm. 

The insights from the NCSOFT HR leader are punctuated by commentary from Ben on the practical implications and how to make this a priority for your own firm, a different type of format than most of our episodes. 

Learn more about NCSOFT: https://us.ncsoft.com/

Connect with Chauncey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chauncey-gammage-5093731/

Alabama’s New Equal Pay Act: What You Need to Know

Last week I posted this to my personal Facebook page, but I think it will be relevant to many of the people here as well because other states are adding these on a regular basis (California, Delaware, Atlanta GA, Hawaii, Illinois, and more!) The equal pay portion is important, but the more immediate impact will come from the last piece of this: a requirement that limits employers with regard to asking for prior salary history in a job application/interview process. 

To my Facebook friends in Alabama, your friendly neighborhood HR guy here to explain one of our newest laws that affects every one of you that works for an employer and all of my other HR/recruiting nerd friends in the industry (effective October 1, 2019).

The Clark-Figures Equal Pay Act requires employers to pay people equally for doing the same work at the same performance level, regardless of your gender or race. However, most importantly, it also helps by preventing employers from asking you about salary history.

Why does salary history matter?

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So you want to speak at HR conferences? Advice for the journey

One of the key parts of what I do in my job is speaking. Webinars. Conferences. Seminars. I’ll talk to pretty much anyone about anything related to HR.

speakingAnd I LOVE it.

This is pretty funny for anyone that knows me well, because I’m fairly shy and introverted. If I show up to the pre-conference party myself, I’ll eat quickly and leave for the safety of my hotel room and a good book. Ideally I’ll have a friend or someone meeting me so at least I have a person to connect with when I arrive. Better still if they introduce me to one or two people so I am not flying solo (or my “return to home” alert kicks in and I’m out of there in a flash).

Anyway, I have been speaking over 10 years now. The very first event was actually pushed on me (kindly) by a friend that thought I had important things to say. I was early in my career, but I had lots of experience already using social media, building a strong network, and developing myself outside of work. That formed the core presentation called “HR Sponge,” which was aptly named because the friend called me her sponge for new information. :-)

Fast forward to today, and I’ve spoken to tens of thousands of HR, talent, and learning professionals across the world. Spring and fall are heavy HR conference seasons, so I spend a fair amount of time on the road during those times. It balances out, because summer and winter are family time! With the new book that came out late last year, I’ve been speaking a lot more on the topic of artificial intelligence and how it can help us make HR more human, not less.

(Don’t tell my wife but I’m already thinking about the next book.) :-)  Continue reading →

We’re Only Human 56: How Delta Airlines Designs its Candidate Experience

One of the negative consequences of today’s talent acquisition processes is that we have so many more candidates that don’t get picked for open jobs. With one-click apply, the availability of job boards, and other technologies to lower the friction of applying for jobs, employers have more candidates than ever flowing through their applications. This can create a negative experience for those that aren’t selected for the job, from the “resume black hole” to a lack of response overall.

Delta Airlines is approaching this problem by creating an intentional method called Designing for the Disappointed. Everyone can’t be hired for every job, so how we treat people at the other end of the table, especially when in a consumer-facing brand like retail or, in Delta’s case, airline travel. In today’s discussion Ben talks with Carol McDaniel, a talent acquisition leader from Delta that shares insights into how the firm has designed a tailored, personalized process that scales across the thousands of applicants it receives each year. 

Connect with Carol on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolmcdaniel

Learn more about Delta’s careers: https://www.delta.com/us/en/careers/overview