PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 352 - Improving Diversity Recruiting in Technology

HR Happy Hour 352 - Improving Diversity Recruiting in Technology

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Kylie Gomez, Atlassian

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by Kylie Gomez, Senior Product Recruiter at Atlassian, a leading technology company to talk about how they approach the challenges of recruiting a more diverse set of candidates.

Atlassian has about 3,000 employees worldwide, and has plans to grow to 5,000 in the next few years. A big challenge for Atlassian, and for any company in growth mode, is to improve the diversity of their candidate pools, as well as the people they eventually bring into the organization. On the show, Kylie shared some specific approaches that have been working for Atlassian - thinking about the problem in a holistic way, using modern technology tools that support more diverse and unbiased candidate searches and assessment, and making sure that the company culture and mission are at the forefront in the entire recruiting process.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This is a really interesting and enlightening conversation with a recruiting leader at one of tech's most successful and innovative companies, and one from which any HR and recruiting leader can take away some important insights around improving diversity and reducing bias in the recruiting process.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour.'

CHART OF THE DAY: How should we evaluate companies?

Happy New Year!

To start 2019, I wanted to share a chart from and the link to the fascinating report titled 'From Insight to Action: JUST Capital's 2018 Survey Results & Roadmap for Corporate America'.

For those not familiar, Just Capital, is a nonprofit founded in 2013 by a group that includes billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, and who has conducted an annual survey since then to determine which corporate-behavior-issues the American public cares about the most. Just Capital then ranks 1,000 large companies based on their performance on those issues which the survey has shown the public is most concerned with. The rankings are also the basis for the Just U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF, which launched in June 2018.

Of interest to HR folks, in these surveys, worker pay and benefits consistently rank at the top of respondents' priorities. Here's the chart, which shows which general category or issues, (workers, customers, environment, etc.), that survey respondents indicated where more or less important to them when assessing a company (and compared to the 2017 survey). Here's the chart, then some comments from me after the data.

 

Some quick observations from this data, which shows that the broad range of 'employee' issues are what the American public cares about the most when evaluating companies.

1. Concern for workers issues is trending up. In both the chart above, and in some underlying data from the report, Americans are increasingly concerned about worker's conditions, pay and benefits, and work/life balance issues. Perhaps this is the outcome of a 10-year run of an improving and tightening labor market that is leading individuals to be more open and assertive of what they look for in an employer and what they see as just treatment of workers by a company.

2. Shareholders may not be 'first' forever. Despite 'shareholders' seeming to be the ones to benefit the most in the last decade, the public cares about how companies treat shareholder and leadership issues the least. While millions of American workers are also shareholders of companies through retirement and other investments, most average employees see themselves in a different category than the large, institutional investor class. By this logic, if employee issues and concerns are going to be more important, shareholder concerns are seen as less important.

3. Creating a 'just' company for employees is not that complicated. The Top 3 underlying components that influence how the workplace treats employees are providing good benefits, paying a living wage, and providing a safe workplace. There were the elements ranked as most important to survey respondents, and quite honestly, seem to represent the lowest common denominator for employers to strive for. Said differently, it probably is not as hard as the experts make it out to be, to create a workplace that is just and fair for employees.

This is really interesting data, I encourage you to check out both the report and the Top 100 rankings according to Just Capital's survey of American workers. While there are quite a few companies on the list we frequently see on other 'Great' workplace type lists, there are also many other names you might not be as familiar with.

Have a great day and a happy, and successful 2019!

REMINDER: The HR Happy Hour Show on Alexa #HRHappyHour

I have written quite a bit about Amazon, the Alexa platform, and how excited and optimistic I am about voice interfaces for all kinds of workplace applications. I have been so interested in how Alexa, and voice more generally are going to impact and influence workplace tech, that a few months ago I thought it would be fun and instructive to try and learn how organizations and developers can leverage voice in their applications.

In order to try and have some purpose and structure to this investigation, I set out to achieve a goal - to create and syndicate a short, "Alexa" version of the HR Happy Hour Podcast that would be available to Alexa/Echo users as a part of their device's "Flash Briefing" or the daily news update that many Alexa users listen to once or even multiple times a day.

Long story short - today I am happy to share that the HR Happy Hour Show is on Alexa - as an Alexa skill that users can add to their Flash Briefing. 

In the Alexa app on your smartphone, simply search the library of skills for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the Alexa version of the HR Happy Hour Podcast to your daily Flash Briefing. On the HR Happy Hour on Alexa, myself and Trish McFarlane will share news, commentary, opinions, and excerpts from the full HR Happy Hour Podcasts. As always, these will discuss topics and issues about work, workplace technology, management, leadership, and more - basically shorter, tighter versions of what has made the HR Happy Hour Podcast so successful since its debut in 2009.

So for folks like me who are absolutely addicted to their Echo device, and talk with Alexa more than almost anyone else, please consider adding the HR Happy Hour on Alexa to your daily Flash Briefing.

As always, we would love your comments, feedback, and suggestions for topics and potential guests for this new version of the HR Happy Hour.

Thanks as always for your support!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 351 - Creating a Culture of Ownership at Anheuser-Busch

HR Happy Hour 351 - Creating a Culture of Ownership at Anheuser-Busch

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Ago De Gasperis, VP, People, North America, Anheuser-Busch

Sponsored by Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish were joined by guest Ago De Gasperis, VP, People North America for Anheuser-Busch who shared how the legendary brewer continues to innovate and develop its culture of "ownership" - where employees are supported and empowered to feel like true owners of the company, and not just dispensable resources whose opinions and ideas don't matter. Ago shared how Anheuser-Busch tries to bring this idea of ownership to life by instilling the idea in leaders and employees and how ownership is embedded in everytihng they do. From creating and shaping a Diversity and Inclusion agenda, to supporting a wide range of employee resource groups, to fostering a culture of innovation - the idea of employee led programs and employee ownership informs just about everything they do. 

Additionally, Ago shared some of the details and thinking that goes into A-B's efforts to recruit, develop, and support the next generation of company leaders and how in particular the People function looks to recruit from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This was a really fun show, thanks to Ago for joining us and a big 'Cheers!' to the team at Anheuser-Busch.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour'.

Three Observations from the LinkedIn 2018 Emerging Jobs Report

Recently, our pals at LinkedIn released their 2018 Emerging Jobs Report, a look at the jobs and skills that have been most in demand from employers on the LinkedIn platform, both in 2018 and over the last few years. it is a really excellent look at activity on the LinkedIn platform, which I am pretty confident in stating is the world's largest professional networking site, and which remains for many organizations one of the most important sourcing and recruiting tools.

I have been a little skeptical or perhaps cynical over the years at these kinds of reports, mainly because they always seemed to skew way towards the jobs and skills that Silicon Valley Tech companies were seeking, and was not terribly illustrative or indicative of the overall US labor market. Said differently, the kinds of jobs that LinkedIn usually reports are 'hot' are the kinds of jobs very few people actually have. Office and administrative support or retail salesperson (two of the most common job categories in the US), never make these lists. And while there remains a little of that kind of 'not the real world' feel to the Emerging Jobs Report, (you will see in a moment what I mean), there are also some pretty interesting and important insights in the report I wanted to highlight. So here goes..

1. As I alluded to above, the top 'emerging job' is one almost no one has

Number one on the LinkedIn list for emerging jobs in 2018 is called 'Blockchain Developer' with 33x growth in activity and interested in 2018. If you are a blockchain developer or are an HR or talent person who is recruiting blockchain developers, well, I probably have nothing else to offer you on this post. Suffice it to say, for 99% of us the next blockchain developer we run into will be the first. But let's keep looking through the report.

2. Number three on the emerging jobs list is actually a job lots of people have, most of us have someone in our lives who has this job, and lots of the HR and talent pros reading this are probably recruiting for - Application Sales Executive

According to LinkedIn, there has been a 8x increase in activity for these roles. This is pretty amazing to me, as there have been Application Sales Executives in just about every tech company for ages. For a mature kind of job type to see that much growth year over year is remarkable and also, hopefully a signal that the pace of innovation, development, and new technology hitting the market will continue in 2019. Sales is no doubt not for everyone, but this data suggests plenty of opportunity for those willing to put in the time and effort.

3. The number one skill that LinkedIn claims employers are having trouble finding has nothing to do with Blockchain, or AI, or software development of any kind.

LinkedIn says that 'Oral Communication' is the skill group with the highest shortage in nearly every major city in the country. Think skills like public speaking, effective communication, presentation skills and the like Maybe it's because we (the societal we) have spent a decade or more trying to convince every kid that he/she needs to learn how to code, that many of us, (especially anyone under 30), has essentially replaced phone calls with text messages, or that the classical liberal arts kind of education and background has over time been diminished in value. Whatever the reason, employers are having trouble finding candidates with quality skills in oral communication. That to me is more interesting than however many more people go chasing blockchain development skills in 2019.

Go check the entire report over on the LinkedIn blog. It is a fascinating look at one (admittedly big) slice of the job market.

Have a great week!