If the cog doesn’t fit, you must acquit
CogMap, a wiki styled project to collect org chart info, seems like a must have for any passive sourcer or curious bystander. The most interesting thing to me are how telling an org chart can be about culture.
Looking at Microsoft’s chart, you can see why Balmerman always seems strung out. He’s got eight high level direct reports (if the chart is correct). Eric Schmidt of Google has 9 direct reports. Cingular is a pretty flat organization. GM is looking that way too.
And I know that flat is all the rage now but there has to be some stressed out C-levels out there that have 11-12 direct reports (internationalized of course). That can’t be good regardless of whatever increased productivity erasing a couple layers of management does.
Increasing Benefits Cost is Just a Band-Aid
Last week, I wrote about employers passing on benefits cost to at-risk employees (specifically smokers but could be broadened). I received a lot of great comments from both this blog and recruitingbloggers.com. Examples include:
Ann says: Lung cancer for a smoker ok — will be blame the lung cancer from second hand smoke for an employee who used to work in a bar, or who is married to a smoker? The path gets quite slippery.
Lori says: I do not smoke, but my husband does. How would that work in regards to my employer knowing about my husband and charging me more? I certainly will not volunteer the information if not asked outright.
Jacqueline says: The way we determine auto insurance is based on risk, so why not apply that to health insurance? People who choose to drive fast sports cars are charged more than other drivers.
Maureen says: Health care’s rising costs are the #1 danger to our country’s solvency. It is endangering jobs and the welfare of our country’s citizens.
Colin says: Well, the problem here has long been that employers should not be in the health insurance business. The fact that we’re even having this discussion (put that cruller down, Mr. Smith) is entirely the result of a policy that dates back to Franklin Roosevelt.
Why I don’t necessarily disagree with employers trying to cut costs using these methods, the slippery slope has to be acknowledge and the temporary nature of any sort of change along these lines has to be considered. This does very little to control the long term costs of medical care as I don’t see an outright ban of smokers at all workplaces and while that population continues to decrease, the cost to treat continues to increase.
We are one of the few western societies in which health insurance is connected to employment and that has obviously created the problem we have today. Many take care of this through single-payer (government inspired) insurance. There is already enough debate about whether or not that is viable for this country but if companies want to reduce medical costs, I don’t see it happening under the current model no matter what attempts at social engineering companies may try.
Non-Compete Agreements are Bogus
If there is one document in the hiring process I hate to hear about, it is the non-compete agreement. If there is any single document that can kill a new person’s first day excitement, it is the non-compete agreement. If there is any single document that can rock the foundation of a loyal employee’s trust in a company…well.
Now, I am not questioning the legality of non-compete agreements (there has been quite a bit of legislation and court rulings that muzzle those agreements in many states) but under many circumstances, they simply aren’t necessary or are overly restrictive.
Now the idea behind a non-compete is pretty harmless: making sure your competitors don’t take trade secrets through taking top executives and other principle people of an organization. What it has become is a tool of intimidation with overly broad definitions of competitors (or none at all), blanket use throughout all levels of an organization and long timeframes.
When are non-compete agreements ok? Under the following conditions: Read more
Your HR Guy hates Attendance Issues
A person asked me over email about attendance issues and all sorts of mean, nasty things came to my mind when it was mentioned.
Oh how I loathe ye great attendance policy. My post on ROWE is the only time I’ve mentioned my despise for workplace attendance policies. There are a lot of different folds of attendance policies that I would like to address:
- They are archaic. I would say that any attendance policy that isn’t flexible enough to keep your best people at work is archaic. I would think that besides ROWE workplaces or those who are super flexible, your attendance policy is crap. If your attendance policy punishes supervisors for being flexible with work times, it is crap. I heard of one workplace where a person worked 4-10’s as pre-arranged with the supervisor and counted the fifth day as an excused absence in their attendance policy (which had a limit). That’s insanity
- Attendance policies were meant to be abused. You have hard limits on the number of absences and tardies that employees get and those crappy employees get right there on the edge of that limit all of the time. The abusers know the limits of the attendance policy.
- Attendance discharges are so easy. HR loves the attendance discharge. As long as they’ve executed each attendance discharge by the book, it is a great, nearly risk free discharge. Of course, these don’t always happen to bad employees. And “Sorry my hands are tied” is a really awful response to a manager who didn’t understand why a pre-arranged absence is now leading to termination.
- Which doesn’t mean we don’t need a policy. No, no, no. Unless you are ROWE, you definitely need guidelines in place. My ideal would be an attendance system that is much like a performance policy. Less hard limits, more understanding how attendance really makes their work suffer. Abusers are still gone under the system.
- I am the executor of bad policy. Every HR person inherits bad policy and they should petition to change bad policy as soon as possible. That being said bad policy isn’t a reason not to enforce bad policy (now illegal policies, that’s another issue altogether). You do yourself and the business you work for disfavor if you don’t fairly apply the rules of the workplace.
So there is my crusade against attendance policies. And yes, this doesn’t work for every situation I realize. But even different situations can use better attendance policies.
101 Dumb Moments in Business in 2006
It is pretty bad when you can get a collection of 101 dumb things in one year but it has somehow happened.
Going through this list, I can’t find a lot to disagree with. Wal-Mart has been a mess, some stunts at these corporations have been a PR nightmare and this is in an up year as far as corporations are concerned.
Some of the worst ones from my perspective were:
2. Northwest Airlines and their tips for laid off workers
17. Team building exercises that involve spanking
24. Swanson’s copy job (and subsequent punishment)
27. Radio Shack employees fired over email
28. Trying to take back an iPod you gave employees to boost morale after they are laid off
41. Home Depot CEO sucking the life out of shareholder value after departing
65. CIA advertising for jobs during The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Some entertaining stuff.
Results-Only Work Environment
Tiffany at “Pote Magico de Trabajos” posted about ROWE again and I thought I’d throw myself in that mix.
First of all, work places should already be results only. This is, of course, laughable. Between mandatory Monday - Friday meetings and archaic attendance policies, your best performer might be on a written warning even though (with absences), they meet your expectations otherwise as an employee.
Second of all, I loathe meetings. I hate them with a passion. If I am in a meeting, it should be with a future employee, a current employee with an issue or hiring managers. I like being part of strategic planning but I hate the meetings associated with them. I just want to submit my work and answer any questions. If we can’t figure things out in normal meetings in a half an hour, the meeting leader was poorly prepared or we were poorly prepared.
I am also a meeting jumper. As soon as it digresses, I am out of the door. No permission asked.
So to say that ROWE appeals to me is an understatement. But that is only personally. I know I could handle it and it would be likely that I would be working nearly the same hours.
Professionally? It would pretty much be a nightmare year of transition. If I managed to survive, we would probably be okay after that first year.
Training management to judge people only on results. To set goals, hard goals, achievable goals. Again, management. To go to meetings optional. *insert scary music* The execs would want to hit the eject button a week into it.
I am sure the consulting helps but trying to beat that day to day habit of meetings, checking in, impromptu meeting, checking in, etc… That’s ingrained. From the first day of work on. And breaking that habit is something that I don’t know if I would be ready for.
So how about you? Could you take that on? Could you work in an environment where you were judged solely on the results you produce? Would it be a discipline challenge for you?
Would you hire a quitter as your CEO?
I hope there is more to this story than what has been publicized. The current Bank of America CFO is quitting due to regulatory burdens. Bank of America doesn’t have any additional regulatory burdens compared to its major competitors. He also seemed to complain that the CFO doesn’t get the glory like the CEO and said after he ends his term with BoA, he would consider a CEO position but not a CFO position. And while de Molina won’t be seeking another CFO position, there is nothing like publicly proclaiming that you can’t handle the same stresses as your peers.
Now ultimately some apologists will blame the government for this regulatory mess they’ve setup in the wake of Enron and WorldCom scandals. Hell, I’ll even buy some of that. The problem of course is that everyone has to deal with the government the same, especially when you’re talking about SOX at a publicly traded company.
The ultimate question to me is why would anyone hire him to be a CEO? I am sure he is a nice guy and his CFO position was probably a big ole’ pain in the ass but when the going got tough, this guy quit. The thing is, I am sure he will be hired by someone and who knows, he might be good. I just don’t see it though.
Bringing them in so you can kick them out
As part of the problem that I see in separating HR from recruiting, one of the major ones that I really didn’t touch on as much as I would have liked is the management of the employee lifecycle at the company. Setting proper expectations on the front end of an interview and sending that consistent message throughout leads to a much smoother start for a new employee if they are hired. Similarly, taking the proper steps to educate, train, develop and retain an employee makes sure that unnecessary turnover is avoided. That means more time can be spent on developing relationships and making the extra effort to fill a tough req rather than spend time on keeping the revolving door swinging.
So while it might seem like I was picking on recruiters in my last article, my frustration grows with an HR department that can’t keep people sitting at their desks. And while my frustration is high with an HR department that can’t keep seats filled, my frustration can be accelerated with management that wants to doom an HR department with their policies, pay structure and lifecycle management. And that’s where the buck stops.
Everybody who is anybody in management has said that people make the difference in your company. Your HR department head should be reporting to your CEO, not to an Operations or Finance (yuck) head. It is so critically important that it should be laid at the feet of the headcheese that if they don’t understand the value of their HR department, their company is going nowhere. Their HR department knows if your business has become a revolving door. And if they are worth anything, they will know (at least partially) why that is the case. And if you have done good and invested wisely in them, they will often tell you what can remedy the situation.
But if you are an executive and you continue down the path of no return, you won’t be coming to me and ask why can’t fill reqs. You will know why I can’t fill reqs. And it will be laid at your feet.
Stupid HR Words
Human resources has a tendancy to make up new words or combine two or three words to make a word. One of my favorites that I use tongue in cheek is “on-boarding” (the process of getting a person started at the new company and getting them familiar enough to start training).
One of the words I recently heard was “over-titling” and I read about it on CNN…
“Over-titling” was a common practice in the tough financial climate of the past few years when, Coleman says, “many people were offered trumped-up job titles in lieu of salary increases. As a result, their actual experience level and value to the company may not be on a par with the salary they expect based on their title.”
Which relays some of my most basic thoughts in HR. One that I’ll share with you right here:
Your job title doesn’t matter
It is a life philosophy. It isn’t what your title is, it is what you do and what you accomplish that matters. That’s not even to address the level of “under-titling” where a person has one title but takes on multiple roles within a company. You can’t price that out using some simplistic online salary tool.
Worst ways to get fired
Here are some of the worst ways to be fired.
There are some interesting points to be made here but here is the meat of the criticism:
Strategy 1: It can be extremely taxing to ruin people’s day face to face, so create a little breathing room.
Besides e-mail, companies have been known to fire people by FedEx, registered letter, text message, voice mail and conference call.
Strategy 2: Consider the cattle call. It can build team spirit.
One company herded employees into an auditorium and gave them one of two color-coded information packets. Those with the same color packets sat together. The two groups were then escorted out of the auditorium through different exits. One led back to the office, which meant that group of employees could stay. The other led to the street, which meant the workers should file for unemployment.
Strategy 3: There is no such thing as “too low.” So don’t be afraid to test bottom. One option is to let employees figure things out for themselves.
One company deliberately left a new organizational chart on the photocopy machines. Some employees were left off entirely, and others were moved to new positions.
Strategy 4: Remember, no one is ever too old to play musical chairs.
Some companies in the middle of a merger have asked all employees to resign and reapply for jobs. The goal: to disengage from the old and reinvent the organizational structure - with fewer employees.
Strategy 5: It can be a nice touch when you offer the newly fired a ride home.
It actually can be, unless you’ve organized the corporate equivalent of a funeral procession. One company had cabs lined up around the block before alerting employees on the layoff list of their new jobless status.
Strategy 6: You know what they say: it’s always the quiet ones.So make sure the meek don’t go ballistic.
During a layoff, it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to want to protect its computer files, other property and the remaining employees. But bringing in armed guards, as some companies have done, can be completely dehumanizing. An inconspicuously placed plainclothes security person is far preferable, said Lee Miller, a negotiations expert who used to run HR divisions at three companies.
Obviously most of these companies were misdirected in their ideas of how to do a layoff correctly. There are three easy steps to do a layoff correctly:
- Don’t put it off. Whenever layoffs are on the table as the option you are going to be taking, just do it. Don’t wait for business to possibly improve. Layoffs are bad but you can prevent more by making your business much more competitive by doing layoffs earlier and reducing future layoffs.
- Take responsibility. Have executive management there to take responsibility in person for the end result. Apologize and offer a fair package to help move on.
- Be sensitive. Allow employees to gather belongings and say goodbye to those who are staying. Regroup with the remaining employees and talk to them about the layoffs and concerns they have. It is critical that you don’t shut off the remaining employees from the layoff process. Your future productivity and turnover is dependent on it.
And while layoffs are one of the most heart-wrenching parts of the business, good things can come from them for both the employer and employee.
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About
Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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