Five things I think I think, year-begin 2018 edition

Kicking off 2018 with five quick observations, (not predictions), about HR, work, tech, basketball, or whatever comes to mind in the 27 minutes I have allotted to complete this more or less first post of 2018.

1. Workplace- In the 'year-end 5 things post' last week, I mentioned the situations involving Matt Lauer and Harvey Weinstein (among others). Over the New Year's break I saw that a high-profile college football coach, (Rich Rodriguez from University of Arizona), was fired due at least in part to allegations of inappropriate behavior. To me, now the question isn't 'If' these kinds of situations are going to show up in your industry or your organization, but 'when' will they emerge. Besides the obvious succession planning angle that I mentioned last week, there probably needs to be a serious review of how the organization can emerge, change, and grow from these situations in order to have a reasonable shot at retaining the kinds of good people that don't want to be associated with a tarnished brand, and to attract the ones you need to keep the machines running in 2018. This issue could get bad enough in some organization that it becomes a tangible risk to recruiting, branding, and retention.

2. HR and HR Tech- I am going let go, (for the time being), of my recent 'Voice interfaces are the next disruption' take, although I really believe it to be the case, to mention the other 2018 buzzword - Artificial Intelligence. Just this morning I caught this piece - China is reportedly building a $2 Billion AI park as it looks to become a world leader in the field. The race for AI technologies, talent, and investments are not just going to occur on a company-to-company level, they are going to become national-level initiatives. China and Russia both think the key to future global power, influence, and wealth lay in 'winning' the AI contest. How these macro/global projects will eventually impact and filter down to 'normal' workplaces is still a little unclear, but I think it is safe to say these impacts are probably being underestimated. Five years ago every HR Tech company tossed the word 'social' into its product pitch. In 2018 AI is the new social.

3. Email- In 2018, I vow not to read email on my phone, before I get out of bed. I am pretty sure email is the absolute worst way to begin a day. But I also vow to get better at keeping up with my email in 2018. I did do the 'email bankruptcy' thing on January 1 though, by marking everything as read. If you send me an email in 2017 and did not hear back, you probably should re-send if you need a reply.

4. HR Happy Hour- I don't have too much to add to the what I posted last week about the HR Happy Hour Show but I will mention two things. One, the first show of 2018 posted yesterday - great conversation with Derek Belch from STRIVRabout how companies as diverse as Walmart and Stanford University's football team are incorporating VR technology for training and development. You can listen to that show hereor on your favorite podcast app. And two, we are open to working with new podcast sponsors in 2018, if you or your organization is interested in becoming an HR Happy Hour Podcast sponsor, please contact me at steve@h3hr.com.

#OutbackBowl pic.twitter.com/04hEnTKWjW

— Steve Boese (@SteveBoese) January 1, 2018

5. SMB - Not sure if anyone cares, but since I am more or less off of Facebook and Instagram, (no one cares about that I am sure), but I did have a great holiday break highlighted by a trip to the Tampa, Florida area where I watched my South Carolina Gamecocks defeat the University of Michigan 26-19 in the Outback Bowl. Great trip, great time, awesome experience. I had not been to a college football game in a long time, and the game brought back all that I used to enjoy about attending games at Williams-Brice Stadium in Carolina. Here's a health, Carolina, forever to thee.

That's it, I am out - I hope you have a fantastic 2018!

More on the employee caregiver challenge

Quick shot for a counting down the days before a long holiday break Wednesday. Today's New York Times ran a piece on the growing elder care challenges in the US and the disproportionate impact that elder care demands are placing on female workers. You can read the piece titled 'How Care For Elders, Not Children, Denies Women a Paycheck', here.

Two things of note from the piece, and then one plug for a recent HR Happy Hour Show we did on this topic in case you missed it.

One, the numbers and population demographics in the US are making the elder care situation a much greater issue in the last 15 years or so. One researcher estimates that currently there are about 21 million family members in the US who are caring for an adult relative (and not being paid for this care). He estimates that by 2040 this number will increase to around 34 million. So again, the elder care challenge/crisis is only going to increase.

Two, the responsibility for providing elder care tends to fall predominantly on women. The American Time Use Survey indicates that about a quarter of women aged 45 - 64 are providing some level of elder care. Other research points to decreases in labor force participation for women in this age cohort, a reduction in earnings and hours, and an overall decline in economic health and prosperity for these care givers. Finally, factor in elder relatives living longer, (and needing more long term care), smaller families (lessening the ability to rely on siblings to assist with care), and increased divorce rates, (often making the care giving burden much harder), and you can see that the elder care challenge is complex and real.

It is important that HR/workplace leaders are aware of these issues as they will continue to impact an increasing percent of American workers. I must admit to having not given the elder care issue much thought until a couple of months ago, when we welcomed Adam Goldberg, CEO and Founder of Torchlight to the HR Happy Hour Show. 

Torchlight is an outcomes focused, employee caregiver platform that helps reduce the costs and complexities of modern care giving for families and employers in the U.S. 

On the show, Adam talked about the growing challenge of care giving in the US, the situation where employees have significant responsibilities outside of work with childcare, elder care, and other care giving situations that require, time, attention, resources, and are a major source of life and work stress for employees.

I usually don't like to re-post older podcast episodes on the blog here, but after reading the NYT piece this morning, and thinking more about the importance of the issue, I thought it right to try and raise some additional awareness of the challenge and how one innovative company is helping employers and employees.

You can listen to the podcast with Adam here, on the widget player below, or on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Have a great day!

Code words for 'Get ready for some layoffs', ranked

Big news on the corporate M&A front announced this morning with the news that Disney has reached an agreement to acquire substantial portions of the Fox media empire (including Twentieth Century Fox film and TV studios, a bunch of cable and international TV businesses), for approximately $52.4B in Disney stock.

While most of the coverage I read and heard this morning focused on the business and content strategy implications of the deal (basically these assets strengthen and augment Disney's content inventory for their eventual direct to consumer streaming service which will compete with Netflix), less attention was given to the inevitable 'people' costs of these kinds of transactions. Namely, the almost certain reductions in headcounts from the newly combined (and larger) entity as execs look for ways to try and pay for the huge acquisition cost, and wring more profit and efficiency from the combined entity.

And the fun part (it is not really fun, I am being sarcastic), is that when the 'people' issues are discussed in these M&A deals the word 'layoffs' is never, ever used. No, we get other, less direct and more corporate-speak words and phrases that more or less try to mask what is really going to happen to a whole bunch of people that through no fault of their own become part of the costs (ironically savings to the corporation), of these transactions. This topic will always resonate with me because a few years back I was caught on the wrong side of one of these transactions myself.

In that light then, I present my unscientific, unresearched, incomplete, subjective, and 100% accurate ranking of 'Code words for 'Get ready for some layoffs''...

5. More than one appearance in a Press Release of any of the following words - 'Nimble', 'Optimize', 'Simplify', 'Align', ''Strategic', 'Targeted', (I could keep going but you get the idea). The key is the more corporate buzzwords you see, the more you need to worry.

4. 'Refocus', 'Restructure', or for a modern spin 'Pivot to (insert something slightly different from what the company has been doing here)' - The 'Pivot to' something else one is my new favorite. Somehow most corporations equate 'trying something new' with 'get rid or everyone who was doing the old thing'

3. 'Cost savings from efficiencies' - this phrase is actually used in the Disney-Fox press release. But be certain that most of these cost savings will come from the fact that the new entity won't need separate administrative and back office functions. Running payroll for 12,000 employees isn't that much more labor intensive than running it for 9,000 employees.

2.'Rightsizing' - Ever notice that getting the company sized 'right' always means 'making the company smaller?'

1. 'Synergies'- Any time 'synergies' are mentioned anywhere in the Press Release, time to polish up your LinkedIn profile 

Of course you could disagree with these rankings, but sadly, you would be wrong.

Happy Thursday. Hope you don't get M&A'ed before the holidays.

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 306 - New HR Tech: Connecting Employees with Trusted HR Pros

HR Happy Hour 306 - New HR Tech: Connecting Employees with Trusted HR Pros

Host: Steve Boese

Guests: Toby Hervey, Sarah Sheehan - Founders of Bravely

Listen to the show HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by Toby Hervey and Sarah Sheehan, Founders of Bravely, a new HR tech startup that connects employees with trusted HR pros to help them resolve workplace issues. 

On the show, Toby and Sarah shared the reasons behind their decision to launch Bravely -  workplace environments that are more stressed and with more conflict, with many employees feeling reluctant or afraid to bring their concerns to their boss, colleagues, or internal HR resources, and an ever changing and stressful set of conditions in many workplaces.

Based on their work experiences, Toby and Sarah decided to launch Bravely - a tech-powered platform that allows a company's employees to have confidential conversations and receive advice and input from experienced and neutral HR professionals in order to help employees work towards a solution to their workplace issues. As we all know, these often difficult conversations are hard for many employees to raise, and can be ones where they feel scared to even start. Working with Bravely's vetted and experienced pros and advisors, employees usually find a way to make progress, to get past the fear of having hard conversations, and resulting in a better outcome for both the employee and the company.

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

This is a really new, interesting, and important new tech, and I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

Learn more about Bravely at www.workbravely.com.

Thanks to show sponsor Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

And remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 305 - Workplace Movie Hall of Fame: 'Big'

HR Happy Hour 305 - Workplace Movie Hall of Fame - 'Big'

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Listen to the show HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, it is the return of the popular 'Workplace Movie Hall of Fame' series with a look at 1988's massive hit 'Big' starring Tom Hanks, America's 2nd most popular and acclaimed actor. 

On the show, Steve and Trish break down the workplace themes and issues that 'Big' explored - ideas of how young people think about work and careers, how incorporating new ideas and creative thinking from diverse sources almost always benefit workplaces, and how office politics and stodgy cultures can often get in the way of progress and innovation.

'Big' is mostly about the tension and conflict that arises from growing up and a huge part of growing up is finding your career calling and navigating the world of work. 'Big' offers the opportunity to think about modern work and workplaces and to think about what we all expected from work and careers when we were younger.

Additionally, Steve continued to pitch Tom Cruise as America's greatest actor, we discussed how willingness to adopt new technology has always been a great way to advance your career, and whether or not you need to say 'Spoiler Alert' when discussing plot points of a 30 year-old movie.

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

This was a fun show and we hope you think so too.

Thanks to HR Happy Hour Show sponsor Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com.

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts.