Category Archives: HR Management

The Power of Real Feedback

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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…So over the past few days I’ve read two great articles on feedback. The first one (from Tim Sackett here) talks about how watered down feedback is an epidemic problem in corporate America. From the piece:

Here are the types of “critical” feedback people can handle:

“You’re doing a good job, would love it if you could get that big project off the ground. That would really help us out!”

Here’s what you really want to say, critically, but can’t:

“You do good at things I tell you to do, and all basic day to day duties of the job. I need more from this position and from you, and I’m willing to help get you there. I need someone who can take a project from scratch and kill it, without me having to babysit the entire thing. You’re not doing that, and that’s what I really need you to do. Are you willing do that?” 

…and he then goes on to describe how companies that create a culture where employees expect to receive the latter (real) feedback win the culture war because employees working at that company understand that they won’t be able to get honest, developmental feedback that helps them move the needle almost anywhere else.

…So I ruminated on that a bit, and then a few days later I read this article from Kris Dunn. In the piece, Dunn shares a letter from a candidate that his company received several months after DQing said candidate in an interview process due to a lack of attention to detail. After receiving feedback from the recruiter that he was eliminated due to having poor detail orientation, the candidate recounts the following (snippets from Dunn’s post below):

…In your email, you pointed out that I showed a lack of attention to detail and didn’t have the writing style you were looking for, but that I had impressed you and <name withheld> with my interview and knowledge. I wanted to thank you for that email. It really hit hard that I missed out on the job opportunity because of an attention to detail.

…Right around that time I decided to get my (expletive) 100% together (or as close as I could).

…I started with a clean car, then a clean room, then a clean house. I trashed what was trash and some stuff that wasn’t, I kept what was really worth keeping, and I finally put some decorations up so that Atlanta felt like home. I have always been a very messy person, it’s been fine with me, but I no longer have anything out of place without a damn good reason. I want to thank you for that.

……Finally, once I had all of these things in order, I landed an interview for a dream job, a (position withheld). The interview came from and knew her boss was hiring for the position. I think if this girl knew who I was a year ago, she wouldn’t have thought about recommending me. But after seeing how ordered I kept my life, on top of the fact that I enjoy fast-paced creative work, she figured I would be a great fit. I want to thank you for that.

…I have been working at , for about seven weeks now. I have already been promoted and given a raise, and I love everyday of my life more than the day before. I want to thank you for that.

Okay; so I do a lot of interviewing, and after reading these pieces over the past two days I’ve been giving candidates feedback on strengths and weaknesses I identified in their answers… immediately after the interview. I’ll say:

“Okay, so I love _________ about you as a candidate; with that said, my concerns are about you being able to succeed in this role are __________. What do you think of that?”

This question has been transformative in the additional information it helps me to identify about the candidate: When pressed this way, a candidate has one of two responses; they either (i) get flustered and thank me for my time, or they (ii) rise to the occasion and make a powerful case for why those deltas either don’t matter or are overcomeable. I identified one gem of a candidate that I’d have missed if I hadn’t shared his deltas feedback immediately following the interview, which – to be fair – on one level shows me I need to dive deeper with the questions I ask… but it has also taught me how to learn how a candidate takes constructive criticism. Do they shrink from it or address it?

I think the answer you get to a question like this tells you a lot about how a person will do in your organization since most new roles have a learning curve, and as part of that process there are bumps in the road. The ability to respond to and progress past those bumps in an optimal way is integral to success.

Or at least I think so. As always, let me know if I have this wrong in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Does Managing the HR Function in California Require an SPHR?

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in HR Management, Labor and Employment Law

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1. Don’t judge me. -_-…So the other day I was chatting with another HR Pro about state laws 1, and at one point she commented that “opening a business in California is like opening a business in another country”, going on to say that having a California designated SPHR certification is a table stakes requirement for any HR Leader hoping to make informed policy recommendations around how to manage the workforce.

Ergo, this morning I started to do a little bit of research examining the differences between HR in California and HR everywhere else, assuming I’d find significant but not mind-blowing variations. Imagine my surprise then when I found the following:

California Employees Must be Paid Immediately at the Time of Discharge:
In California, if an employer discharges an employee, the wages earned and unpaid at the time of discharge are due and payable immediately. For each violation of this rule, an employer must pay $200 per employee, plus 2. See section’s § 201. and § 210. of the California labor code here.25% of the amount unlawfully withheld. 2

The “Exemption Test” is much higher in California than elsewhere:
Under the standard outlined in the FLSA (and most other states), the executive overtime exemption is defined by a number of factors, but mainly focuses on one’s “primary job duties and responsibilities.” Conversely, California’s executive exemption requires exempt employees to (i) earn at least 2xs the 3. $9 an hour and going to $10 in 2016.state’s minimum wage 3, (ii) supervise two or more employees, and (iii) spend 50% or more of their time on exempt activities. This can easily lead to situations like Heyen v. Safeway wherein employees are misclassified by an employer as exempt in California, even if that designation might have held true had that business been open almost anywhere else.

Meal and Rest Periods:
In contrast to federal law, in California an employer may not employ an employee for more than five hours per day without providing said employee with a meal period of at least thirty minutes. If an employer fails to comply, the employee must be paid one hour of pay at their regular rate of compensation for each workday that the meal period is not provided. Failure to pay this penalty (referred to as a meal period premium) on the paycheck that the violation occurred can – as in the case of failing to pay wages at the time of discharge – result in additional penalties.

…I spent about an hour and a half reviewing California Labor and Employment Law before I became convinced that running a business there like one might run it anywhere else in the country can result in significant fines and 4. Depends on if you’re the employer or employee, I suppose.penalties. I am not saying that this is good or bad 4 – it just is what it is.

With that said, revisiting our original question: As an HR pro can one learn enough to protect one’s business through good old-fashioned independent learning, or is the SPHR or some other professional training required?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Effective Performance Management…

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in General Management, HR Management

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<www.halogensoftware.com

<www.halogensoftware.com>

…Is (mostly) all about messaging, right?

I ask because this morning, whilst combing the internet for my daily dose of HR knowledge I came across the following nugget of wisdom from Kris Dunn here:

Some of you that are seasoned HR Pros know the cautionary tale when it comes to employee surveys. Rely on them too much or send the wrong signals to your workforce related to how they can be used, and they can become witch hunts toward capable managers with difficult workgroups.

…I’ve run across the above challenge multiple times over the years, but still haven’t worked out one tried and true method to sort through the noise and figure out if I’m dealing with (i) a nightmare Manager that’s destroying morale and killing productivity or (ii) a group of challenging employees bucking against a leader intent on raising the water level through rigorous performance management.

One of the most challenging things about dealing with employee relations conflicts in general is the fact that both sides have their own perceptions of what happened… and part of both sides is usually (on some level) right. As such, sorting through that grey area and adjudicating such matters in a way that resolves the conflict(s) and leaves all parties feeling they were treated fairly requires a comprehensive gathering of facts and the ability to step back and look at everything one learns objectively.

With that said, if all the employees on a leader’s team are saying (in the context of an engagement survey or otherwise) “This person is a terrible manager”, by what metric do we determine if they’re right? One way of answering this question might be to dig deeper into the nature of said feedback and assess its merit; in the case cited by Kris Dunn in the beginning of this piece, the employer (The FBI) is doing just that:

James L. Turgal Jr., assistant director of the agency’s human resources division, said FBI executives rely on other information and not exclusively on the surveys when promoting employees.

“This is just one data point,” he said. “It’s a great assessment tool. But it’s not the ultimate tool.”

…Which brings me back to my original comment about effective performance management being mostly about messaging: There are a lot of variables that play into determining who is to blame for conflicts between a leader and employees. But whenever I get a lot of complaints about a Manager one thing I do know is that – regardless of if said complaints turn out to have any merit – the manager has a communications problem with his or her team. I say this because ultimately most everyone can take constructive feedback (and even really bad news) if it is 1. For instance, studies have shown that the frequency at which Doctors are sued for malpractice has much more to do with how they talk to their patients than their patient’s actual treatment outcomes.delivered in a palatable way. 1 What they cannot tolerate, however, is being talked down to or otherwise made to feel diminished for their shortcomings. And a lot of times when Managers struggle to engage (and ultimate lose credibility with) their teams this is exactly the problem; instead of framing their expectations in a way that engages and empowers their employees, they deliver them in a way that tears their people down.

^This doesn’t mean they are bad or mean people, by the way – it’s just that delivering candid feedback is a learned skill. If one is not careful, t’s easy to water feedback down so much that the message gets lost… or conversely to go the other way and leave the recipient feeling attacked as opposed to coached.

…I have the day off and want to enjoy the weather today, and so I will close this one out by asking that you share your thoughts on performance management best practices in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

In Search of Perfection…

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in HR Management

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<juliachristova.com>

I have never had a particularly high amount of energy around being liked. Don’t get me wrong… it is certainly nice to be liked. But I don’t need to be liked. It simply isn’t high on my priorities list.

…Conversely, it has always been important for me to be perceived as fair.

With that said, one of the tough things about arbitrating disputes is that everyone sees things from their own point of view. This means that no matter how hard one tries to be even handed, how effective you ultimately are in that capacity is in the eye of the beholder. And so I am reminded of one of life’s oldest and simplest lessons, and also one of its truest:

You can’t please everyone.

An HR Executive that I recently met shared a John Wooden quote with me a few weeks ago that goes “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your 1. This would have made a good quote for next week, but this has been an informative week for quotes and life lessons so I’m doubling up. reputation is merely what others think you are.” 1

It turns out this may be very good advice.

…Perhaps instead of getting lost in the search of perfection – that response or action that pleases everyone – we should simply try and treat everyone as well as we can whenever we can, and hope it all comes out in the wash. I don’t think doing this means losing awareness of other’s perceptions or their relative weight and value. But I do think it might mean not beating yourself up too much over what might have been. And I think it means recognizing that sometimes your best simply needs to be good enough.

To move forward we can occasionally glance back… but we can’t hold onto the past.

Or maybe I have this wrong.

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Perspective

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in General Management, HR Management

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<www.totalmania.net>

One of the toughest things about managing people issues is finding the center. This isn’t because it’s hard to understand what the middle ground looks like in a dispute, but because not all positions are equally valid. Everyone thinks they are right… but of course they’re not. Not even close.

…And so to be a truly great people manager I think you have to be able to empathize (or at least sympathize) with everyone’s point of view whilst still being able to see how everything fits into the big picture. This is of course not easy; we all naturally see the world through biased lenses, and even when we are able to isolate our biases there are many external forces that work against our efforts. Perhaps principle among them, many people that we interact with everyday can’t see past their own experiences. And so the lens through which they see the world impacts other things as a matter of course. This means that even as we try to be even handed in our judgements there are powerful forces working against that goal.

…Maybe this means that to truly understand others we have to understand ourselves. It means understanding the impact we have on others. It means understanding how our surroundings impact the way we perceive things.

But if this is true then seeing the bigger picture requires us to understand that the center – like our perspectives – is always changing. It is governed by the moment. New information changes it. What is right for a person – or group of people – today may not be right for them tomorrow.  I think this is okay… but if ‘right’ is  often a moving target then finding the center isn’t about pinpointing a target.

It’s about managing where to settle in the grey.

Best,

Rory

The Importance of Building Manager Capabilities

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in General Management, HR Management

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Image Credit: <www.talentalign.com

Image Credit: <www.talentalign.com>

One of my (HR) friends was recently tapped to step into a senior leadership role within his organization while the incumbent takes a temporary leave of absence: The position is several steps up from his previous role concerning most matters of job accountability, complexity, and scope. We’ve had several conversations about his experiences to date; during these conversations he’s talked through his biggest challenges and key learnings. Of the many takeaways he’s come away with (and there are enough to fill their own post), I found one particularly powerful. He communicated to me (paraphrasing):

“Finding a way to support all of my managers without getting mired in the day-to-day stuff has been the toughest part. When I was supporting three managers at three sites I could get really involved in project minutia and processes and provide really hands-on support for all of their problems. Now that I’m supporting 10+ managers, however, I have to delegate more and trust people to follow through on the tactical stuff/button everything up.”

My friend was speaking to something that most leaders eventually encounter as their roles (and the stakeholders they’re accountable to) continue to grow: Once a job gets big enough, individual talent and raw work ethic alone stops being enough to get superior results. There’s just too much to do. At this point success become contingent on the ability of one’s direct (and indirect) reports to execute on tactical/administrative tasks while he/she works on bigger picture strategy.

Image Credit: <www.futuresme.eu

Image Credit: <www.futuresme.eu>

…In a perfect world, an organization would simply hire talented, experienced people across the enterprise that are both willing and capable of giving the discretionary effort required to accomplish key goals and objectives… but as we all know we don’t live in a perfect world.

This is where building manager capabilities is key. In most cases your workforce is going to have a wide range of skills and abilities. To this point, I often see early career (high potential) HR people pick up the slack of weaker managers rather than training them up in areas where they’re weak. For example, instead of coaching managers on how to resolve issues with their directs, they become mediators in minor conflicts/disagreements between the parties (that managers should be able to resolve on their own). Or instead of training leaders on how to use internal personnel systems to manage their own direct reports, these young professionals becomes systems administrators and records managers. By not training their managers on how to deal with the smaller issues on their own, they become tactical as opposed to strategic partners. This is not a productive use of their time.

To be a truly effective HR Business Partner one has to get out of the myopia of the day-to-day by training managers on how to handle it. It is in many ways easy to step in and be the hero when crises arise. The work gets done, and managers appreciate the hands-on support. In the long run, however, this approach limits the efficacy of all parties involved and is an inefficient use of human capital.

…I think I have this right, but perhaps not? Let me know in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Are You Well Suited To Your Job?

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in HR Management, Talent Management

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I am a big fan of personality/behavioral tests: Be it Myers-Briggs (I’m an INTJ), The Big Five (aka OCEAN), DISC, Harrison, workZeit (you’ve probably never heard of it but you should have) or some other assessment, if you can name it I’ve probably taken it.

…It’s not that I inherently place a lot of weight on tests like these. Heck, setting aside the fact that there is plenty of evidence such assessments are limited in their validity (and frequently misused), I believe that neither personality nor behavioral traits are fixed: Both can (and often do) fundamentally change throughout one’s life.

With that said, one reason I love personality/behavioral tests is because they’re a nice way to get a pulse on one’s temperament right now. To this point, I am a huge proponent of frequently stepping back and reflecting on my attitudes towards life: By examining how I’m experiencing and thinking about the world, I can bring context to my actions and understand if I’m headed in the right direction.

…And as an HR guy, I like these sorts of tests because (in the proper context) they can help teams work together more effectively and managers better understand their direct reports (and vice versa).

Are your values and behaviors aligned with the way you want to live your life? Are you in a career that’s aligned with those things? I’d encourage you to take 1. Or at least just think about it. 🙂a few personality tests and reflect. 1 In the process, you might discover a lot about who you are (and if you like where you’re going).

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Can Employees Handle the Truth? Does it Matter?

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Employee Relations, HR Management

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<www.baijusolanki.com

<www.baijusolanki.com>

I just read a post from compensation consultant Chuck Csizmar touching on the problem of bureaucracy within organizations. In it, Csizmar recounts a scenario that all of us have at some point experienced in our lives: While at the post office/DMV/store/work etc., we find ourselves in need of guidance on how to generate a solution to a novel problem. As opposed to sharing anything useful, however, the representative we seek assistance from instead parrots a vaguely applicable policy out of a handbook. As consumers/customers in these situations, the non-advice is both frustrating and simultaneously damaging to .1. This is a good post. Check it out at the Compensation Cafe here.our faith in the ability of the institution in question to meet our needs. 1

With that said, reading Csizmar’s post this morning made me think of the tightrope many of us in HR walk where it concerns communicating potentially sensitive information to employees. Often tasked with policy compliance, one of our most important jobs as HR Managers is to protect our companies from legal liability. Beyond that, we’re also tasked with managing employee relations and keeping the peace. Consequently, there can sometimes be a real incentive to communicate as little information as possible to inquiring employees beyond the exact policy in a handbook. After all, even if only 3% of employees are likely to exploit deviation from specific policy, that 3% can often create interpersonal and/or legal problems of a far greater proportion.

Ergo, everyone is managed to the standard of the small percentage of the workforce that need to be bound by regimented policy. Instead of treating the 97% of an employee population like the adults they are, in the pursuit of mitigating potential legal liability and interpersonal conflict those people are instead treated like children.

Case in point: Very early in my career, while interning at a company I encountered a situation where for months a contractor did outstanding work for the organization. The contractor hadn’t had any behavioral issues throughout their assignment, and had performed at a very high level. As such, the company extended a full-time job offer.

During the pre-employment process, however, a full-time employee accused the contractor of a fairly serious offense. On this basis, the offer was rescinded.

…Setting aside the fact that an investigation wasn’t done to confirm the validity of the claim (no one wanted to create a scandal internally by asking questions), management also made the decision to not communicate anything to the contractor as it concerned why the offer was withdrawn. Instead, the contractor’s assignment was unceremoniously ended: When the contractor called the site asking what had happened, they were simply told that staffing needs had changed.

Regardless of how I would have handled the situation, I understood why it was addressed the way it was: It was a contractor with less than 6 months on-site, and conducting an investigation could have created a mini-scandal. It was a raw deal for the contractor, but those were the breaks.

…Or maybe the contractor deserved better?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Giving Good People Bad News

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Employee Relations, General Management, HR Management

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Image Credit: <www.wired.com

Image Credit: <www.wired.com>

I struggle with giving people bad news – though I would also like to emphasize that I am not afraid to give people bad news. In point of fact, as an HR guy I have lived so often in the soup of bad news delivery (in the same way that .1. I don’t know how or why I came up with that analogy (or what percentage of the people reading this it will even make sense to), but let’s just go with it.frosted flakes live in milk 1) as to occasionally call it home. With that said, so much as I have grown accustomed to delivering unsavory prognostications as a function of my profession, I still can’t shake the awful feeling I have whenever I must do so. 

See, I like people; particularly good people. And I hate giving good people bad .2. Lately I have decided that I enjoy starting sentences with conjunctions like “and”. This is technically not okay (well, actually it’s not settled), but I’m trying some new things and have begun to cast aside progressively more grammar rules in the name of writing in my (0ccasionally disjointed) voice. Is that okay? Say it’s okay.news. 2

To this point, today I have to give some bad news. It isn’t awful news, granted, but it isn’t delightful either. Namely, several of my directs have been asking for additional help for a while now. They feel we’re a team member short and have asked for a headcount increase of one. After being asked about this by the team off and on (but often enough) for the past couple of months, I finally brought the proposal to my boss only to receive a polite-but-oh-so-resounding-enough “no”. Fair enough. That’s the way it goes sometimes. 

…So everyone has to keep working a little bit harder. In this economy (improving but not yet quite pre-2008 levels) that’s to be expected.

But there is still the bad news delivery.

…I believe in authenticity and transparency. My belief in at least one of these things (and perhaps two) is at least a little naive, but I stand by them nonetheless. Ergo, I said I would follow up and meant what I said (so I did). I will also be transparent with the result of my inquires (there was a “no”). This news will not go over well, and there will be some bawling and protestations… but people will get over it.

Why am I telling you this, you ask? Because in HR we do a lot of management couching, but much of what we counsel is easier said than done. This morning, I just felt that it would be useful to point this fact out in this space.

Happy Wednesday, and as always please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

HR Quote of the Week: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when…

04 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Change Management, Compensation, General Management, HR Management

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…his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

<en.wikipedia.org

<en.wikipedia.org>

As we get started this week, I want to share a quote with you from American author Upton Sinclair that got me thinking about the importance of understanding who the key stakeholders are (and their objectives) when embarking on any enterprise.

I’ve talked about the compensable value of complexity versus scale before, and just as back then I want to emphasize that in smartly run organizations the people tasked with being final decision makers are not the only stakeholders that need to be influenced to obtain a desired result: While decision making authority may flow up through only one person on an org chart, there is often an informal network of decision makers that must be traversed to ultimately obtain one’s goals.

To this point, in HR we are often faced with the challenge of meeting the diverse needs of numerous stakeholders; the identities of all these stakeholders are not always immediately clear, nor are their goals.

Moreso than in most functions, good HR is about identifying the objectives of all relevant stakeholders – those with both formal and informal power – and generating their buy-in before preceding with any new initiatives.

If you can’t align the goals of all key stakeholders before advancing a cause you may be dooming it from the start.

…Or maybe I have this wrong?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Happy Monday,

Rory