When you get down to the hard facts, are job descriptions really necessary? Honestly, I don’t know. We got along for several years with a strong performance management process that helps employees to define their responsibilities and what they are rated on.
In the age of “I can sue anyone for anything at any time,” companies are pressed to have job descriptions in place with employee signatures on them. Continue reading
Everyone in the audience watched expectantly.
The speaker had just challenged someone from the audience to come up on stage and try to get him to let go of a $20 bill from his clenched fist. The first lady steps up and pries on his fingers, but doesn’t have any luck. The next guy is bigger, stronger. He gives it a little more effort, but he isn’t able to force the man to let it go. Continue reading
You hate him, don’t you. That guy from marketing (or accounting, finance, etc.) always has to show off with his slick charts and pretty presentations. I mean, what are we going to do? We’re in HR, darn it. We can’t be that snazzy, can we?
The first time I shared some HR department metrics with our leadership team, I wasn’t sure what format they needed to be in. I pretty much dropped in the basic numbers and presented them as-is. However, I’ve since learned more about how our leadership team likes to review information, and I am working to get the data into a format that they understand and expect.
The big key for us is fairly simple. Continue reading
“I don’t like going to HR meetings. They are always about problems, not solutions.”
I heard that comment at the SHRM conference earlier this summer, and it’s stuck with me ever since. There is nothing quite like having to sit in front of your CEO and tell them about some problem that is coming at you like a freight train. There are two parts to doing this the right way that will help diminish the perception above.
It may sound simple, but when you come to the meeting with a problem, bring two or more solutions with you as well. Don’t feel helpless or powerless. You are the person with the most in-depth information about the issue so far, and it’s your responsibility to take that information and turn it into a potential resolution.
My boss (the CEO) has a saying that I always repeat whenever I’m faced with a tough decision:
Tell me how we can, not why we can’t.
So you’re sitting there thinking, “Huh, he must be talking to someone else. I don’t have any big problems that I have to share with our leadership at this point.”
No, I’m talking to you, too! You just have a different action. It’s time to be proactive. Start looking for ways you can cut costs, streamline your functions, save time for managers, etc. Look for some solutions to age-old problems, not just new ones. Not sure where to start? Ask some of your managers what their biggest pain points are with regard to the HR or recruiting processes. Ask your senior leaders what their biggest concerns are at a corporate level. Then take that information and use it.
Want to know the fastest, easiest way to prove the value of the HR department? Solve a problem that plagues the management team. Yes, it seems simple, but it is often overlooked because HR tends to exist in its own little “bubble” and never takes the time to actually find out what the business needs are from the HR function.
Then take the time to communicate what you’ve found in the way of solutions to current problems.
Pretty soon your managers will be saying, “I am looking forward to the next HR meeting to see what they have come up with this time.” Then ask for a raise. You deserve it. :-)
I’ve had something in the back of my mind since I got home from the SHRM conference, and I am going to have to get it off my chest. If you’re not in the mood for a little rant, feel free to check out The Oatmeal for something funny.
One of the general session speakers at the conference was Tom Brokaw. I was not sure what to expect from the man when he got up to speak to an audience full of HR professionals, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s Tom Brokaw, people!
So he gets up there and starts discussing politics, world events, history, and makes it all tie into the economic situation that we’re facing today. It was an excellent confluence of topics, and I really was enjoying it.
Until he got all wacky on me.Â
At one point he started talking about requiring everyone to work in a public service position after school in order to “give back.”
That, my friends, is a load of crap.Â
Would you like to give back? Here’s how you do it.
Become a productive citizen.Â
If you want to take it a step farther (and this isn’t for everyone), then start a small business. Small businesses make up the majority of this country’s employer base.
Think about it. What better way is there to “give back” than to create something that employs other people and provides food for their families?
Many people at the conference cheered when Mr. Brokaw made his suggestion, but I cringed. People have forgotten what the government’s role was originally intended to be.
Contrary to what you might have heard, it’s not the government’s job to force people to “give back.” It’s the government’s job to provide roads, defend our country, make sure the laws are enforced, and get the heck out of the way for the individuals in this country to be successful.
Nobody seems to understand the concept of personal responsibility anymore. You make choices, and you deal with any consequences (positive or otherwise).
Like I said, I’ve been pondering this since the conference last month, and when I read this week about the college students marching to protest high student loan balances, I couldn’t contain myself any longer.
Seriously. Students are protesting the loans they signed up for. Really?!? It’s like they forgot the entire decision-making process where they said, “I want to go to college x. It will cost me y. I have z. Now I will borrow money to pay for my own college.”
Here’s a little tip for those students who must have missed out on the Government, Economics, and Civics courses in high school: it isn’t the government’s job to give you a free degree. How about getting a job and paying for it? A lot of us have, and you don’t see us marching and griping because we have $100k in student loans around our necks.
Here’s a solution for you. It’s hard to comprehend, but I’ll help you out.
Seriously, it’s that easy.
I got a degree for relatively little money and no debt. There was no magic formula involved. I attended local schools with reasonable tuition rates. I found a company that would reimburse me for my tuition (I wish I had started there when I was a freshman, not a junior!), applied for scholarships, and worked full time while I finished school. And you know what? My employer doesn’t care where I went to school as long as I know what I’m doing.
Too many people think that a college degree is a silver bullet for a great job and they will borrow up to their eyeballs to make that degree happen. It’s not. While a degree can help you to find a job, it is not going to automatically entice the employer to pay you more or give you additional responsibilities. Until you give them reason to believe that you’re halfway intelligent, the degree serves little purpose.
Be accountable for your own decisions. If you’re looking for a job, you’re going to need a measure of personal responsibility to be successful.Â
Sorry for the rant today, but I get all fired up about a few things, and this is one of them. We’ll be back with our regular HR topics on Monday!
I’ve been working with our business development team on a big project. The HR proposal portion is an amazing exercise, because it’s all about us forcing ourselves to quantify the impact that we have on the organization. Sitting there and discussing what differentiates our organization from others in terms of recruiting, retention, etc. opens your eyes to the opportunities that we have to drive change on a high level. It’s helping me to see that our part of the business can be as powerful (or not) as we want it to be.
I’ve touched on the Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) in this post on working naked, but that applies to work in general. The basic idea behind ROWE is work when/how/where you want, as long as the objectives are met. There are two main pieces in my mind when it comes to ROWE:
When people discuss ROWE, they often look at the first piece, but the second one is discussed less often because it actually demands some level of accountability. It requires that you ask better questions, for one. What are real results when it comes to HR? How do you measure that? Are those measurements comparable to other companies in your industry or geographic region?
When I sat down with the team to discuss the HR/recruiting portions of the proposal, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I quickly saw opportunities to bolster our proposal by calling out comments on previous employee surveys, analyzing our Best Places to Work employee responses, and plugging in metrics for recruiting and retention. By the end of the meeting, I was excited not only about our prospects (we’ve clearly differentiated ourselves from the average HR team with some of our practices), but also about having a clearer picture of what our contributions mean on a larger scale.
The little things matter. It’s not just working with a manager to coach an employee through tough times. It’s not just going the extra mile to ensure that when employees do have to leave, they are treated with all the courtesy and respect I would afford any other star employee. It’s not even having an amazing retention rate for our industry that really makes a dent in the company’s performance. It’s a little bit of everything. All of those pieces flow together to paint a picture of success for our organization. It certainly isn’t true solely due to our people practices, but a strong focus on those since the day the company was established means that they play a key role in our continued upward movement.
As an HR professional, you are in a unique position to make your organization better. Maybe it’s taking a little extra time with job candidates to help them understand why they weren’t chosen. Maybe it’s picking up the phone to call a remote employee to talk them through a tough time in their life. While those “small” actions might not seem valuable on the surface, they touch more people and build more goodwill toward your HRÂ team than all the doughnuts and party planning you could ever accomplish.
Take some time today to think on it. What results can you point to that measure your value as a piece of your organization? Are you contributing to, or detracting from, your company’s success? Are your inputs clearly visible? Why or why not?
Sometimes I delve into something semi-personal here, because darn it, I’ve done enough stuff the wrong way to provide object lessons from here until the end of time. :-) Today I just can’t get my latest running event out of my head. Last month I toed the starting line of the Run for Kids 50k with every intention of finishing the race. However, things just didn’t go according to plan. My two biggest lessons learned:
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that both of those lessons impact our work on a daily basis as well. Not planning well and/or skipping important steps will lead to disaster more often than not. Also, it’s important to make sure your expectations are communicated well. As an employee, your manager needs to know what you want. As a manager, your employees need to know what you want.
(This video is totally unrelated to the post but I couldn’t resist posting it!)
I can’t promise that not doing those things will lead to you laying stretched out in the backseat of a car with a monster headache, waves of nausea, and cramping legs, but you really never know… Click here for more of my running adventures.
