Thinking outside the inbox at HR Florida

I'm at the HR Florida Conference today down in Orlando, (to all the people who warned me that it is too hot to come to Florida in August, you are pretty much right).

I will be presenting along with my HR Happy Hour co-host Trish McFarlane a modified and updated version of the wildly, (at least in my view), popular session titled 'Thinking Outside the Inbox: What These Big Trends Mean for HR and Recruiting.'

You can check out the slides that Trish and I will be talking from below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), and they can also be viewed and downloaded from Slideshare.

Although the details and data points on things like mobile technology trends, workforce demographics, ubiquitous and wearable technologies are continuously changing, the larger point remains - all our organizations operate in a fast-moving, dynamic, and fascinating world, and making a conscious decision to be better informed about that world will make you a stronger HR and Talent pro.

Trish and I only hit three of the 'big trends' in our talk today - there are probably dozens more we could have chosen from, but hopefully the larger point is the one that will stick.

Thanks to the folks at HR Florida for having us at the event this year and if you were at the session - please drop us a note to tell us what you thought of the talk.

HR and Improv: An #HRevolution Las Vegas Preview

The HRevolution 'unconference' event is returning to Las Vegas on Sunday, October 6, 2013.

What, exactly is HRevolution?

Simple.

Since 2009, HRevolution has been creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR in an one-day, highly interactive format. You can see details of the agenda here.

That actually doesn't sound very simple, but if you have attended HRevolution before you'll know exactly what it means.  And you will know that the connections you have made and strengthened at past HRevolution events have been an amazing source of inspiration and learning over the years.

If you have not attended an HRevolution event in the past, then I want to give you a little bit of an idea of just one fun and innovative component of the HRevolution program that we are pretty sure you've never seen at any other event.

It's called 'HR Improv' and the simple idea is this: We solicit 5 volunteers from the audience and they are tasked with doing a 'cold' 10-minute presentation to the entire room from a slide deck that they, (nor anyone else), has ever seen before.  

The challenge?

To tie the content of the deck somehow back to an HR or workplace topic, to think quickly and on the fly, and to not let a situation that can rapidly get out of control throw you off of your game.

The kinds of skills that any successful pro, HR or otherwise, needs to have in order to be seen as a player.

Think you could handle HR Improv? Then make your plans to attend HRevolution in Las Vegas on October 6, 2013 - ticket information here. 

And this year, HRevolution would not be possible without the support of the event's exclusive sponsor - SumTotal Systems - an HR provider of a complete portfolio which includes; talent, learning, workforce, payroll, analytics, mobile and social delivered via SaaS, on-premise or hosted.

The folks at SumTotal have been fantastic to work with on the event and we can't thanks them enough for their support of the HR community.

Once again, HRevolution is co-locating with the HR Technology Conference to offer attendees of both events a great opportunity to connect, learn, share, and have fun. When you register for HRevolution you will receive a promotional code good for $600 off the published rate for HR Tech - the best (and non-expiring) discount code out there.

So please make plans to attend HRevolution Las Vegas this October - you won't regret it!

If you still have questions just shoot me an email - steveboese at gmail dot com.

25 slides on recruiting, no pictures, lots of bullet points, read it anyway

If you are having problems explaining the recruiting process, process step participants and owners, the overall goals of the recruiting program, and even the desired outcomes to your team, your hiring managers, or even your leaders - then I think you would do a lot worse than to share and walk them through this simple, 25-slide deck from legendary Silicon Vallley VC Daniel Portillo. (the slides are embedded below as well, email and RSS (are there any of those left?), will need to click through).

Recruiting: Good to Great from Daniel Portillo

The money lines from my point of view (assuming you are way too busy to look at 25 slides) with some SMB comments after each point

Slide 5 - The goal of recruiting is more than just a repeatable process, it is about crafting an overall experience.

SB - Definitely needed, and definitely requires that you have the time to take a step back and be really thoughtful and mindful of the overall process/experience. This is more than 'we should treat rejected candidates well', in fact it is probably more about how to treat highly desired and hard to find candidates in a way that respects their time and career aspirations.

Slide 7 - When 'setting up' the candidate, make sure you understand what will the person work on the first 3, 6, 12 months? Why is it interesting?

SB - If you can't 'sell' what is interesting about the job, no one with a decent other option, (including staying at the job they have now), will give you a second thought. If the job isn't inherently interesting, then there had better be some other compelling factors you can push to the center of the table, (insane comp, telework, lots of stock, etc.).

Slide 9 - Who are the decision makers? Parents, wife, kids, etc…

SB - Does anyone, I mean anyone, take a new job without at least talking it over with someone close to them? Do you factor that in at all? You probably should.

Slide 15 - When in the 'evaluation' stage - Make sure you ask:  'When have you gone out of your way to do something or learn a skill that wasn’t required?'

SB - Probably my favorite line of the deck. Speaks to curiosity, ambition, engagement  - all the things we say are important to organizations today.

Slide 17 - 'Don't hire someone to be the weakest person on the team.'

SB - I like this one too, and have never seen it before. But you have to think about any new hires impact and effect on your existing team before bringing someone new on board. Being the new guy/gal is hard enough - if the team figures out that the new hire is also not all that talented then you have a flame out waiting to happen.

Slide 22 - On what kills the candidate experience? One thing is 'People who don't know what the hell they are talking about.'

SB - This one cuts right to the candidate feeling that their time is being wasted. Everyone you put in front of the candidate should understand the process, the role, and why this candidate in particular is being considered. This is a by-product of companies simply including too many people in the process in what is usually a CYA move set up by someone.

Slide 25  On compensation for tech talent that have lots of options - 'Companies are essentially paying 2 years ahead of current experience.'

SB - This one is really simple, but bears repeating especially for 'non-tech' companies that do need to bring in engineers and developers from time to time. You have no shot at competing for the 'top' talent if you don't raise the comp to what everyone in your shop will consider is overpaying. That is just the way this market works right now.

Ok, that's it from me on this. Take a look at the deck if you are interested and let me know what you think. 

I'm just happy to see a simple, plain, boring deck full of words and bullet points still be so interesting and compelling that it didn't matter how simple and boring it was.

Happy Wednesday.

The best line I've read all year, and trying not to deliver what's expected

A few days ago, in this piece, Marketview: Huge in Japan on the finance blog Dynamic Hedge, I read what I believe to be the best line I have read anywhere this year, and quite possibly my favorite line ever, (although the last line of Song of Myself is tough to beat).

Here it is:

The Yen carry trade is basically driving risk markets globally and will eventually destroy everything you love.

Boom.

Right in the middle of a pretty standard piece on the Yen currency fluctuations and the recent volatility in the Japanese equity markets, the author drops in that amazing line about everything you love being destroyed and now you're not reading a standard (and dreary) financial analysis piece anymore. This is something else entirely, and entirely unexpected. (I am so stealing this line).Flowers, Andy Warhol, 1964

I'm heading out the big SHRM Annual Conference next week, and presenting on Monday afternoon. While at the event, and certainly before and during my session I will be thinking about this piece from Dynamic Hedge, and that line and how it ambushed me from out of nowhere.

SHRM and the most of the other big, mainstream events succeed largely by meeting expectations I think. They are very clear about what is going to happen there, the speakers they select are if not familiar individually, are familiar in the aggregate. There are always the lawyers and consultants and advisor types speaking, and they are all kind of interchangeable. They all say (again, mostly), the same kinds of things to the same kind of audience that comes back each year. It is a kind of 'cycle of the expected' if you will.

And that is pretty smart I suppose, and good business. SHRM Annual especially is a pretty large commitment of time and money for attendees, and the risk of not delivering to them what they know and expect is pretty high for the organizers. While it feels hard to break in to the SHRM Annual line up as a speaker, it seems much easier to stay there once you are in (and if you have figured out how to deliver to those expectations).

Having said all that, or having said that little, I press on towards the event and the other things I am up to - thinking about the idea of meeting audience, reader, or even public expectations. 

It's all pretty safe, the assessing, defining, and meeting expectations game. If I do that in my session on Monday, I will probably get decent ratings, and maybe get invited back to speak again. It's just a formula really. The speaker is going to talk about X, the attendees are coming to hear him or her talk about X, and they leave knowing something about X. It's simple.

But it all seems kind of boring, kind of forgettable even.

The best events, speeches, ballgames, picnics, movies, songs, books, etc. - the ones that you remember and that resonate beyond their allotted time horizon for your attention - only do that when they ignore, (or at least pretend not to care about) your expectations and deliver on their vision, and not be beholden to yours. But it can be hard to do that. And scary. And that's why it's done so rarely. But I will give it a try on Monday. Probably fail. Probably not be back in 2014.

Let's test it out:

The HR technology landscape has been transformed in the last 5 years, and if you don't keep informed, markets will shift globally and will eventually destroy everything you love.

Maybe.

Have a great weekend, and if I see you at SHRM, please say hello! 

Which 'Breakthrough Technology' might actually break through?

Later on this year at the HR Florida Conference and Expo Trish McFarlane and I will be co-presenting a session titled "Thinking Outside the (In)box - What These ‘Big Trends’ Mean for HR and Recruiting", what will be (hopefully) a fun and challenging look at what some of the big tech, demographic, and economic trends will mean for HR and Talent Management.  I have been a big believer in the importance and need for HR and Talent pros to think more expansively about how things like wearable technology, the shrinking (and aging) workforce, and (see yesterday's post), massive and rising levels of student loan debt will impact their organizations and talent programs. So I'm always on the lookout for what's new, what's next, and trying to think about whether the latest piece of high-tech gadgetry might change the way we find, align, collaborate, and coach in the workplace.

Recently, the MIT Technology Review (thanks MIT!), posted it's list of '10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2013', an interesting collection of new and new-ish innovations that they think will move past niche status and enter (or at least approach) the mainstream in 2013. Some of the items on the list - Baxter the Industrial Robot, 3D printing, and smart watches are probably familiar sounding. But some of the others like memory implants or deep learning represent some of the latest in technology innovation. Taken together the 10 technologies will certainly have some impact on work and the workplace this year and beyond. The challenge is, as always, for you as a Talent pro to think about developments like these and try and assess which ones might matter for your organization and your approach to talent.

One way to make sense of these kinds of lists is to try and put the technolgies into buckets or categories - something to help you prioritize and allocate your already limited time and ability to even attempt to process these kinds of innovations. I like to use three buckets (see below), and I'll offer my shot on whether or not the 'breakthrough technologies' on the MIT list should be on your radar in 2013.

I'll save the rationale for these categorizations for now, but you can come hear Trish and I talk about them at HR Florida!

Get on it - These are potentially important right now - you should be not just aware of these trends, but should be actively assessing how they will change either the workplace, the nature of work, or how you will engage talent.

From the MIT List - Baxter, Big Data from Cheap Phones, Additive Manufacturing, Temporary Social Media

On the come - Probably not going to hit you in 2013, (or maybe even 2014), but if you have your act toghether enough to be able to talk about talent needs in say 2015 and beyond, then this trend will probably come into play. Only talk about these with the C-suite if you have some serious internal credibility.

From the MIT List - Deep Learning, Smart Watches, Ultra-Efficient Solar Power

Discovery Channel - These are fun to talk or think about, but you probably don't need to give them more than 5 seconds of consideration unles your business is directly related to the technology in question. If not, then be content with catching up on them on the Discovery Channel in a few years and re-evaluate then.

From the MIT List - Prenatal DNA Sequencing, Memory Implants, Supergrids

That's my take on this latest list, and how to attempt to evaluate whether or not you need to spend time thinking about and planning for any of these new technology innovations as they pop-up. I'd love to get your take on these, or any other potentially disruptive technologies that are going to or are already changing your workplace and your talent game.