Lean HR

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2010-10-04T07:10:00.001-07:00

The new stuff is on LeanHRBlog.com.

Packing for a move

2010-10-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, I've got blog improvement on my to do list. (Item #1, as I recall.) Not wanting to lose the momentum, I've spent a little time today getting a fresh new URL registered and set up.

In the next few days, I'll be relocating to www.LeanHRBlog.com. It's up now, with all the old posts and comments pulled over. If you have a feed set up, please update it now.

In the meantime, please visit, and let me know your thoughts, as well as any tips on working with WordPress.

Thanks, hope to see you at the housewarming.

HR Tech Conf Update #4 - Final Thoughts

2010-10-01T12:33:00.001-07:00

Three and a half days surrounded by really smart, creative and
challenging people will do wonders for your outlook. Throughout the
week, I've been inspired to take a fresh look at some of the work I've
been doing, think about the challenges and changes to come over the
next few years, and spend a bit more time contemplating the customer
side of my projects. It has been a great experience, and I send my
thanks and congratulations to those who made it possible through
either their hard work, their attendance or both.
So, and process types are sometimes known to do, I started making a
list of to do items for the next few weeks.
1) Move this fledgling personal ego portal to a more effective tool/url.
2) Invest in some personal branding. Just cards now, but maybe someday
I'll have a booth and pretend to give away an iPad.
3) Prep for upcoming international work by doing a quick culture
review, and plot out a workflow that is more user focused.
4) Rebuild my Lean HR presentation deck for non-execs so it can be
ready to deploy as needed.
5) Get my arms around all the other personal side projects, especially
the really important one, and get moving on it.
Thanks again to everryone who made this week the sweet tasty sausage
that it is.

HR Tech Conference Update #3

2010-09-30T14:17:00.001-07:00

Winding up day 2 with the new technology showcase. Some of the highlights:
LinkedIn is talking every day about where they belong in the ATS
world. Expect something good first part of next year.
There are plenty of data companies here talking org charts and
analytics. Great movement in the space, but pay attention. There are
some bad interfaces, as well as good interfaces on bad systems. If you
are playing in the space, ask tough question and talk to their
customers.
Interactive, slick UIs are everywhere. But as Jason Averbook of
Knowledge Infusion pointed out this morning, remember that the users
of our systems have changes. Formerly just for HR, we now need to
build for all EEs. Keep it in mind.
If you blog, make sure you fed the full post. Short posts make people
mad. Apparently.
Twitter. Might be useful, at the very least can be entertaining.
Also, apparently, there are people actually reading this. I've heard
about the tight knit group, and how hard it can be to break in and get
accepted. I'll write more on this later, but the short version is this
community is full of smart, fun people awfully willing to welcome new
voices. So thanks.

HR Tech Conf - Update #2

2010-09-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

Morning session gone, with a few good notes...

The opening keynote was good, but relied on some outdated sources for her presentation. Instead of telling us what BestBuy did 2 years ago, why not tell us what they did then and how it has changed the company or evolved over time? Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Sat in on the CedarCrestone survey. If you aren't helping get it filled in, you should. The data is great. Some interesting correlations between automation and use of HR Tech and org performance. No true causation proven yet, but going in the right direction. A lot of focus on statistics makes the data guy in me smile. Some of the more interesting ones can be found on my Twitter stream from the session (http://twitter.com/#!/DwaneLay).

More updates this afternoon, battery life willing...

Thought for the day

2010-09-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone on your team is the perfect choice to fill someone else’s opening. Including the opening on your team if they leave. Are you giving them a reason to stay? If not, should you be looking for a reason for them to leave?

HR Tech Conf - Update #1

2010-09-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Two hours of networking in the books. Had initial conversation with some vendors around the impact of Fusion on the HR Tech arena.

The response I've gotten so far is:

It's Oracle, so you aren't likely to get what you expect. (Means nothing to me. I'm not likely to see it implemented in the next year or two, so plenty of time to work out the bugs.)
It's more complicated on the back end then you think as a user. (I don't care how the sausage is made, I just want sweet tasty sausage.)
We don't service companies that would spend that much money. We're "mid-market", so we're fine, thanks. (Sounds like a whole lot of denial.)
We want to help our customers experience less pain when it comes to integrations, but we aren't that good at it. We're looking for a partner to help us with that. (Pulls another party into the fray, but a better response than the first three.)

No good answers yet, but this was a culmination of conversation snippets. The real discussions start tomorrow.

My free idea of the day for ATS vendors: Instead of asking me to upload a word resume, which you've either already seen or will see soon, let me link you to my LinkedIn profile. You'll get the same information, plus you can pull in my online referrals and see what those people are up to. I gave this idea to a couple of vendors tonight, so only fair to share it here. (One told me they were trying to work out a deal with LinkedIn to populate their database instead of trolling for matches. Should be an interesting development to watch.)

Fear and Loathing in HR

2010-09-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

From Monday's Lean Blog:

"Many workplaces are effectively crippled by fear, including hospitals (or some might say “especially hospitals”). Hospitals are notorious for having “name, blame, and shame” cultures. Dr. Deming wouldn’t have liked that."

I've been a big fan of Dr. Demming since I first read about him. He and Peter Drucker shaped my management philosophy more than anyone else I never met. One of his core beliefs around managing people is that performance reviews are waste, and we should allow those in our organization the freedom to experiment, fail, learn, and experiment some more. Simple but brilliant. I think that's how I define genius.

Anyway, this post, centered around the work environment at Facebook, talks about the importance of environment on success. Taking it back to our world, what is the perception of HR in your organization? Are you the person to whom others go for help, or are you the bouncer that escorts people out of the building? Do you help build the business plans and talk about talent development, or do you force managers to fill out performance reviews once a year, just because they should?

HR is in position to impact not just who works in your organization, but how they work, what their support system looks like, and how their career is shaped. This can't be done if you are wallowing in waste and bloated processes. You have to lean out your work, eliminate bottlenecks and paperwork, and give people what they need to perform. Then you can work on changing the environment, the culture, and the future.

How Google Can Change Recruiting

2010-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

We’ve long been trained against asking personal questions in the process if interviewing candidates, even though we’ll accept it if offered. At the same time, we move into a more open world with Facebook, Twitter, blogging and other types of social media. For some reason, many managers, even in HR, don’t take the simple step of examining a candidate’s online presence during the interview process.

This is potentially the richest source of information on a candidate. Are they insightful, presenting new ideas in their chosen discipline, investigating potential avenues of learning more about their work? Or are they disruptive, combative, or even just rude? People are more themselves when they think they are anonymous, even if put their name at the end of their post. It’s a different world than just a few years ago, and indicators of a candidate’s personality are now available in the public space for your perusal. So why aren’t we using it more?

Regardless of readership levels, I know that if I search on myself, I’ll find this blog, my LinkedIn profile and Lean For HR LinkedIn group (feel free to join!), and several online discussions I’ve held on work relevant topics. But this rarely comes up in conversation with outside recruiters.

To me, that work is more indicative of my thought process and outlook on key tenants of HR than anything on a CV. Between your CV and your online presence, I can get a handle on not just what you’ve accomplished, but how you did it and how your personality is likely to fit in with someone else’s culture and team. Why wouldn’t we use that to its full extent?

I suspect, or at least I hope, that we will dig into this at the HR Technology Conference.

Openworld Update #9: Fusion

2010-09-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

More detail and some pics for you...

The demo on the HCM product was the highlight of the week for me. It has all the right items included, and a nice package to boot. Some images from the presentation...

Two views of org charts. You can toggle between them, as well as pull more info by person and initiate transactions.

Drill down into an employee page, see their comp ratios, proficiencies, predictive performance, and other key data...

Want to move them into a new role? You can see how their skills match the job profile and what kind of fit they would be. Again, more predictive analysis built into the system...

The on-boarding panel, which includes a progress bar that updates each time a piece is completed, including person info validation and emergency contacts...

Not to mention benefits enrollment, including pricing based on the pay rate and the bio data already provided...

The design interface, which allows you to rework the process on the fly...

I spoke with one of the presenters, and he verified that the system starts the predictive work based on external data, but adapts over time to the specifics of the organization. By far the best thing I saw over the week.

Openworld Update #8

2010-09-23T09:39:00.001-07:00

Finally had the chance to see the Fusion HCM product yesterday. It
looks fantastic, and ther features that were shown were everything I
was hoping for. I have pictures from the demo that I will post later.
The interest part now will be the vendor discussions at the HR Tech
conference next week. Fusion looks like it cantake the place of a lot
of one-off systems. I'm interested to hear why they think they should
still be part of the total HRIS solution.

Openworld Update #7

2010-09-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

This morning's keynote was presented by Michael Dell, with some help from Cadir Lee (Zynga) and Rob Carter (FedEx). The takeaways:

They are all really busy, and business is great
They all really like working together
You should buy/use their product

Outside of that, not too much. Dell did show off their tablet phone (available soon as Best Buy) and their upcoming 7" tablet. And they like Android, apparently.

It strikes me that the keynotes have been more about how great each company is rather than offering solutions to complex issues or taking the opportunity to issue challenges to their user community. I think this is a huge miss, not just for OpenWorld but for any conference that brings a user community together. Maybe that's just the HR guy in me talking.

Openworld Update #6

2010-09-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Just one post today to wrap up the action...

Most of the good ideas are coming from the Expo areas, not from the sessions. They are remarkably disappointing. Today's sessions...

"20 Countries in 20 Weeks With No IT Support"
In fairness, I should have asked what they were doing in those 20 countries. Traveling the countryside? Cooking classes? Book reports? The answer is technically an HCM implementation, in that they were adding EEs from a recent acquisition. Their time today was spent explaining how they built a template to enter the data, and a glorified macro to type it in. That's it. No integration, no testing, no full migration, no change management, no training. Data entry. And it took 20 weeks to enter 900 records. The best thing I can say for this session is that it ended early.

"Building Your PeopleSoft Application Strategy"
You should upgrade now, because then the CEO will sign off on everything. We have the skit to prove it. Oh, and all HR people have to offer at the big table is an engagement survey ("Everyone is sad, but we treat them really well. If only we knew more!"), turnover ("I wish we knew why people are leaving!") and a fear of the unknown ("What? We have to upgrade our system again someday?"). But it's ok, as long as you upgrade, you'll be fine.

Hopeful for more tomorrow, with some promising sessions lined up. But the feeling from the IT team is the same. And I've heard it was similar last year. It's unfortunate, given the cost of the conference. I am trying not to get my hopes up for the HR Tech conference in Chicago, but I think having a host of vendors on hand will provide more insight into processes and specifics than we are seeing here.

Openworld Update #5

2010-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Final session of the day was the Oracle HCM Roadmap, promising a look into the future of the application. And the future looks a whole lot like the present. Or even the past.

The items they shared were very basic, including online applicant portal and manager self service. The feature set looks very standard, and at no point did the presenters give us something along the lines of "I know this looks like what everyone else has been doing already, but here's why ours will be great!"

On a side note, if you are presenting for your company, no matter how big the crowd, be sure you know how the microphone works and what you are going to cover. The presenters looked ill-prepared at the last session, their demo did not work correctly, and one of them insisted on holding the lapel mic (while waving her arms around, gesturing during her parts). Hard to watch, little value gained. We can all do better.

Openworld Update #4

2010-09-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just finished with Pfizer's session on implementing Self Service. They put in a global (!) system in just about a year, starting in February of 2009. They built around user needs, VOC, simplicity, and standardizing data and processes globally (with regional adaptation to meet regulatory needs). Interestingly, they didn't start discussing the technology platform until September. It was launched a few months after that.

Their story is a great one when it comes to planning your transformation. It was all about the people, then the processes and then, late in the game, the technology. As it should be.

Openworld Update #3

2010-09-20T14:22:00.001-07:00

Finished up a review of PS Tools 8.5 implementation by Oxfam, a service organization. They deal with some interesting situations, dealing with a lot of human rights and disaster relief situations.

The presentation boiled down to:

Identify business drivers (for them, collaborative applications, interface features)
Install test systems
Let the technical team and functional team play with it (in an unstructured way)
Schedule feedback and discussion sessions with them
Prepare demo sessions of new features
Give one-on-one demo sessions for key business leaders (not just your stakeholders)
Be upfront about cost, risk and timeframes

There was also discussion on the implementation approach, but I won't review it here. The lesson I would take from this, though, is that their successful implementation (or expected success, I suppose, as they don't go live until this weekend) is built around creating pull. Pull from the technical team, pull from the business needs, pull from leadership. A lesson that can be applied to almost every project you touch.

Openworld Update #2

2010-09-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

Made it through the opening keynote with all sense intact. As expected, a 2 hour commercial for Oracle and their partners, mostly focused on hardware and infrastructure. (Nothing much for us HCM folks.) A couple of thoughts...

Fujitsu spent a lot of money and time to create some slick videos that said nothing at all. And I think their CEO might be a robot.

The exhibition hall is packed, a lot of golf and video games. Good times. Won some golf balls (not that I play).

First session: Review of a well managed PS Tools upgrade project. More to come...

Openworld Update #1

2010-09-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

Completed check-in (after starting via mobile last night). Took under 5 min to get my badge and swag pack (a backpack, notepad, and water bottle).

Four Iron Man suits are set up outside the keynote room. It's clearly a big theme for them. Mark Hurd did his best to steal Tony Stark's entrance, and there is a lot of red light and heavy drums.

Pics and more to come...

Blogging From Openworld

2010-09-20T07:58:00.001-07:00

In San Francisco, waiting for the morning keynote. I'll share anything
interesting I come across?
Anyone else make the trip out?
--
Sent from my mobile device

Regards,
Dwane
314.610.6937
dwane.lay@gmail.com

HR Metrics 101

2010-09-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Metrics are critical to running your HR practice, but far too many HR practitioners haven’t been taught what they really need to know about them. Here’s a few tips that might be helpful:

No one really cares about headcount. How can you tell? Ask a simple question. If the headcount next week is ten fewer than last week, what will you do about it? The answer is usually “it depends.” And that’s the right one. Headcount is an indicator, an important denominator for some metrics that are truly indicative of what is happening. But alone, it’s almost meaningless.
No one really cares about straight turnover. What they care about is the cause of turnover, and what can be done about it. To deal with it, you have to understand what kind of turnover you are dealing with (Voluntary? Involuntary? Regrettable? Retirees? Internal movement?) and then you can start to find the root cause.
Business leaders watch trends more than numbers. Don’t’ get hung up in the minutia of reporting. Look for trends that are playing out over weeks, or even better months, instead of day to day. Businesses are run that way. Your practice should be too.
But know the numbers, too. Nothing will sap your credibility faster than presenting a set of trends and not being able to talk about the details. Present the important part and tell the story that needs to be told. But be ready when they ask for more, and be able to discuss not only the details, but what they mean to the business. That will bring your credibility up, and help you guide your partners in making better decisions for your population.
Learn to distinguish between correlation and causation. Sure there are more drownings when ice cream sales are at their peak. But few people drown in ice cream, right? Knowing the difference can help you guide a business leader to hire lifeguards, not bad butter pecan.

How the STEM Program Can Impact You

2010-09-17T05:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, President Obama announced an expansion to the STEM program, designed to engage the private sector in proving public education. No matter which side of the aisle you consider home, this is an important issue and a positive direction.

No one, outside of our children of course, stand to gain more from a strong education system than private industry. Preparing tomorrow's workforce is critical, and asking industry to help shoulder the load makes perfect sense. But there is more that can and should be done than participation in STEM.

Public schools everywhere are struggling. Private too, in some cases. It's not hard to find stories of children showing up to class without so much as a pencil with which to write. Be it the fault of parents who cede their role of educator to the school, an economy that has hit some families so hard they struggle to provide the basics (let alone the luxury of a backpack), or ingrained cynicism of a society that assumes if a teacher is asking us to send our children to school on day one with tissues, shaving cream and wet wipes, they must somehow be profiting from the deal. The truth is teachers have been doing more than their part for less than they deserve for years, and we can all do more to support them.

If you have school age children, you owe it to them (and each other) to be engaged. Not just in getting them to school, but being active when it comes to their education. Be interested in their homework, in getting them to read on the weekends, in their relationship with their teachers and friends, in how they spend their free time. Commit your personal time to being involved.

This can also be applied in the workplace. Too many kids leave school having no idea what the "real world" holds for them. There are ample opportunities out there to mentor high school students, let them intern over the summer, work on projects with them for their own education. Just call your local schools and ask how you can help. Even just providing the aforementioned tissues and supplies can be a big help, but we should be able to make sure they have the necessities in the school and still have more to offer. If you aren't sure how you can get involved, follow the old Dr. Demming advise to "go and see." Draw your own observation circle in the hallway and spend an hour. You'll get the message. And they'll get the chance to make fun of the adult standing in the circle. Everybody wins.

None of these are revolutionary ideas, of course. But how many of us are doing them?

Shuffle

2010-09-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a victim of shuffle mentality. And since few bands put out "albums" anymore (as opposed to a collection of singles), its not a real problem. Except we lose sight of how brilliant an album can be.

I just listened to "Abbey Road" front to back for the first time in years. Amazing. Needs to be done at least once a year, I think.

So, what did you take for granted today?

What “Top Chef” Teaches Us About Teamwork

2010-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

I admit, I am a huge kitchen geek, so I love Top Chef. I look forward to each season, especially to the Restaurant Wars episode. I do this with no small sense of irony, given how much I despise reality TV in general. I can justify my love because I learn a ton from the competitors, gaining from their culinary school experience without having to go myself.

We can all gain from the experience, though, outside of the realm of the kitchen. In the Restaurant Wars episodes, competitors are split into two teams, each of which must create a restaurant them and menu, then work together to execute. One member of the winning team usually gets a nice prize, one member of the losing team usually goes home.

Even if you don’t care about kiwi foam, braised guacamole or deep fried bits of formerly living things, there are lessons we can take away about teamwork in a heated environment.

It is possible to be teammates with your rivals. On TC, it is required for the day. In real life, it’s just as forced, but usually lasts longer. The successful competitors realize they depend on their teammates to be successful if they want to remain. We sometimes must do the same to be successful at work. It is rare to have a team fail and still have a member or two look like a star.
Someone has to take the tough job, and can suffer for it. Many of the losing teams see their “executive chef” go home, even if they were not the weakest performed that week. Sometimes when you are in charge, you take the blame. It might not be your fault, but that’s part of the job.
Taking the tough job doesn’t always mean reaping the rewards. As often as the team leader goes home, it is rare that the team leader is declared the winner. That honor goes to the individual contributor who really shines, more often than not. It’s just another lesson that leadership isn’t the easy path some believe it to be.
When the heat is on, alliances can fall apart quickly. Many teammates have turned on each other in tough times. Issues that were thought to be minor or resolved spring up, seemingly to blame for the failure of the team. Always be aware of those who declare a problem resolved, only to continue to simmer over some injustice, real or imagined.
Each win is simply a step in the process. Restaurant wars is fun to watch, but is never the ending of the season. The next week, those teammates will be back to individual challenges. Just like we work side by side with our teams, but are eventually judged on our own merits. Take those team tasks as a chance to learn from each other and better ourselves, but never forget that we must improve our own skills in the process if we want to be successful long term.

IBM's Smarter Planet

2010-09-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Not a new campaign anymore, of course, but it caught my eye this morning. The spots implore us to redesign the way we fulfill power needs, transmission, etc. The problem, of course, is that you don't just need to put in a new system, but you also have to tear down the established one. This is a problem that predates even the Edison - Tesla battles at the beginning of the last century, and it still hangs around today.

How does that apply to HR? We can all imagine a different way of doing things, ways that are better, smarter, faster. We create game changing ideas that are revolutionary at times. But the established system, including the budgets, infrastructure, culture and organization setup, makes it hard to implement, if not impossible. So what do we do with these great ideas?

Simply put, we document them and call them our future state. And we start chasing the future down one step at a time.

Of Engagement Surveys

2010-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

My organization recently released the results of our annual survey. Good participation rates, decent scores, though down in some areas. Given the last year included a lot of internal shuffling, not to mention some position cutting, it shouldn't be a surprise. The results include a slight dip in overall morale and engagement. Slight, but nothing drastic.

Survey results are reported out at the highest level, but then drilled down by business leader to create action plans and hold discussion on how to improve scores. These things are planned regardless of the results. Overall, I applaud the intent behind this work.

What the survey doesn't reflect is the trauma that people go through in a year of this nature. I've seen hushed conversations in corners when the leader met. I've seen teammates fighting back tears at their desk after someone else is let go. I've seen rifts between employees and management that quietly fester, but are never vocalized. How do we address something like that? Dr. Demming would point to the respect for people that was at the center of his work, and tell us that must be the center of our work. Easier said than done in the economic turmoil through which we've come. Hopefully we've learned from it, and can begin working our way back.

Celebrate the Right Way

2010-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Seen this?

Let this be a lesson in knowing what "success" means before we start a project. Celebrate to soon, turn your back for a second, take your eye off the critical change management work to pat yourself on the back just once, and it can all fall apart.

Remembering

2010-09-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Pushing the Spectrum (from Seth Godin) makes a subtle but important statement today. He references how parts of our society has tried to turn fear into hatred. (He kindly refers to the people as "marketers," which I suppose is technically accurate. I'd call them something far different.)

There are a lot of blogs, news items and Facebook posts today about what happened nine years ago. My most vivid memory, aside from the news, was checking my email. Earlier in the year, we had taken a trip to Germany, and had stayed in small B and Bs the entire time. That afternoon, I received an email from all five of them, letting us know they were thinking of us and that they hoped we were safe. These were not long stays, mind you. Two of them were just overnight. But it was that outreach and support that I remember most.

In contrast, I still receive mass emails from time to time about boycotting "Arab businesses," about how much everyone in the Middle East wants to destroy us, about how horrific it would be for a religious/community center to be built near ground zero. Rarely are these well thought out, logical missives about our world. Instead they propagate hate and fear toward a race of people who, for the most part, want little more than to live in peace, celebrate their faith, raise their children and enjoy each other's company.

There are extremists in all corners. Just as most of us, I hope, would not want to be judged based on a "preacher" who slings hate and burns religious books that are different from his own, I hope we have moved past a time when we judge all members of a religion based on the actions of a few extremists.

HR Tech Conference iPhone App

2010-09-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

If you are planning to attend (and by all accounts, you should), and if you have a iProduct of some sort (and statistically, you probably do), you might find this of interest.

http://www.filecluster.com/iPhone/HR-Technology-2010-31274.html

"This is the version of HR Technology 2010 for iPhone / iPod Touch. This is the official mobile guide app for the 13th Annual HR Technology® Conference & Expo being held at Chicago's McCormick Place, Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2010.
The HR Technology® Conference & Expo is the world's leading business conference and expo on every aspect of technology for HR.
This app will enable you to view the full agenda, look up details such as speakers, sessions, and search for exhibitors, sponsors and Expo information. Utilized onsite, this will be a great tool to help you easily get around the conference."

**Disclaimer: Not my software, haven't yet tested it, can't vouch for performance. Will update as warranted.**

Lean is Inclusive, not Intrusive.

2010-09-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

Recently read an article talking about how HR and Lean can "join forces" to change the world. The article is good, but I think it propagates a fundamental flaw in our thinking about Lean and anything. Lean isn't something you do on top of your "day job," it's how you do that job. The problem with sustaining improvement programs is when comments like "I can't run a project, I'm too busy with my regular work" are encountered without immediately coaching that person on using those Lean tools to accomplish their work in a more efficient way.

We don't have to "join" Lean and anything. Lean is a toolbox to help us accomplish our goals. If it's seen as anything else, it's a failure.

5 Ways to Reduce Waste in Your Recruiting Processes

2010-09-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

Talent acquisition is rewarding, but can be a painful process for both the recruiter and the applicant(s). Here are some suggested methods for cutting waste and improving the overall recruiting process...

1) Online applications. Most companies are either in this game or going there, but many that use an application tracking system also have paper applications. In some cases, they require both. Not to mention the redundancies of having a CV or resume, then the online application, then the paper application. Don't waste you applicant's time with rework, and don't waste your own in dealing with reams of unnecessary paper.

2) Incentives your externals the right way. The best system I've seen offers their external recruiters a bonus payment if the first candidate they present is hired. This gives them incentive to really learn the culture and position to give you a great candidate the first time. If you think of the wasted time and money in looking at multiple candidates, it's a small price to pay.

3) Cut your interview to offer time. Sometimes the bottlenecks are simple ones to reduce, once you realize that time is not a free resource. One team I worked with waited until the end of the process (meaning post-acceptance) to perform the background check and drug screening. It added 5-10 days to the end of the process. The cost for each round of checks was about $50. Once I asked them if the position added more than $10 per day of value, it became an easy decision to move it. Now they perform those checks on the final three candidates just before the last round of interviews. Results don't come back until after the interviews and (generally) the decision is made, but the delay in getting the offer and acceptance in greatly reduced.

4) Create a pull process in staffing. Recruiters will tell you there is a limit to how many searches that can do at once before you start to lose quality. Ten seems to be the average. If you are using an online talent system, hold the requisitions back until one of the ten they are currently working is closed out. This also allows you to track your staffing levels and know if you have the right number on the team, too many, or not enough. Speaking of which...

5) Centralize your staffing team. Just like a call center, shared staffing resources allow you to handle the peaks and valleys of demand across your business without over- or under-worked people (as well as often needed fewer recruiters overall). Rather than have a staffing person for each location/department/business leader, build a central team that can take requests from across the business and triage them for best responses. Within that team you can still have specialists as needed, but you reduce your risk of losing an expert recruiter because their knowledge can be more easily shared.

And the unnumbered bonus tip is, of course, get really good at talent retention and development. It will help keep the recruiting needs to a minimum, which is the best way to reduce the waste in the first place.

Who do you work for?

2010-09-03T17:00:00.001-07:00

Working this week on building an employee self service function, we
review how we support someone with no computer or no desire to us one.
The solutions are designed to drive employees to the new site and help
them get to know the interface. As a technology guy, I look forward to
it. But for whom is this solution built?
Our HR leaders will enjoy the lighter transactional burden on their team.
Our finance leaders will appreciate the expected reduction in the
cost of HR overall.
Our IT partners get to build the slick interface and get their data
scrubbed, not to mention some server and software upgrades.
Nowhere in this, though, has the overall employee experience been a
discussion point, beyond some vague chatter around "engagement" and
"empowerment."
This isn't new. Service organizations have been cutting costs for
years now, and the customer experience has taken a back seat. Rather
than following the basic tenants of LSS, such as letting the strategy
pull the projects, or doing real VOC work to see what customers want,
we charge ahead into a world where we are pleased to get through a
transaction on the first try.
HR desperately needs to stay in touch with our only real customer, our
employee population. Keep them happy, and make their lives simple.
It's all they really want. Just ask them.

Why Do We Wander?

2010-08-12T09:11:00.001-07:00

At some point in your career (hopefully), you'll get a call from a recruiter for a job that intrigues you. And you'll listen.

It has little to do with desire to change jobs or engagement. If you are attractive enough to get a call (and even more, and interview), you're doing something right. Good work, results, and enough positive press to get attention, even if you generate it yourself. That generally means the work you are doing is meaningful to you, you are having success at it, and you are being acknowledged for it.

So why do we wander? Is it that recruiters are so good at their pitch, we have to listen? Maybe some. Is it that we are secretly miserable and hoping the next call will ask us to be the new GM of the Padres? Doubtful. Are we just too darn polite to hang up the phone? As likely as anything.

But the reason people listen is because of ego. It feels good to be wanted. If feels nice to have someone you don't know call you up and say "I want you on my team!" Even if you feel engaged and valued in your current job, it's nice to hear it from someone else.

So how do we combat this with our own teams? An easy answer is to make sure your stars are getting the respect and recognition from someone else besides you. Another level up is good, but a leader in a different function or location, who has very little contact with them, can make a huge impact just by saying "I've heard about the work you're doing, and it's great! Glad you are on our side!"

It's ok to let them wander. Just make sure they are wandering close to home, and they come back at the end.

Technology and Interpersonal Relationships

2010-07-27T11:47:00.001-07:00

We've been hearing for a long time that the Internet, social media and email are causing more distance between people, and relationships are suffering because of it.

This story changed my mind...

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=5410616

Athletes, politicians, celebrities, and even employers are starting to understand that the Internet doesn't forget. Ever. Neither does email. Or Facebook. Orwell's "memory hole" might be a welcome addition to our lives for some, but the reality is that once something is published, emailed or shared, it's out there. And you never know when it will come back.

So the safest way to communicate may just be face to face. That's the one time we know we are secure, and our secrets and thoughts can be shared without fear of them coming back to haunt us. Assuming, of course, you are sharing them with the right person.

The number one job...

2010-07-05T12:32:00.001-07:00

...of a leader is to keep promises
None of us can accomplish much on our own. Employees, employers,
customers, vendors, investors all rely on us to keep our word. A
sinplistic way to look at it, to be sure, but that doesn't make it
less true.
I have seem great teams fall apart because a leader makes unrealistic
promises (or worse, very realistic ones) upon which they failed to
act. Even failure to deliver can, at least somewhat, be forgiven when
the effort to fulfill those promises are made.
Be candid, be clear, but most of all be committed to delivering on
promises made.

Special Discount to HRPS Global Conference 4/25-4/28

2010-04-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

The Human Resource Planning Society (HRPS) is a strong network of more than 3,000 HR thought leaders and executives representing the world's most prominent businesses. As a speaker at the HRPS Global Conference, April 25-28, 2010 in San Diego, I'm pleased to offer you a discounted rate to attend.

I'm excited to present my session, Human Resources Operational Excellence - Leveraging the Opportunities of the New Economy, on April 27th at 1:30pm. I hope you can join me to hear about our work in implementing a structured methodology for improving HR processes and driving hard savings for the business.

If you haven't yet registered, the conference has provided a $150 discount code to attend for connections of speakers. Register online by April 16 and enter SN4 when prompted ($150 discount applies to non-members only).

In addition to my session, keynote headliners include the most influential strategic thinkers and leaders from a variety of global companies:

• John W. Boudreau, PhD, Center for Effective Organizations
• Shannon Deegan, Director of People Operations, Central Staffing & Business Development, Google
• Rich Fante, President, and Lynn Tetrault, EVP, HR & Corporate Affairs, AstraZeneca USA
• Sandy Ogg, CHRO, Unilever
• Satish Pradhan, EVP, Group HR, Tata Sons Limited
• Harold Sirkin, author of Globality
• Karen Stephenson, Business 2.0's "The Organization Woman"
• Dave Ulrich and Wendy Ulrich, co-authors of The Why of Work

For more information, follow @HRPS or download the Global Conference Brochure for session descriptions, networking details and housing/travel resources.

I hope to see you in San Diego!

Globalizing Processes and Documents

2010-02-17T08:52:00.001-08:00

We are near the end of a two week swing through France and the UK, reviewing processes and documents for regionalization. There is no question this work needed to be done, and we have learned much.

The biggest learning, though, hasn't been about the regional needs for process changes. It has been about the number of changes and improvements to our prime documents that were identified just by reviewing the process with global teams. They ask not only great questions, but different questions that the ones we get in the US. And different from each other, as well. Some are purely terminology ("hourly" vs. "blue collar" vs. "non-exempt"). Some are technical (creating org charts in Visio from an Excel report). Some are common sense ("Why would you do that? It makes a lot more sense to do this instead.")

None of these are Earth-shattering concepts or insights. But many are new, despite months of review in the US. There is really no substitute for getting the team around a table for a week.

Any great success stories from working through your global teams?

2009 Lessons Learned

2009-12-31T18:11:00.001-08:00

Rather than another posting asking what you'll do different in 2010, let's talk about what we learned in 2009.

What's the most valuable thing you learned this year?

What's it worth to you...or them?

2009-12-06T06:27:00.001-08:00

We talk a lot about ROI and the value of the work we do the business. We've recently gotten some data back from our partners in the Finance group on this issue (sorry, nothing we can share at this point), which is the only source you can trust in these issues. While it obviously doesn't encompass everything we do, it's nice to be able to have a method of quantifying at least some of the work.

Anyone out there getting good, valid feedback on the ROI of your work?

What's your latest project?

2009-11-29T04:56:00.001-08:00

We all, to some degree, have a project in play. Redesigning your compensation package? Putting together a new training program? Working furiously to meet your budget numbers for the year? Looking for a new place to peddle your wares?

It's a busy world out there. What's everyone working on, and what help could you use?

Pick a skill!

2009-11-09T06:01:00.001-08:00

Let's pretend you are adding one person to your staff. You have several qualified applicants, but each has an "extra" skill set that doesn't translate directly to the role (whatever it may be; the role isn't important here). The "extra" skills are:

Sales experience
Second language fluency (though not one that will be useful for their client base)
Statistics/Data analysis
Non-profit group grant writing/fund raising
Stand-up comedy experience

Which skill would you most likely add to your team, and why?

LSS Deployment Benchmarks - How do you stack up?

2009-10-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

Karen Welch from Abbott Nutrition presented in October at the 4th Annual Global Lean, Six Sigma and Business Improvement Summit. She quoted a few interesting (or depressing, depending on how you see it) statistics from Leap Technologies. I thought I'd share the ones that really caught my eye.

Close to 50% of organizations making a significant investment in LSS complete fewer than 10 projects in the first two years despite significant training investment.
Less than 15% Green Belts trained in LS methods (80 hrs classroom time) actually complete a project.
Close to 40% BB training is devoted to teaching DOE, yet the majority report never using the tool in an actual project.
Despite a goal of changing the culture, employee participation in LS projects average less than 10% of the workforce

How does this compare to your organization? We’ve spent a great deal of time on these very issues, and I’d like to think we’ve made progress in our organization, but I’m curious as to the state of the practice in other companies.
So how many of these four items would you dispute on your team?

Diversity vs. Inclusion

2009-08-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Worked with a team last week to brainstorm policies that promote inclusion. The discussion went in an unexpected (but very interesting) direction. But the question we first dealt with was the difference between inclusion and diversity.

Diversity is generally seen as compliance with US requirements along the lines of Affirmative Action Planning, or about making sure you recruit and hire people of different backgrounds and ethnicity.

Inclusion, as we discussed it, is more about making sure all those disparate and "diverse" individuals are turned into a truly blended workforce, and are able to work together as a unit. On a macro scale, it is about everyone understanding the direction of the company and how each business unit contributes. At a more micro level, its about how each individual plays a role in getting there.

How does your organization define diversity and/or inclusion? Are you making progress on both fronts, or do regulatory requirements alone drive your actions?

What Makes a Good LSS Belt Candidate?

2009-04-30T06:28:00.001-07:00

I'm working this morning with a potential candidate to assess fit and likelihood of success. Traits I'm hoping to find...

Action oriented
Comfortable with responsibility
Diligence
Flexibility
Comfort with numbers (I'm not as concerned about their specific statistical ability. We can teach that if they have the mindset.)
Desire to learn
Willingness to change how you look at the world (I guess that's flexibility, but on another level.)

Project Ownership

2009-04-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks we have been busy building out the plans for Kaizens, JDIs and belt projects to reach our cost savings / productivity gain targets. One thing has come to light that I find very disturbing.

Our project champions/sponsors have a number of reasons for failed projects, many of which are due to the belt/team leader moving roles. We tend to nominate high potentials and high performers for the training, but then allow the projects (and therefor the certification efforts) to wither away in favor of "real work" or new positions.

The message for the month, then, is this. Champions own projects. Sponsors own projects. Team leaders and/or belts do not own projects.

We have established metrics on belt utilization levels (how many projects are being completed per belt/candidate per year) and ROI for the program (hard net savings/investment in training). I'm taking it as an action to also start reporting out completion rates for projects by Champion. If the leadership is not engaged in the process, it's all just wasted effort. And we all hate waste.

Translating "Corporate Strategy" methods to the HR world

2009-01-20T10:28:00.001-08:00

In reading through "Lean Six Sigma for Service" (Michael L. George), I started thinking about the ways we leverage our HR team's priorities in our LSS deployment.

George talks about how to benchmark against competitors on ROIC, WACC and EP (Economic Profit, the difference between the ROIC % and WACC %). These are fairly easy numbers to obtain through annual reports, and can certainly be used as the cornerstone of resource deployment in an organization.
But we live in a slightly different world. We are, in some respects, one of the largest costs of an organization. These calculations, while meaningful, don't always help in deploying resources through HR. I'm curious as to how we benchmark performance with that in mind.
Do you benchmark against HR teams in your market sector, direct competitors, local companies, similar sized organizations, or some other group?
What are the key metrics you use for that comparison? HR cost per FTE? Total HR spend? Turnover? Something else?
Finally, how do you leverage that information to drive your deployment, and how often do you re-examine that strategy?

Obama appoints "Chief Performance Officer"

2009-01-07T11:15:00.001-08:00

In the interest of keeping politics at a minimum, I won't ask people's opinions of the incoming administration (or outgoing, for that matter, though civil discussion is always welcome), I thought this new post was interesting enough to mention. From Yahoo! News...

President-elect Barack Obama...named on Wednesday a former Treasury official as the first U.S. "chief performance officer" to oversee budget and spending reform.

"We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways of getting the job done...Even in good times, Washington can't afford to continue these bad practices. In bad times, it's absolutely imperative that Washington stop them," Obama said.

Obama has repeatedly promised that his administration will go "line by line" over its budgets -- a task that will now fall to Killefer and Obama's nominee to as White House budget chief Peter Orszag.

I thought it interesting to see a high level position specifically designed to make the entire system work better, though it sounds more like a finance watchdog than a Lean practitioner position. With all the waste that the new administration expects to find, let's hope they engage a few people who know how to clear it out and streamline the system. That would get us past removing deadwood and start the country down it's own Lean transformation.

Let's Shake the Tree

2008-12-09T06:08:00.001-08:00

With the new year approaching, what better time to start challenging the status quo, questioning our collective assumptions and looking for a better way to do, well, everything?
So I'm looking to this small (but growing!) cadre of like-minded HR visionaries to start shaking the HR tree and see what comes flying out. Let's change the world together.
Here's one of mine from last week. In working with a team of recruiters and HR pros, we ended up debating recruiting methods, specifically the offer process. (Who makes the offer? Do you allow negotiations? Who is authorized to do so, and how much?) At one point, we came around to incentive pay for sales professionals.
I challenged the team as to why we pay commission. Isn't it our desire to hold onto our best, and attract the best that we don't already have? How do we differentiate ourselves? I submit that a compensation plan based on a strong base pay with a smaller incentive peice at the top end (and maybe structure more around MBOs than sales dollars) would provide a more stable income and security than a "traditional" approach of most (or all) commission based pay. Your best people will be driven to succeed regardless of the pay plan (though it is, of course, a factor). If you can give someone some financial security in these times and they respond by being less invested in their (and your) success, that's probably the wrong person to have on the team.
This was met, of course, with some eye rolling, some chuckles, and several "But everyone pays on commission!" statements. And maybe it's not the right approach, now or ever. But that's ok. I'm more interested in asking the question than knowing the answer.
So, who else is shaking the tree out there, and what's falling out?

The Fallacy of Lean and Economic Downturns

2008-11-13T06:21:00.001-08:00

I've seen a lot of people who are concerned for their jobs, who have lost their jobs or who know their jobs are going away.

Recently I had a discussion regarding my team's function in the organization, and that we are secure because of the climate. When things go south, that's when you really need your Lean leaders to help right the ship and bring savings home to maintain profitability.

I call shenanigans on that line of thought.

We need our Lean leaders to be the most engaged when times are at their best! We need to be out front, leading the discussions when people are least interested in listening.

No business I have encountered has ever said, "Nah, we don't need that $50,000. Go ahead and throw it in the trash." At least, not ones that stay around long.

While we can use this opportunity to "reset" our perspective and drive Lean thinking, we need to do so just as hard in the good times. When we don't, we end up in times, well, like these.

What would your companies position be today if you increased OI 5% a year over the last 10 years? Or just reduced waste by 25% Think you would be better positioned in the market?

A Lesson on losing from Election Day

2008-11-05T06:15:00.001-08:00

Depending on your outlook, John McCain ran either a very shrewd and "mavericky" campaign, or an underhanded smear campaign (or somewhere in between, I suppose). But there is no doubt that whatever your feelings on the man and the campaign, he spoke with an honesty and candor last night that is rarely matched in politics.

I am reminded of a very recent posting by Seth Godin on losing. (He was referring to a customer, but the sentiment is the same…)

It seems to me that this is the perfect opportunity to be a statesman. This is when you earn the right to be seen as a trusted advisor, not a self-interested shill. Two months or two years from now, when you interact with that person or organization again, we'll remember that you were the one who spoke up on behalf of the competition, the one who helped us find a better fit, the clearly disinterested advisor who helped us choose between the two remaining good choices.

Your ego might not enjoy it, but in the long run, your organization will.

(Visit sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/how-to-lose.html for the rest. It's worth the visit.)

It will be interesting to see how his speech impacts the future of his career and the GOP.

Open letter to a young HR professional

2008-11-03T12:44:00.001-08:00

Get out. Get out now.

Get out of the HR world for a while. Go run a function, manage a line, balance a P&L.

Got your degree in HR? Then you really need to go.

Getting an HR degree? Think about changing your major. Non-HR degrees enter HR all the time. Very few HR degrees go elsewhere. And take some statistics classes while you're at it. They are more important for the future of HR than you might think.

Don't be a career HR drone. Go see the world. Deal with the issues first hand. Understand business, leadership, employee problems, and what happens when people don't play nicely with each other.

Then come back. We'll need you.

Why Don't HR People Get Metrics?

2008-10-27T18:03:00.001-07:00

I’m work with some very talented HR people, very good at what they do and very passionate about their jobs. But the one thing that I have found they all have in common is their lack of understanding or passion about identifying, driving and publishing metrics.

I thought this might have been a limited scale problem in my first HR role. We had recruiters who had no idea their cost per hire or days per hire (and didn’t care anyway). Headcount reports that weren’t trusted (and weren’t accurate, either). Little to no energy put into tracking our performance, with a few exceptions. (I might note the exceptions were the members of the team who were consistently seen as the top performers. Sadly there were not enough of them to move the pile forward, and the resistance was never overcome.)

I spent a good deal of time this month talking about metrics, why they matter, and what makes a good measure of performance. For me, it’s not about the “obvious” things. I don’t care about the number of positions we filled this year, the cost of training materials or number of benefits applications processed in a week. What matters to me are predictive measures, which is where we start to lose people.

So we hired 100 people this month. Fine. Why? Did people leave or are we growing? Let’s say they are replacements. Find out why. Find the measures that will tell us people may leave soon, not that they have left. Low engagement scores are a good one. Percentage of performance reviews completed on time is better, since it gives us good insight into the manager’s effort in engaging their direct reports. How about management turnover? How does that impact overall churn for a group? If it’s a high correlation, we know that we need to spend extra time with a team that just got a new head.

Why track participation rates in benefits? Is that a good predictor of retention? Future costs? What happens if you want to change a benefit? How many people will be impacted?

Too much money spent on a training class? Who is in it, and what impact do they have on the future performance of the company? What’s the historic change in performance for attendees? (Yes, HR sometimes needs to care about job performance outside the department.)

Any other good predictive measures being used out there?

The Two Deadly Words

2008-10-24T15:23:00.001-07:00

The two most dangerous words I've heard in the office....

"We're done!"

It is said in a positive way. The Kaizen event week has ended! We cleared out our unused supplies for the 5S program! We finished our training class on managing employees! We're done!

We all know the truth, right? You're never done. Not if you are worth having around. And if you ever think you are really really done, then you just aren't paying attention.

Protect and Promote your Practice

2008-10-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

I worked this week with a great group of HR people in building and shaping process maps for the future of our HR function. They have the vision to see many places where centralization and technology can streamline services, reduce costs, empower employees and make the organization more responsive to employee needs overall.

The problem is there are not resources readily available to make that vision a reality. Given the current economic climate, who knows when they will be again? A year? Two? More? How many of the current team will be around to see the change?

I've already heard of companies cutting heads, and sometimes the Lean people go early because they are "overhead" or a "cost center" instead of a profit center. I contend this is our own fault for not positioning ourselves right in the organization.

I met a couple of OD consultants for the Navy (civilians, I should note) who treated their internal practice as a consultancy. After securing backing for two years from their champion in advance, they moved from part of the "overhead" to a service that no one pays for indirectly. They spent those two years building their business, quoting jobs for their internal customers and delivering as if their next contract depended on it. (It did, by the way.)

After less than a year, they were being inundated with requests for their time. (I should also note this was not a new group, just a new approach. They had problems getting traction earlier because they were seen as overhead, and it tainted how the front line managers dealt with them.) They became self sufficient in 9 months. They "repaid" their seed money from the "profits" of their practice, after covering their salaries, benefits, training, conference costs, materials, marketing, etc.

What was the difference? Very little, really. But the perception of the customer base had changed. Their approach to work had changed. They set expectations early in the process and beat their targets. They owned their business and treated their co-workers as their customers. Which they are.

So, how's your practice doing these days? Secure? Or is there a chance you will be swept out with the other consultants who haven't made themselves indispensable?

Kaizen CBA Preparation

2008-10-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

I had a request a few months ago to run a Kaizen event to prepare for an upcoming union negotiation. I had never used the tools and structure quite this way in the past, but it was a rousing success, and the team felt the output was a plan that would serve the best interests of the company and the employees as well.

What an interesting and effective way to use Lean tools. I wonder if there are any other "non-traditional" applications of the tools out there that are worth noting....

Who Needs Generalists?

2008-10-13T17:15:00.001-07:00

As I start to pull apart the traditional idea of an HR department, the question I'm struggling with now is: What does a generalist do? Implement programs and policies someone else has written? Oversee the implementation of the work someone else does?

Now, I'm not naïve enough to think there isn't work that needs to be done on the front lines, but does the traditional structure still make sense? My vote is no. Here's why.

First, technology has spread to the point we should be much, much faster in performing routine tasks. We should be able to flatten the HR structure and handle tasks between local HR coordinators and area HR managers.

Second, employees are technically savvy enough to help themselves with most of these tasks. Even the ones we think aren't. We just have to provide a method for them to do so. Think self service, think transparent, think direct line of sight to what is important.

Third, most rules surrounding services are archaic at best. We need simple, flexible programs that don't require a day of training to effectively use.

Fourth, we have line managers who are divorced from HR work because they can be, and are tied up with fat to day operations. Some of that, though, is driven by the lack of well trained, engaged employees. And studies consistently show that an employees relationship with their manager is a strong indicator of engagement and correlated to retention and performance. Imagine if managers had the knowledge, tools and time to be the defacto HR rep for their team. Think that might help?

I can see a day when you are either a specialist (which we will need, thanks to the complexity of compliance requirements, SOX, training needs for emerging workforces, etc.) or an area HR manager that deals with a larger organization. Employee services, at the administrative level, are either handled in a self-service method by the employee or with their manager. The HR team has minimal administrative work, and instead works on training the line managers to be ready to handle employee needs or working on more strategic tasks.

When I talk to young HR professionals and they ask for career advice, I usually start with telling them to spend some time outside of HR if possible. Then, if they want back in, get really well versed in training, talent management or compensation. I think the rest is best outsourced or pushed down to the self-service level.

And the hits keep coming...

2008-10-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

*thump*

That's me, hitting my head on the wall.

I need to set up new service on my Blackberry. So I drive to the mall on a Saturday afternoon to visit the company owned wireless store. Not a franchise, mind you, but an honest-to-goodness dealer. I wait my turn, then let them know what I need, all painstakingly researched online before arriving. Should be a quick transaction and money in their till, right?

"Oh, sorry. I can't sell you that plan."

*thump*

"Yeah, they want you to order that online, so I can't sell it here."

But this is a company owned store, right? They get the money either way?

"Well, yeah. But I still can't help. Sorry."

*thump*

So I head home and try to order online. Any the website would be more than happy to set me up! And send me a free phone from a small but high quality selection!

But I have my BB, so no phone for me. Save their money, save the environment, and all that. Except I can't. No way to order new service without getting a new phone.

*thump*

So I call them. I let them know who I am, what I need, and that I have done the research and really just need their help getting it set up.

No problem! Happy to help! Have you picked out a new phone? Because we can't set up a new account without giving you a phone.

*thump*

There is a happy ending. I did eventually get sent to the activation group (who don't even have phone to give out!) and they got me set up. And I was eligible for up to 10 lines! Yeah, I just need the one, but in case I ever needed 10, they are ready to help!

*thump*

Not really HR, but...

2008-10-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

..still struck me as odd.

I'm ordering a cake for a party, and want to get a photo cake. So I ask the bakery if they do them. They said no problem, just bring us the picture.

My pics are all digital, so I asked if I could use a .jpg file. I was told no, I'd need to bring an actual photo.

What do they do then? Why, they scan the photo to make a digital copy. But they can only do it if I bring the picture in.

And no one, it seems, notices anything wrong with this system.

The think I love about Lean is that it changes your mindset, and gets you to look at the world differently. The problem is you can't turn it off, and end up struggling to order a cake without trying to re-engineer the whole process.