The smart leader's approach to dress codes, (or any other policy)

Happy Spring!

It's Spring right, at least here in the USA, (and I suppose some other places as well, I was never all that great at geography). But with Spring comes the return (hopefully), of warmer weather and the shift to our 'summer' clothes - both for work and for not work.

And the first time Gabe from accounting or Marcia in customer service turns up to work wearing some cargo shorts or worse, you or your organization's leaders might be tempted to send one of those beloved 'all employees' emails from HR that run down the ins and outs of the official dress code, as you know, we don't want to really treat folks like adults, at least not at work.

But before you do send that email listing just what types of concert T-shirts are acceptable and which ones are not, I would encourage you to read this piece from ESPN.com, on how one organizational leader is wrestling with these same workplace policy issues as you are: Joe Maddon, (Chicago Cubs manager), on dress code: 'If you think you look hot, wear it.' 

Get past the title for a second and read the whole piece. Here is a snippet to prod you along:

Cubs manager Joe Maddon met with his “lead bulls” on Sunday to go over team rules as 11 players and their boss discussed everything from a dress code to kids in the clubhouse.

“The biggest topic of discussion was shorts or not on the road,” Maddon said after the meeting.

Maddon isn’t a stickler for a lot of written rules, instead preferring a common-sense approach. He believes players know the line not to cross. He used last year’s policies -- his first on the team -- as a guideline. They worked out pretty well.

“You have like a force field, not an actual fence. Guys know if they go past a certain point you might get stung a little bit, but you don’t have to see the fence there,” Maddon explained. “I like that.”

“Exercise common sense with all this stuff,” he said. “There are so much archaic stuff that baseball stands for. I’m here to manage the team, not make rules. I learned my lesson with that to not go nuts about it.”

Just about everything you need to know about dress codes or most other workplace rules right there. Treat folks like adults, let them know what is really important for the organization to be focusing on, (it isn't the dress code), and involve a larger group of leaders and influencers on the staff as you talk about expectations and whatever policies you have. Not only will they help you define the rules, they will likely help you self-enforce them as well.

It is actually really simple. Simple enough for even the Cubs to figure out.

Have a great week! 

CHART OF THE DAY: The End of Soda (or Pop, if that's how you roll)

Quick shot for a busy Friday, today's chart is from our pals at Business Insider and shows what BI calls an 'epic' (I'd say it is more 'moderate') decline in per capita soda (or pop) consumption in the USA over the last 18 years.

Here is the chart, and after that, as always, some FREE commentary from me after the data:

The headline number is that per capita soft drink consumption has declined from a peak of 53 gallons in 1997 all the way down to 40 gallons in 2015. So just about a 25% decline. Still 41 gallons is a lot of soda, (observed as I down my second Diet Dr. Pepper of the day).

Why is this important? I am note sure it is, but to me it is at least interesting.

Could it be, at least by this one measure, the public is finally getting more concerned about the ill effects of the consumption of empty calories from sugary drinks? Or maybe the focus on employee wellness and well-being by lots and lots of organizations is having a positive impact on people's habits with respect to soft drink consumption? Perhaps it's a generational thing. Do 14 year olds like to drink Coke or Mt. Dew?

Of could it be a simple lack of innovation by the soft drink makers themselves? After all, while we love and praise innovative companies, the second that Coke or Pepsi messes about with the formula or our favorite drink the backlash is immediate and the outrage is enormous.

Who knows for sure? But as an observer of the world, I find it interesting for sure. Perhaps you do as well.

Have a great weekend!

Whose fault is it that you are working too much?

A week or so ago I wrote about how France is considering placing a ban of sorts on after-hours email - the idea that people/workers are working too many hours as it is, and they should have the right to ignore work-related email messages that are sent outside of 'normal' working hours.  

As is normally the case when an idea like that pops up, a number of folks chime in about how that is a terrible idea, and that people/workers need (and for the most part want), the ability to move between 'work' and 'not work' more freely and fluidly than the traditional design of work (in the office from 8:30 - 5:00, or some such), typically allows.

In the modern world it is argued, people should 'blend' work and not work so casually that sitting in on a conference call while watching Junior's U8 soccer game and ducking out of the office at 10:30AM to go have a facial should both be seen as more or less normal and acceptable ways of 'blending' work and not work. And while I think that this is generally both a good and decent idea, and the way of the future (and possibly the present) of work for many folks, I also think that the balance never seems to really balance. Said differently, work is like water (or air), it flows naturally to where it isn't, and it expands to fill all the available space it can.

I thought about this entire idea again, of the French idea to set a harder border or barrier between work and not work when I read this piece on the Campaign Live site the other day - Wieden & Kennedy trials limits to working hours, on how the Ad agency W&K is approaching these work/life issues. Here is a little bit from the piece:

For the next few months, the creative agency is barring staff from organising meetings before 10am and after 4pm in a bid to stop its employees coming into work too early and leaving too late. No staff will be expected to work more than 40 hours a week. 

Agency staff have also been told not to send or read work e-mails after 7pm and are encouraged to leave work at 4.30pm on Fridays.

Neil Christie, the agency’s managing director, told Campaign that the changes are intended to make Wieden & Kennedy a more appealing place to work.

In recent years, creative agencies have been forced to compete for talent with tech companies, such as Google, that ask an equal commitment of employees but are able to offer higher salaries to recruits.

Pretty basic but still interesting ideas, that while positioned as a 'We think you all are working too much' also come off as decent recommendations on how to make better use of the time you are working. Early morning meetings stink. Late afternoon meetings stink even more. So trying to ban both of these makes sense not just from a 'we need to work less hours' point of view but also a 'let's make work a little more productive and enjoyable' while we are there perspective.

But the real question is why the leaders at Wieden & Kennedy felt the need to set some guidelines and restrictions in order to ensure their staffs will work less. I bet most folks, when given the choice between working 70-80 hours a week and just logging a reasonable 40 hours will choose the latter, (all things being equal which sadly, all things never are). 

Someone (or someones), in leadership there have set up a system/culture where, save for the few W&K staffers that probably really love what they are doing, have not much of a life outside of work, and see putting in 70-80 hours a week as the cost of getting ahead in the ad agency business, working all of the time is the norm and the expectation. And now leadership sees that this culture is not sustainable and may be creating an issue with retention and recruiting. Shocking, I know. It turns out that after a while grinding it out week after week takes a toll on people.

But it is a little bit cheeky as a leader to place restrictions on working hours and after hours emails and not take at least some of the responsibility for creating the very conditions that you are know having to curb.

Whose fault is it that you are working too much? Probably not yours, at least not totally.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

HRE Column: Rethinking Talent and Technology

Here is my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech and that archives of which can be found here.

As usual, the Inside HR Tech column is about, well, HR Tech, (sort of like I used to write about all the time on this blog), and it was inspired by a recent HR Happy Hour Show that we did with Cecile Alper-Leroux from Ultimate Software, and that focused (primarily) on three major trends and challenges that Ultimate Software is seeing their customers wrestling with in 2016. This was a great conversation on the HR Happy Hour Show, and I encourage you check it out.

On the show, the big trends that Cecile talked about were the concept of the 'Employee Experience', the evolution and transformation of performance management, and finally, the need for HR technology and technology providers to make predictive and prescriptive analytics more meaningful and actionable.

Since I thought the show was so interesting, and the product incredibly interesting, it was the topic of my latest column for HR Executive.

Here is an excerpt from the HRE column, Rethinking Talent and Technology:

I recently spent a few days at the Ultimate Software Connections customer conference in Las Vegas, an event that continues to grow in size along with the company itself. And while the Ultimate executives shared several interesting insights around specific product-development initiatives, their perspectives and points of view on the most important challenges facing their customers -- by extension, HR leaders -- were far more interesting. Since I like to have my own opinions validated -- who doesn't? -- I was pretty pleased to hear that many of the themes and ideas being presented sounded a lot like some of the ideas I was writing and speaking about earlier this year.

Based on what I heard and saw, there seem to be three main themes that are emerging as top-of-mind for HR leaders this year: a change in the conversations around employee engagement, moving toward a concept of "employee experience"; the evolution and transformation of performance management; and a kind of "moment of truth" about the use and efficacy of predictive and prescriptive analytics in HR and talent management.

I'd like to break down and expand on each of these themes, and suggest some ways HR technology can be leveraged in each area.

From Employee Engagement to "Employee Experience"

One of the enduring truisms about work and workplaces is that, no matter what organizations have tried to do to improve employee engagement, it has generally remained at consistently low levels since the concept was first discussed. Despite significant time and effort spent in the last decade-plus to raise these levels, most of the traditional efforts and interventions have not been effective. For this reason, many organizations are attempting to change and reframe the discussion from focusing on a measurement that is really an outcome and to thinking about how they can improve the overall experience that employees have in their interactions with the organization.

From an HR-technology perspective, HR leaders can impact the employee experience by challenging their technology providers to create solutions that deliver positive experiences from a usability and capability perspective. HR-technology solutions should be designed around the people and should serve to make their jobs easier, help them to be more productive and, crucially, help them to discover and unlock their potential. Not until the person is the focus of the technologies can positive experiences with the technologies abound, leaders at Ultimate stressed.

 Read the rest at HR Executive online...

Good stuff, right? Darn right it is. Ok, just humor me...  And be sure to check out the HR Happy Hour Show where Cecile Alper-Leroux from Ultimate Software talks technology, talent, and putting the 'human' back into HR.

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and take your dog out for a walk or re-seed your lawn if you do sign up for the monthly email.

Have a great day and rest of the week!

Taking care of customers by taking care of employees, (give them all a raise edition)

ETERNAL TRUTH: Better engaged employees are happier, more productive, are retained at higher rates than less-engaged folks, and provide higher levels of customer service, all things being equal.

So if you want/need/desire improved customer service, all you have to do is find a way to improve employee engagement levels of the folks meant to be providing the customer service. 

Easy, right?

Except when it's not. I have written plenty here, (and so have lots of other folks), about how despite tossing money and effort at improving engagement for at least 20 years, that in aggregate engagement levels are about what they have always been since it became a member of the 'something we measure' club.

But what if there was another, simpler way to improve customer service that didn't involve 'engagement' at all, but did impact those employees that are on the front-line working with and helping customers every day? You'd be interested in something like that, wouldn't you? What if it was as simple as cutting a check? Well, make that several thousand checks.

Check this excerpt from a recent Fortune piece - McDonald's Says its Wage Hikes Are Improving Service:

The hamburger chain in April announced it would raise the average hourly rate for workers at the U.S. restaurants it owns to $9.90 from $9.01 starting July 2015, with average wages climbing above $10 per hour by the end of 2016. The company also said it would allow those employees to earn up to five days of paid vacation every year following one year of employment.

McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook, who took the helm in 2015, has since moved swiftly, closing hundreds of weak stores, bringing back all-day breakfast, and simplifying the chain’s menu, reducing bottlenecks in serving customers quickly. But improving the customer experience hinges on workers being on board with all these changes, hence the raises.

“It has done what we expected it to—90 day turnover rates are down, our survey scores are up—we have more staff in restaurants,” McDonald’s U.S. president Mike Andres told analysts at a UBS conference on Wednesday. “So far we’re pleased with it—it was a significant investment obviously but it’s working well.”

The move reportedly created friction with franchisees, who hire and pay their own workers, as they felt pressure to match the wage hikes. Still, there are early signs it is paying off: In October, McDonald’s reported its first quarter of comparable sales gains in two years. The company built on that growth with a huge 5.7% increase in the following quarter.

Wow, is it that simple? A general 10% across the board wage increase and sales and customer service both rise enough to offset the costs of the increased wages? That's it? Man, what took them so long to sort that out?

In truth, there are a few things to tease out of this experiment, and it could be that some of the non-wage increase changes have been at least somewhat responsible for this recent turnaround in McDonald's fortunes. But as CEO Easterbrook rightly observes, in order for these operational and strategic changes to really work, the employees had to be on board, and raising wages was the simplest, (and possibly best) way to accomplish that.

There are probably a few special circumstances that make this strategy more effective than it would be in other places, even small reductions in turnover are likely to have a big impact on service levels in the fast food business, and even with a high number of employees, giving blanket increases of 10% does not represent massive spending. So get turnover down just a little, keep a few more longer-tenured staff on each shift, and boom - the drive thru lines move a little bit faster and the customers are happy.

Sometimes, maybe most of the time, we tend to over think what it takes to keep people (reasonably) happy, and give them a situation where they feel good about the work they are doing, and the customers that they are serving. 

You might not be able (nor necessarily should you), give everyone on the staff a 10% bump. But there probably is some other, simple, reachable change you can make that would serve the same purpose. It's out there. You can find it.

Just don't call it "employee engagement" and you will be fine.