Let's Shake the Tree

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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?