Blogging From Openworld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.