WEBINAR: You Rejected Me, But I Still Love You

The fine, fine people over at Fistful of Talent are back with the next installment in the popular webinar series that we like to jokingly refer to over at Fistful HQ in Cheyenne as the FOT Webinar!

Here are the details you need to know:

Title: Before the Rose Ceremony: How to Become an Employer of Choice Through Your Interview Process

Date and Time: Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 1:00PM ET

How to register? - Easy, just click here

Price: Free! (now that's a deal)

Need more convincing before you commit exactly $0 and 1 hour of your time to your pals at Fistful?

Ok, here goes:

Ever wonder why some of those women on The Bachelor don’t smash a window on their way out the door when they get voted off?  Let’s explore that in recruiting terms.

Join Fistful of Talent for our October webinar, (sponsored by the good folks at HireVue) – “Before the Rose Ceremony: How to Become an Employer of Choice Through Your Interview Process”, where we’ll explore the following and compare it to the meat show on the Bachelor/Bachelorette:

What pre-interview, pre-phone screen features subconsciously tell a candidate that you’re different from your competitors and help you plant the initial “why you want to work here” seed.

The 3 things that need to be present in your initial outreach to a candidate to prevent their BS meter from exploding (aka momentum killers).

The 5 Key Features of the live interview process at your company that sell your culture as a Great Place to Work – regardless if you hire the candidate or not.

FOT’s Top 7 Interview Questions for uncovering great info and selling the candidate on your company as an employer of choice – they won’t even realize you’re doing it (and you’ll get great info as a result).

SEND IN YOUR LESS ATTRACTIVE FRIENDS TO GIVE APPROVAL! (That’s FOT in this case.)  We’ll end with a simple audit process that you can use to determine if your interview process is contributing as much as it should toward your company being viewed as a destination of choice for candidates.

Join FOT for “You Rejected Me But I Still Love You” and install a couple of the interview process features we discuss, and candidates will start to view you less as the Motel 6 and more like the Ritz.  

So that's the pitch - what do you think, do I get a rose at the end of the ceremony, or am I riding back to the bachelor house in the limo of shame?

All kidding aside, the FOT Webinars are the best in the industry for a reason - they mix actionable information, smart people, and just the right mix of fun and entertainment that make your investment, (remember it's FREE), pay off.

And as a bonus, we get to make fun of Sackett on the backchannel!

So one last time here is the 411:

Here are the details you need to know:

Title: Before the Rose Ceremony: How to Become an Employer of Choice Through Your Interview Process

Date and Time: Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 1:00PM ET

How to register? - Easy, just click here

Bad Habits, Pressure, and Results

We might argue about the best way to get there, but certainly at this point you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the Human Resources, Benefits, or Talent Management space that has not firmly bought in to the importance of employee wellness.

The arguments in support of the organization actively promoting more healthy behaviors in and out of the workplace are familiar and numerous - increased productivity, reduced health care costs, less absenteeism, and more. And forget about the data - it just makes sense intuitively that when people make consistently better choices about diet, exercises, taking routine physical exams, and simply being more conscious about their health; then they will be happier, feel better, and will do better at work and in the community.

Sure, there are (valid) differences in opinion about the most effective employer wellness strategies and the proper role of the organization in what are often employee's personal matters and decisions, but overall, it seems to be little argument about the ultimate goals - a healthier, higher-performing workforce. And while the strategies, programs, and solutions might differ, there are still some basics in the employee wellness discussion that most all employers do agree on, particularly when it comes down to some basic human behavioral choices and habits that from decades of study have been shown to be incredibly harmful and detrimental to health; with tobacco use being the obvious example.

Whether it's cigarettes, chew, dip, maybe even cigars - we know we don't want our employees partaking, either at work or in their personal lives, the risks are too high, the costs are too great - essentially nothing good results from employee tobacco use.

Unless of course the ramifications of quitting tobacco use are too high.

What? How can that even make sense?

Check this piece from ESPN.com, about the Texas Rangers baseball star Josh Hamilton, his decision to quit chewing tobacco during the season, and the subsequent reactions from team management. From the ESPN piece:

Rangers' CEO Nolan Ryan said the timing of Josh Hamilton's decision to quit smokeless tobacco this summer "couldn't have been worse."

"You would've liked to have thought that if he was going to do that, that he would've done it in the offseason or waited until this offseason to do it," Ryan said during an appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's "Galloway and Company" this week. "So the drastic effect that it had on him and the year that he was having up to that point in time when he did quit, you'd have liked that he would've taken a different approach to that."

Hamilton, who began his quest to quit dipping in late June, admitted in August that he was dealing with a "discipline" issue and said it was discipline at the plate and discipline in "being obedient to the Lord in quitting chewing tobacco."

His struggle with tobacco coincided with the one at the plate. After earning AL player of the month honors in April and May, Hamilton hit .223 in June and .177 in July and had eight homers and 27 RBIs combined in those two months. He had belted 21 homers and driven in 57 RBIs in the first two months of the season combined.

Got all that? For the non-baseball fans out there, let me break it down.

Hamilton is an incredibly high-performer, one of the very best in the entire industry, 'top talent' so to speak. But he has some bad habits, chewing tobacco, (common among baseball players), among them. He elects to quit chewing tobacco, a decision everyone should applaud, and almost immediately his performance begins to slide. Quitting tobacco use is really hard for many, and it seems for Hamilton the side effects and strain it put on him personally negatively impacted his job performance. Then after the season concludes, and the Rangers fail to advance in the playoffs, the team CEO, Ryan, publicly questions perhaps not Hamilton's choice to quit chewing tobacco, but certainly the timing of the choice.

Essentially the CEO is saying - 'Quit your bad, unhealthy habits on your own time, we need to win ballgames here.'

Maybe this is another one of those classic 'sports are not the real world' kinds of stories, and it is not a big deal, nor applicable to 'normal' workplaces and jobs and I should not bother posting about it. But I suspect there might be more relevance than we might see at first look.

Baseball is not the only business with lots of pressure, deadlines, and intense periods of focus followed by some relative downtime. Instead of a chase for a World Series, maybe in your organization it is a crazed rush to meet a customer deadline, to ship a product by a promised date, to get Ms. Big Shot executive ready for he speech to your industry's largest trade show. 

Whatever the case, success usually requires everyone on the team to be at the top of their game. 

When Hamilton made the correct decision for his health, he seems, at least in the CEO's eyes, to have made the wrong decision for the team. 

I wonder if in similar circumstances, what you would do if you were the CEO or the Project Leader and one of your key staff, perhaps even the best and most talented employee you have, took the same kind of decision as Hamilton?

Would you try and support and help the employee work through this process, knowing in the long run it is better for everyone? 

Or would you pass the Copenhagen and tell everyone to focus, we have a deadline to meet?

Software is Eating Human Resources

It is pretty apt timing that this piece, 'Software Is Eating Marketing', was posted on the Inc. blog just one day after the conclusion of the HR Technology Conference, the three-day annual gathering of HR Technology solution providers, HR leaders and practitioners, and the collection of press, analysts, investors interested in the space. You'll like it

As myself and others have more frequently posited, (here on this blog most recently just about a week ago), the function, practice, and skills needed in Human Resources in the future will look, feel, and act more like traditional marketing ones, and less like traditional HR.

And, as the recently concluded HR Technology Conference continues to reinforce, the future of HR will be powerfully influenced and in some ways driven by technology - not just the traditional kinds of HR Technology that are necessary and routine, but by a continually evolving and advancing set of new technological innovations that promise to ensure that the most savvy HR professionals of tomorrow will have as a key competency a familiarity, comfort, and deep understanding of technology.

The Inc. piece, about the influence of technology and software on marketing, could have just as easily be written about technology and Human Resources. Take a look at a few paragraphs from the 'Software is Eating Marketing' piece, with 'Human Resources' substituted for 'Marketing' as in the original piece, and tell me it doesn't read just as tellingly:

Within the $1 trillion Human Resources industry, the impact of software eating Human Resources has now reached the board room.  With the explosion of digital Human Resources, it is clear that technology is radically transforming the Human Resources function and the role of the Human Resources professional. 

The repercussions of social, mobile, video, Big Data, CRM, cloud and other disruptive forces are impacting all aspects of business, but particularly Human Resources. As a result, Human Resources leaders and agencies now carry the burden of understanding technology’s impact on their business, the entire customer experience, and leading innovation within their enterprises, not simply following a course set by their IT department. 

In much the way Apple disrupted the music and phone industries with smart industrial design and clever software that shielded users from complexity, technologists are building sophisticated systems with interfaces that are as simple for Human Resources and designers to manipulate as their iPhones. 

If you think the last few years were disruptive, imagine how much the Human Resources industry will be transformed in the next three years!

Even with the sort of excessive repetition, those sentiments from the original piece about the growing role and increasing importance of technology on marketing make just as much sense and reflect one of the most significant industry trends for Human Resources as well.

It's a simple logical progression really. If HR = The New Marketing, and Marketing is being consumed by technology, then one could plausibly argue technology is eating Human Resources.

And just as the smart marketing professional knows that he or she needs to embrace these changes, so to does the smart HR and Talent pro.

But you already know that right, I mean you're reading this, which I'd gather indicates you are one of the small, (but growing), ranks of HR pros that get the fundamental changes and incredible opportunities that a real understanding and appreciation of technology and software present to both your organization, and to your professional development.

It is a great time to be in the HR Tech space, I think.

Native Languages: An HR Technology Conference Review

This week the 15th Annual HR Technology Conference was held in the great city of Chicago, and once again the event brought together, in a way and at a scale that is unrivalled in the industry, the diverse and ever-widening community of HR leaders, practitioners, solution providers, analysts, press, bloggers, and everyone-that-doesn't-fall-into-one-of-those-categories types that have an interest in the role of technology in the workplace.

And as has been pointed out again and again, no matter what kind of work you do, whether you're an information worker in a massive global firm, someone on the retail front lines, a small business owner that needs to know how to get the most out of your team, or even a solo artist looking for your next gig - technology plays a role in how you find work, (and often, how work finds you), how you find people to help you, how your work gets seen and judged, and perhaps, hopefully, can help you to do your work even better than you imagined possible.

That last part, technology that helps people to do their best work is the ultimate goal, I think, and one that is shared by both solution providers and practitioners alike. And not all successful HR Technology products and projects have to be flashy and exciting and cutting-edge, (although those are the ones we like to talk about the most). No, sometimes technology that simply takes a mundane but essential workplace process and makes it more efficient, or that automates what used to be manual and dreary, or one that simply gets out of your way to let you concentrate more fully on your real work, and less on the other 'stuff' that stubbornly tries to distract you - these too are important, necessary, and in many ways often more impactful than the latest new social-mobile-local-big datafied thingy you just saw at the show.

And at the Conference, we get to see, hear from, play with, and talk to the folks from all manner of solution providers - ones that are chasing the newest and latest; ones that are dependably playing in the middle but still really important ground since most employees have a pesky desire to get paid correctly and on time and have their benefits coverage be current and accurate; and many that are doing some of both - continuing to innovate and grow from a reliable base, and providing customers the opportunity to move at their own pace.

As has been said often and correctly by many others, (examples, here, here, and here), the HR Technology Conference is the one place where the entire industry comes together for three, (four if you count HRevolution, which I do), days to learn, share, connect, brag, and ultimately, to also try and accomplish one of the goals of the technology products themselves - to do their jobs better, no matter what role they play. And the best thing about the Conference, since it draws solution providers from every segment of the market, is that both the HR Director from the 200 person company and the Executive Vice President of Human Resources from a 50,000 employee multi-national can both find a myriad of technologies suitable for their circumstances to review, colleagues from peer companies to compare notes with, while both taking advantage of access to the leading independent analysts and thinkers in the industry.

From my perspective, the event was fantastic, and I was especially glad with the HRevolution-style session that I co-presented with Trish McFarlane on Wednesday for two reasons - one; the session was so well-attended since it was near the end of the program, and two; showed the real potential and power of the community of people that were gathered. At one point in the conversation an attendee offered an idea for a cool new social capability she would love to see offered in her current solution, other attendees added to her ideas and gave some clarity, and by the end of the discussion, some 'product' types were taking notes and brainstorming about how to build that capability in their tools. It would not surprise me at all to see someone announcing this feature in their product at the Conference next year.

I will end by repeating what I think was the most succinct statement and message that I heard over the course of the event that reminds and reinforces the value and importance of what the show is all about, an observation made by Steve Miranda, SVP of Applications Development at Oracle. Steve said,

'Technology might now be a second language to us, (the attendees of the Conference), but it is a native language to the next generation of the workforce.'

And that simple observation points us forward, not only to thinking about how we can take the things we learned this week back our organizations, but also how we will have to prepare for the future of our workplaces, ones that will rapidly transform into ones where the halls, real or virtual, will be almost completely filled by native speakers of technology.

These natives will not remember a world before smartphones, tablets, on-demand apps, access to their information as and when and on what device they choose, and the ability to share seamlessly, connect constantly, and do it all without pausing for training or even reading the instructions. They will expect their workplace tools to speak their native language.

While we all will want to get there, the starting points and paths will be different for all organizations.

But one thing is for certain, you will know how to start and with whom you should travel on the journey from your connections and learnings from the HR Technology Conference community.

It was a great show once again - kudos and thanks to Bill Kutik, David Shadovitz, and everyone at LRP - the work they do each year to deliver this event is monumental and appreciated.

#HRTechConf (un)session Preview - Social Tools in the Organization

Today at 9:00AM Central time at the HR Technology Conference, I will be co-presenting along with Trish McFarlane a session titled: #HRevolution : How Social Tools Can Empower a Global Organization.

The session, about how organizations are leveraging both public-facing social networks and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as behind-the-firewall tools like Yammer and Sharepoint, in HR, Recruiting, and Talent Management processes; will be conducted in classic HRevolution 'unconference' style - as a facilitated discussion among and by peers and colleagues in the industry, with the goal to open the lines of communication and share lessons learned, challenges, and goals with each other.

The HRevolution style of facilitating presents some risks of course - if attendees are shy or reluctant to share openly with the group, then the session presenters are under the gun to some extent, and there's nothing worse than a interactive session with no interacting.

So attendees of our session tomorrow are expected to play an active part - sharing their knowledge, discussing their approaches in bringing social technology to their workplaces, and even challenging some of the widely held and often repeated assumptions about social technology and its role in the workplace. 

In addition to the conversations that will happen in the room at HR Tech, we also encourage anyone following the #HRTechConf hashtag on Twitter to engage with us as well.  The hashtag for the session is #UNSESSION and the basic questions we will raise in the room will be tweeted out on my user name @SteveBoese as follows:

Q1 - What social recruiting success stories can you share? #unsession #HRTechConf

Q2 – What collaboration tools are you using and getting positive results from? #unsession #HRTechConf

Q3 – How can social  technology encourage recognition in the workplace? #unsession #HRTechConf

Q4 – How can social tools help drive innovation in the organization? #unsession #HRTechConf

Q5 – How can social tools fix, improve, or blow up existing processes? #unsession #HRTechConf

We will be checking the backchannel throughout the session for questions, answers, comments and for general feedback from the Twitterverse.

Trish and I are really looking forward to the session, and if you are at the HR Technology Conference we hope to see you there, and if not, we hope you will join in the #UNSESSION discussion on the backchannel.