REPRISE: You call it 'culture' - to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

The below post hits another theme that I kind of obsessed on in 2013 - what an often amorphous concept like culture means in the workplace and how it impacts how we manage talent. The piece originally ran in February 2013.

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You call it 'culture', to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Fresh off last week's launch of The 8 Man Rotation, 2012 Season free Ebook on all things Sports and HR, I am stocking the pond for the 2013 edition with another dispatch from the sports world - but one that I promise has more broad relevance and applicability.

In baseball, and perhaps in all of North American major professional sports, the New York Yankeesare the most famous, most successful, and most storied franchise in history. Legendary players, achievements, 27 World Series championships, and the occasional bit of controversy have been the hallmarks of the team throughout its long history.

With this long history comes tradition certainly, and traditionally the Yankees have continued to reinforce elements like their uniforms, which are the same design, more or less, as they have always been, and with no player names on the back, only numbers. The Yankees shun most of the other 'entertainment' elements that have become a fixture of professional sports - they have no costumed mascots or cheerleaders. They try for the most part to project a sense of professionalism in how they play the game, and how their players, (employees really), also project themselves when they are representing the team.

For players this means (among other things), an 'appearance' code - uniform shirts buttoned and worn a certain manner, and curiously enough still in 2013, a ban for players on facial hair.  Yep, you read that correctly. If you want to play for the Yankees that means no mustaches, beards, goatees, Van Dykes or facial hair of any type.

The Yankees ownership obviously feels, and has for a long time, that the facial hair ban helps to ensure and support their company brand and culture - professionalism, attention to detail, and very 'corporate' in nature. To them surely this 'rule' really is not so much a rule or a policy, but an outward manifestation and expression of that culture.  And it is entirely up to them as an employer to feel that way.

But one man's (or company's) culture is another man's policy - and in some cases this culture/policy has the effect of deterring otherwise 'top' talent from the organization. The latest example of this in action for the Yankees - check these quotes from the Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher David Price. Price is one of the best pitchers in the league, and when he becomes a free agent in a couple of years, would be precisely the kind of talent the Yankees would pursue. 

Here's what Price has to say about the Yankees and facial hair:

"If I ever did hit that free-agent market, there would be teams I wouldn't sign with simply because of the stuff that I've heard -- every rule they have."

Taking note of his beard, I told Price he'd have to shave if the Yankees traded for him.

"I wouldn't stay there very long then,” he responded. “I wouldn't sign a long-term deal there. Those rules, that's old-school baseball. I was born in '85. That's not for me. That's not something I want to be a part of."

Sure, you can get a little cynical here and tell me - 'If the Yankees offered him $10M more than any other team, he's shut up and sign the contract and shave the beard.'  That could very well be true, but that isn't really the important point to me. 

One man's 'culture' is another man's policy. Sure in this case maybe the culture/policy is having its desired effect - preventing what would possibly be a bad hire. Price, if he went to the Yankees would bristle over the facial hair ban, and probably lots of other culture/policy issues as well.

Not judging anyone here - the Yankees have been really successful for a long time doing it their way, and Price has an absolute right to his opinion and his desire to be treated as a professional.

Not judging, but just reminding that living up to and reinforcing your culture means sometimes turning away some fantastic talent that doesn't see your culture the same way you do. 

REPRISE: Jagger, Warhol, and another guy you've never heard of

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

The below post is about my favorite themes in 2013 - talent, and the threat of automation and robotics to workers and originally ran in January 2013.

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Jagger, Warhol, and another guy you've never heard of 

Check the letter below, a fairly famous one at that, written in 1969 from the Rolling Stones Mick Jagger to the artist Andy Warhol regarding Warhol's impending collaboration with the band on the cover art for their soon to be released album:

In three short paragraphs, and with 100 words give or take, Mick schools us all on the difference between the Talent - himself, the band, and of course Warhol; and the 'support' types like the unfortunate Mr. Al Steckler, who will look 'nervous' and can essentially be ignored.

I post a lot on this blog, perhaps too much, about the challenge and threat that increased automation and robot technology pose to the workforce and workplaces of the future. But I don't think that the changes and potential disruption that more powerful automation technologies, smarter artificial intelligences, and the increasing acceptance of robots in all kinds of workplace environments can be ignored. The primary challenge for many of us, and certainly for the next generation of workers, will be to find ways to ensure we can continue to create value - unique, hard to copy, and certainly hard to automate value.

This is not really a new requirement, although the pace of technological advances are making it more pressing. Back in 1969, Mick Jagger already it pegged. People like himself and Andy Warhol, well they were the creators. They were the important parts in the machine. And they'd enjoy the spoils - did you catch the line in the letter were Mick basically tells Warhol to name his price for creating the album cover art?

In 1969, for a non-creative, non-essential type like Steckler the worst think likely to happen was he'd be ignored and maybe marginalized a little. In 2013, the risks of being someone branded as a non-creative, worrying, nervous, functionary I think are far worse.  We can get a robot to handle those jobs soon enough. 

And the robots won't get nervous or bother the talent.

Have a great week all!

PODCAST: HR Happy Hour 174 - Oracle HCM World Preview - Modern HR

HR Happy Hour 174 - Oracle HCM World Preview: Modern HR

Recorded Thursday December 19, 2013

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane sat down with Gretchen Alarcon, Vice President of Oracle HCM Strategy for Oracle, for an interesting and fun conversation about some of the most important challenges facing the modern HR leader and the organization as we head into 2014, as well as how advances in HCM technologies are helping organizations to meet those challenges, and to offer some ideas about what some of the most intriguing HR and workplace technologies will have in store for us in the future.

Additionally, Gretchen gave us a preview of the upcoming and inaugural Oracle HCM World event to be held February 4-6, 2014 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. At Oracle HCM World, there will be over 100 sessions featuring HR leaders, industry experts, and recognized thought leaders sharing their insights and experiences - all designed to help attendees improve emplopyee enagement, to provide new strategies for talent attraction, development, and retention, and to support professional networking and knowledge sharing.

You can listent to the show on the show page here, or using the widget player below. Addtionally for you smartphone addicts, you can get the show on Apple's iTunes or for Android devices, using an app called Stitcher Radio. In both cases just search for "HR Happy Hour" to download the show and to subscribe to the podcast.

More Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

 

It was a fun and enlightening conversation with Gretchen, and many thanks to her and the Oracle HCM team for joining us this week.

Note: This is the final show of 2013 - thanks as always for listening and Happy Holidays and we will see you in 2014! 

Uber, surge pricing, and data at work (at work)

The on-demand black car service Uber took quite a bit of flack over the weekend for implementing what is known as 'surge pricing' during a pretty nasty snowstorm in New York City. If you are not familiar with Uber, (and you should be because it really is an amazing service), the basics are pretty simple. Users use a smartphone app to summon a black car or equivalent that picks them up and then are taken to their desired destination. The entire payment transaction (including leaving the driver a star rating) is executed via the app, for prices (at least in my experience) ranging 15-20% more expensive than 'regular' taxi service.

But during times of extremely high demand for rides and low supply of on the road drivers (like on a Saturday night in a bad storm), Uber implements 'surge pricing', essentially increasing the cost of rides anywhere from 2 to even 6 or 7 times the normal fares in order to balance demand with supply. The ECON 101 logic is pretty simple - the increased prices (which users are warned about in advance of booking a ride) will serve to simultaneously reduce demand while increasing supply, as more drivers will be enticed to get out on the road in order to earn increased fees during the surge pricing period.

In addition to using basic pricing flexibility to manage and try and balance supply and demand, Uber also is attempting to mitigate the one really frustrating piece of the typical customer's experience, (I can attest to this one), which is the simple lack of availability of a car when you need/want one.

But the backlash from last weekend's surge pricing in NYC seemed pretty harsh as people took to Twitter to vent about their frustration with Uber for radically increasing their prices during a time of "crisis" in the city - it seems like there were scads of celebrities that were particularly peeved about having to pay what they felt like were exorbitant prices for transportation around town.

Putting aside the natural lack of sympathy I have for anyone complaining that their on-demand, door-to-door, black car service costs too much (on a Saturday night in the busiest city in America and during a snowstorm), I wanted to highlight this story as one of the very few that we see that showcases how data, technology, and the combination of the two are actually conspiring to benefit the front-line worker - in this case the Uber affiliated black car drivers.

Normal taxi drivers or even limo drivers might see a little extra in their pay rates for working a Saturday night, but certainly could not take advantage of the dramatic increase in demand for their services as the Uber drivers who braved the storm were able to realize.

Through a combination of new technology, absence of the pricing regulations imposed on traditional taxi services, more flexible labor rules, and most importantly, the presence of information of the increased demand, these Uber drivers were able to make better and hopefully, more informed, data-driven decisions about whether, where, and when to provide their services.

Most front-line workers never really get the exercise the kind of labor pricing power that we see in this example. Last Saturday night lots and lots of pretty well-off people wanted black car service on one of the worst weather nights of the year. The kind of night that most folks would rather stay home and stay warm, much less venture out into the cold and wet and storm to work for their normal pay.

Thanks to data and technology at least in this example, the Uber drivers who did venture out into the weather did a little better than most front-line workers.

It looks like they were paid what they deserved. Which is not always easy to say, both for black car drivers and for the celebrities they ferried up and down Manhattan last Saturday night.

CHART OF THE DAY: On the Labor Force Participation Rate

Lately whenever we get a new jobs report that shows the official unemployment rate continuing on its slow but steady decline (currently at 7%), we also have to consider the Labor Force Participation Rate, that is, the percentage of the working-age population that is either employed or is actively looking for work, and thus considered to be officially unemployed.

As seen in the below chart, the Labor Force Participation Rate has declined to levels not seen in about 35 years or so, to about 63%. 

Or said differently, the percent of people that are classified as actually being in the labor force, (either working or actively seeking work), has sunk to a level not seen since the late 1970s.

Every time these figures are reported and repeated, there seems to be quite a bit of speculation around the causes of this decline. Just why are there relatively fewer participants in the labor force?

Is it simply a matter of demographics as retirements of the first wave of baby boomers (now in their mid-to-late 60s) start to accelerate?

Or are younger workers simply dropping out of the labor force due to the frustration of not being able to find work, either due to a simple lack of openings or having repeatedly failed to secure work in what is still an extremely competitive job market?

The underlying reasons for this drop in participation do matter I think, as they can be used to more effectively create policies and programs to address them, (if that is needed), as well as for HR and talent pros that might need to understand these trends and include them as an input into their workforce planning process.

Shigeru Fujita from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia recently published a research paper on the topic, titled On the Causes of Declines in the Labor Force Participation Rate, that attempts to break down the causes of these declines, and for anyone interested in the topic is well worth a read.

In a nutshell, the paper concludes that about 65% of the decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate since year 2000, (roughly when the decline began), and 2013 are due to retirements and disabilities, both suggestive of the 'demographics' side of the declining labor force equation. Note that the 'retirement' portion of the decline only commences in about 2010, when the oldest boomers would be about 65 years old.

Additionally, the paper also concludes that while there was a significant jump between 2007 and 2011 of 'discouraged' workers leaving the labor force, i.e. people that wanted to work, but simple gave up trying to find work, that all the declines seen in participation since 2012 are due to increased retirements and not increases in discouraged workers. These conclusions suggest that the lower labor force participation rate is really the new normal, at least for the short term.

I know I am probably boring you to tears at this point, but I find this data, and the reasons driving the changes, really interesting. If you're organization is having a hard time finding the people you need for your opportunities, or has plans to grow or expand in any substantial way in the near future, then these macro labor force trends are worth considering.

Once folks leave the labor force, it is really hard to get them to come back, whether they have retired, or have simply given up.

Have a great week!