If not enough candidates fail your drug screening, maybe the problem is you not them

While catching up over the weekend on the latest from Willamette (Oregon), Week, (I mean, who doesn't spend at least part of their Sunday catching up on all things Willamette?), I hit this beauty of a headline - Oregon is Running Out of Workers Who Can Pass a Drug Test.

Since I think from the headline of the piece you probably have an idea where this is going, so I won't bother setting it up too much and just take you to the money quote from our friends in Willamette:

“One labor issue that continues to crop up is drug testing. At least anecdotally, more firms are reporting trouble finding workers who can pass a drug test,” the economists write.

Ok, so maybe I should have set up the quote a little. Oregon, like a lot of the rest of the country, is seeing unemployment levels at almost twenty year lows - about 4.0%. That, coupled with Oregon's decriminalization of marijuana for most uses in 2014, and many employer's slow reaction to changing existing and traditional screening practices has led to a bit of a conundrum in the Beaver State - plenty of open jobs, and also plenty of candidates who are 'failing' old-school employment drug screens.

As the trend/tendency for more and more states to adopt more permissive laws concerning recreational drug use - typically marijuana - I think organizations still conducting pre-employment drug screens and who are facing a shortage of 'acceptable' candidates in these states have three main options as to how to proceed:

(Note, all of the rest of this assumes jobs/roles that are not directly in public safety domains, i.e. I am not going to advocate that airline pilots for example are not screened for drug use)

1. Do nothing - What at least some employers in Oregon and elsewhere are doing. Maintain your strict policy of pre-employment drug screening, knowing that in places like Oregon you will effectively screen out more and more candidates as time/social mores evolve. The potential positive? Not everyone is so permissive about recreational drug use, and you might be able to score some points with that crowd - both candidates and customers. "We're the drug-free burger place" - that kind of thing.

2. Better segment their jobs and screening protocols - Ok in almost every organization there exists some jobs that are more, say, 'sensitive' than others. The payroll manager has access to lots more information (and can do more damage if she chooses), than say, the person who manages the cafeteria. The point is that not all jobs in the organization need to have the same strict pre-employment screening protocols. And chances are you know that, the CEO knows that, everyone knows that. If you are an employer facing 'clean pee' issues, maybe its time to think about how universal your policy needs to be?

3. Throw in the towel - Or, said differently, let a little bit more of the world in, realize you are recruiting (largely in Oregon), from a candidate pool who considers recreational pot use just fine, (and by the way is also legal). Sure, make or continue to enforce 'on the job' rules of conduct as you see fit, no one is arguing that, but let go of this kind of old-fashioned idea of having a 'drug-free' workforce. Because you know what? You don't have one of those anyway, despite whatever rules or policies you have. Said differently - a drug-free 'workplace' is your right (and the right thing to have), and drug-free 'workforce' is more or less none of your business and is out of your control.

Organizations usually often are slow in adapting to changes in the world around them. The great Grant McCracken wrote recently that "organizations are great at keeping things out, not so great at letting things in", (I might be paraphrasing a bit, but that is the gist.

The smart HR/talent leader not only know what is happening out there, they also know how their talent strategies have to adapt. Even in Oregon.

Have a great week!

Corporate uniforms and what they say about the workplace

My airline of choice is Delta, the best airline in the world, (or at least that flies out of my home city), and because of my loyalty to Delta I read with interest a recent piece on Business Insider, 'Delta's 64,000 employees now have new designer uniforms', covering the news that soon Delta's uniformed employees would soon be wearing a new set of uniforms designed by Zac Posen. See below for a pic of the new duds:

They look pretty sharp, right?

Seeing the pics of the new Delta uniforms got me to thinking about workplace 'uniforms' more broadly - not necessarily for airline staff or retail workers or any kind of business that actually has an official uniform - but rather the kinds of uniforms or perhaps more accurately, how standards of dress come to be adopted in workplaces and industries where people have a wide set of options about how they dress in the workplace.

And by that, I'm not talking about 'dress codes', that fun HR topic from the 90s, but rather the more subtle, cultural drivers that lead people to dress in certain ways, what 'looks' are accepted and which are not, and how adaptive and flexible workplaces are to fashion trends and evolution. Thinking about this quickly, (and with the caveat that when I'm not on the road, I work from home, so NBA t-shirts are the 'dress code' most days for me, and that I am largely considering this from a male POV), I think what, how, and when people make certain choices about workplace uniforms break down into the following categories:

We all wear the same five things- Doesn't matter if your workplace is business, business casual, or casual - everyone's work wardrobes revolve around tiny variations of the same five pieces. If it is business, think gray and navy suits, white or blue shirts, brown shoes, etc. If it is business casual, everyone wears the same khakis, gingham or polo shirts, blue blazer if things are a touch more dressy, and brown/tan loafers. Think what an accounting convention looks like - a sea of middle aged dudes in blue jackets and tan or gray pants. Finally, if the office is totally casual - jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies. Stan Smiths or if you are a flush tech company - Yeezys.

There's a little bit of experimentation, but it helps if the boss signals approval- this kind of workplace is almost the same as the above, but where it differs is how/when new trends are adopted and embraced into the uniforms. A great current example of this is the new'ish trend in men's sneaker fashion - the recent increase in higher-end, expensive, 'dress' sneakers as an alternative to dress shoes in business casual situations and even sometimes worn with a formal suit. The key here is do you as a cog in the machine feel emboldened to be the first person to rock a new trend like this at work, or do you need to spy the CEO wearing a pair of Lanvins before you think it is ok to wear your new pair of Greats to the office?

Role-based uniforms- pretty straightforward and pretty common. Sales dresses a certain way (what they think will impress prospects), Execs wear nicer, more expensive versions of what Sales wears, back-office staff more or less follows the rules above, and 'technical' folks are left to their own devices - since no one wants to dare offend their delicate sensibilities by trying to place any guidelines or expectations on them. 

Pretend Steve Jobs- this is more of an individual choice rather than a workplace norm, but it is worth mentioning because some high-powered types like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Barack Obama became associated with the idea of wearing exactly, or almost the same clothes every single day, as a way to lessen 'decision fatigue.' If you rock the same dad jeans, black turtleneck, and New Balances every day, the thinking goes, you have more mental bandwith for the important things at work. If you have one of these kinds of guys in your workplace, be wary, chances are they are no Steve Jobs, and are just doing the turtleneck thing to make people talk about them.

No one really cares - probably only really exists in really small organizations, where entire departments consist of one person. If there is only one person in Finance, what he/she wears sets the tone for whoever comes next. And so on across the company. Nothing resembling a uniform code forms in a department until you have at least three people. You need the dynamic of two people being able to sneak off and talk about what the third person is wearing, (behind that person's back) in order for some kind of cultural direction to take form.

That's it for today, have fun out there in your uniform of choice.

Note: My pal KD over at the HR Capitalist has promised me an in-depth look at one of the new trends I mentioned above, the 'dress' sneaker, so be on the look out for that.

One reason there are so many open jobs in the USA right now

The very best macro-economic report that helps to shine a light on current labor market conditions is the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary) report.

The JOLTS report covers job openings, hires, total separations, quits, layoffs, and other discharges, and offers us lots of interesting data points to better understand the US labor market - and by proxy, the health of the US economy.

Last month's JOLTS release, on May 8, included one pretty remarkable number in its summary - the number of job openings in the US as of the end of April had risen to 6.6 million - an all time high since the data series began to be compiled in 2000. 6.6 million open and unfilled jobs. That is a lot of openings. No wonder every time I go out I see a bunch of 'Help Wanted' signs.

Jobs stay open, or perhaps better said, remain unfilled, for a whole bunch of reasons - most of them pretty good reasons. Taking time to sort, screen, and interview candidates; trouble finding the right skill set for specific roles; companies taking the extra steps to really be sure a candidate is a good fit before making a hire - these and more are all decent reasons why jobs stay open.

But I have another reason, and some research, I want to point you to that is another reason why some jobs remain open, and open longer than perhaps they should be. It's the concept of 'degree inflation' - the tendency of employers to require that candidates possess more advanced educational degrees than the job function truly requires, and that many candidates simply do not have.

Over the weekend I read a really interesting report on the subject of degree inflation, what it means, where and how often it is occurring, how it negatively impacts the organization, and finally, offering some suggestions for employers to avoid unnecessary degree inflation when hiring.

The report, titled 'Dismissed by Degrees: How degree inflation is undermining U.S. competitiveness and hurting America's middle class'by authors Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman, both from the Harvard Business School, is an interesting and deep look at just what happens when companies try to use artificial degree requirements as a screening tool and a proxy for candidate skills and suitability for a given role.

This is a long report, and I definitely encourage you take some time and read it through, but here are the top three most interesting points or pull quotes from the study that I want to share.

1. In an analysis of more than 26 million job postings, we found that the degree gap (the discrepancy between the demand for a college degree in job postings and the employees who are currently in that job who have a college degree) is significant. For example, in 2015, 67% of production supervisor job postings asked for a college degree, while only 16% of employed production supervisors had one.

2. Seeking college graduates makes many middle skills jobs harder to fill, and once hired, college graduates demonstrate higher turnover rates and lower engagement levels. A systemic view of the total economics of hiring college graduates shows that companies should be extraordinarily cautious before raising credential requirements for middle skill positions and should not gravitate toward college graduates based only on a vague notion that it might improve the quality of their workforce.

3. Degree inflation particularly hurts populations with college graduation rates lower than the national average, such as Blacks and Hispanics, age 25 years and older. In addition, degree inflation raises the barriers to entry for Opportunity Youth, the nearly six million young adults who are currently not in school or in jobs. Companies that insist only on a college degree deny themselves the untapped potential of eager to work young adults as well as experienced, older workers as pools of affordable talent.

Really interesting and plenty to think about in just those three short pull quotes from the report. Even when current holders of a given role in the organization largely do not hold college or advanced degrees, many companies try to require said degrees for new hires into the same role. Then when companies do manage to hire candidates that are say, 'over-degreed' for a role they have to pay them more, the new hires are less engaged, and are more likely to leave - driving up costs and starting the entire process all over. And finally, imposing artificial degree requirements on roles effectively screens out groups of candidates disproportionately and may make any organizational diversity hiring initiatives even harder to progress.

The conclusion of the report does offer some solid suggestions to reduce or eliminate the degree inflation tendency, (chiefly having a better understanding of the critical skills and competencies needed to perform in a given role, and a broader understanding of how candidates can demonstrate these skills), I won't run through them all here, but take a few minutes to read through them as I think most organizations can pretty easily take steps to better understand this issue and make adjustments and changes to their hiring practices.

There are 6.6 million job openings in the US right now. I bet a fair number of them have 'Bachelors Degree' listed as a requirement, when, if we were to be honest, it isn't really required.

Have a great day!

Learn a new word: Introvert Hangover

I've had two solid weeks of business travel, events, a ton of meetings, interviews, podcasts, some personal travel and more and by the end of that run, last Friday or so, I was feeling really burned out. Not exactly 'tired' even though I was definitely tired, but more like I just needed a break from people - interacting with them, being in a crowd, making small talk at dinner, even dealing with the hundreds of emails that have piled up, a fair number of text messages and looking a backlog of Twitter mentions and messages. I just needed some time to step back from what seemed to be just a relentless, suffocating sense or feeling that 'someone wants your attention' that has not let up in some time.

And while I have, from time to time, had a similar feeling after a spate of travel, events, and meetings, I had never known that for folks like me this feeling of being burned out and needing a break from people, from social settings, even from electronic communications actually has been given a term - an Introvert Hangover.

From a piece over the weekend on Business Insider explaining the phenomenon:

If you identify as more of an introvert than an extrovert, you'll know that means you are more energised by spending time on your own, or in very small intimate groups of people you trust. It doesn't mean you are a hermit or dislike social situations — you just often need time to recharge alone after them.

This time to regroup is sometimes called an "introvert hangover" because after a lot of social stimulation, whether that's in a small group or a noisy overstimulated context, an introvert's nervous system gets overwhelmed.

Essentially, an introvert brain functions differently than an extrovert brain. An extrovert has a very high threshold for dopamine, so they require constant stimulation. An introvert has a very low threshold, so they reach their limit much sooner.

Also, while an extrovert can approach an event objectively, an introvert has a lot more going on internally. For example, they notice all sorts of details, are self-conscious about themselves and the mistakes they are making, and draw a lot from their long-term memory bank when speaking. All of this is emotionally exhausting, so it's no surprise they need to take some time to regroup afterwards.

But an introvert hangover isn't exactly a bad thing. For most, it means curling up with a book or a film, or doing a relaxing hobby like drawing

I know that this idea, this concept of an Introvert Hangover could sound kind of silly to some folks, I would argue that those folks are either extroverts, or are introverts that have managed to architect their lives so that they don't often run into extended periods of over stimulation, or near constant contact with other people and social settings. After thinking about how I felt this past weekend, and other times in the past where I have had long runs of 'public' activities, I kind of think this Hangover idea is a real thing. It's definitely not the same as being just tired. It's more, 'I need some time to take care of my own stuff, I need to not have to talk to anyone for a little bit, and I need to re-charge, not just physically, but emotionally too.'

Why bring this up?

Well, besides being a really apt and accurate description of what i was going through, it also serves as a great reminder to be aware and empathetic of other people at work, in our personal lives, even family members that also need a 'break' from people from time to time.

It doesn't make them bad people, it doesn't even make them anti-social or unfriendly, it doesn't mean they don't care - it just means that for their own mental health they need to step back from time to time.

So if you have one of these people in your life, try to understand that sometimes an unreturned text message or an email or phone call that isn't responded to right away isn't some kind of personal insult. It could be that they just need a little time-out, a little re-set, and the chance to get prepared to get back out there again.

That's it - have a great day!

Emotional surveillance - coming to a workplace near you?

I am going to submit today's dispatch from the HR Happy Hour Home Office without much commentary, as like many tech-driven developments we hear about, this one is probably too extreme to have much of an effect in the US or any of the other places where readers of this blog reside, (Hi Canada!).

From one of my favorite sources on all things going on in business in China, the South China Morning Post, here is a little bit of a piece titled 'Forget the Facebook leak: China is mining data directly from worker's brains on an industrial scale':

Workers outfitted in uniforms staff lines producing sophisticated equipment for telecommunication and other industrial sectors.

But there’s one big difference – the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company.

The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.

Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric is just one example of the large-scale application of brain surveillance devices to monitor people’s emotions and other mental activities in the workplace, according to scientists and companies involved in the government-backed projects.

Concealed in regular safety helmets or uniform hats, these lightweight, wireless sensors constantly monitor the wearer’s brainwaves and stream the data to computers that use artificial intelligence algorithms to detect emotional spikes such as depression, anxiety or rage.

The technology is in widespread use around the world but China has applied it on an unprecedented scale in factories, public transport, state-owned companies and the military to increase the competitiveness of its manufacturing industry and to maintain social stability.

Wow, pretty wild, fairly extreme - even by the looser standards for what is ok and not ok in the workplace that still prevail in most of China.

But here's the interesting thing, we all have already come to accept certain kinds of monitoring in the workplace. We make hourly workers punch in and punch out every day, (and remind them to be sure to punch out before taking lunch). All kinds of call center representatives have their calls and interactions with customers reviewed and even listened to in real time by supervisors. Warehouse workers are often subjected to really close and detailed kinds of monitoring - how fast they find items for an order, how many errors they make per shift, and how closely they achieve "goal" performance each week.

Ever white collar jobs are subject at times to really close monitoring and supervision. Most lawyers and consultants are still billing by the hour, so they must keep and have reviewed detailed time and activity logs. Many organizations require receipts for every dollar spent on employee travel in order for the employee to get reimbursed. Are you sure you had that Dunkin' coffee for $2.65? Even the rise and increasing popularity of workplace chat apps like Slack have created more environments where your 'status', i.e. are you currently working, is visible to everyone and monitored by most.

The point being that sure, this idea of monitoring employee brainwaves in real time, or as one Chinese official described it, conducting 'emotional surveillance' seems ludicrous, it can also be seen as just the next, tech-enabled step on a path that lots of organizations are already walking. And the deployment of these kinds of technologies for workers in dangerous, important roles like airline pilot or high-speed train operator could offer another level of safety for the public - a pilot judged to be in an emotional state prior to takeoff could be pulled from the flight as a precaution.

I don't have a great, insightful conclusion to this story at the moment only to say that while it is inevitable that technologies will continue to advance, and offer better, more, and more personal information about workers, it is (hopefully), going to be the role of smart HR people to help guide organizations as to the best, fairest, and 'right' use of these kinds of tool. The pilot on the above flight is not just a pattern of brainwaves after all. He/she is an actual human.

Have a great day!