You had me at "Almost no email"

I had come across a few pieces about the tech company Glitch, (formerly Fog Creek Software, one of the most innovative tech companies of the last two decades), but until recently had never actually explored around their site to try and see what was so unusual and refreshing about their approach to openness and transparency.

While their Employee Handbook has been the usual focus of articles that talk about just how different Glitch is, I found myself absolutely stunned into silence (and admiration) for this the paragraph below, buried as bullet point number three in a section called 'Working at Glitch'. And here is it: 

• Almost no email. Most people at Glitch get fewer than a dozen email messages in a week from their coworkers. We use email for especially urgent company-wide alerts, and to work with people at other companies. For ordinary chat, we prefer to use Slack, and for lengthier conversations, we write out our ideas in full and share them for feedback and comment. It's common for people to come to work in the morning at Glitch and have no new emails in their inbox, and Inbox Zero is common enough that nobody even talks about it

I know, I know what you are saying - our company isn't a small, tech company and we can't operate on just a handful of emails per day. We have too many things going on, too many moving parts, too many people we have to deal with on a regular basis to ever function in the way Glitch seems to function. Besides, if 273 emails not sent just turn into the same number, if not more, pings on Slack, then what is the difference. Fair point.

But the other fair point I think, and one that is doubled-down on in the next 'Working at Glitch' bullet point titled 'We Respect Working Hours', is that Glitch has seemed to recognize that a barrage or onslaught of electronic messaging that you are expected to remain on top of all day long (and all night and weekend long too), is probably not the best way to create an inspired, engaged, and productive workforce.

It's so easy to default back to the way we have always done things, the way we are conditioned to do things. I would guess that at least some portion of the team over at Glitch arrived there from some other workplace where 24/7 connection and hundreds of emails per day were the norms. But I would also guess that many of these same people now can't imagine going back to that kind of an environment. Good luck, by the way, cold-calling someone like that and luring them back to the dark side.

Over time, and especially when things get really busy, I more and more send an email or a text almost begging that we stop emailing each other and just get on the phone. I am not sure all this email is doing us and our workforces the service it once did, back when we really thought for moment or too about sending the email in the first place.

There are lots of other interesting ideas over at the Glitch careers site. I recommend checking it out. If only to dream 'What if?' for a few moments.

Have a great day!

CHART OF THE DAY: The World's Most Valuable Brands

Happy last-day-of the-month Monday!

Quick shot for kicking off a busy summer week. Courtesy of our pals at Visual Capitalist, let's take a look at the list of the corporations owning the world's most valuable brands:

The 'brand value' methodology is referenced on the infographic above, but the essential element is that it it is the intangible asset that exists in the minds of consumers, which is usually an image forged over time through exposure to branding, ads, publicity, and other types of personal experiences. Attaching a dollar value to this intangible asset is perhaps more art than science, but while the specific dollar values can be debated, it probably can't be debated that there is at least some value to the brand.

So while the top companies for brand value are likely the ones that you'd expect, after I saw this chart I couldn't help noticing that these companies also seem to be the ones that show up on the various 'Best or Top of Most Awesome Companies to Work For' lists that float around on the internet.

Take a look at just one example, from our friends at LinkedIn, on the '40 Most Attractive Companies in the World' (according to LinkedIn)

I cut the Top 40 List off at 7 due to space concerns and also because that is all I needed to make my point

Hey, what a surprise! The Top 5 Global Brands in terms of value, (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook), all show up inside the Top 7 of the LinkedIn 'attractiveness' list.

And you'd find similar kinds of results on most of the other types of 'Best Places' lists - they are dominated by these mega-tech brands that make the coolest products, have the most incredible corporate campuses, and often are led by influential and charismatic leaders.

All of this to make the point you already know - the thing we like to call 'employer brand' is inextricably tied up in what most people will call the consumer or public brand. The most powerful, valuable, and well-known consumer brands have such an advantage in the employer brand category that it is almost laughable.

If you are one of the companies on the 'most valuable' list, congrats, things are always going to be easier for you to attract and recruit. If you are not one of those global, mega-brands, you have to know you are starting any competition for talent at a disadvantage. 

Some brands have all the luck, I guess.

Have a great week!

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 275 - Employer Branding on a Global Scale at GE

HR Happy Hour 275 - Employer Branding on a Global Scale at GE

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Shaunda Zilich, Global Employer Brand Leader, GE

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, hosts Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane are joined by Shaunda Zilich, Global Employment Brand Leader for GE to talk about employer branding, recruitment marketing, and working with employees and the marketing staff to achieve employer branding goals. 

Shaunda shared some key insights about GE's approach to employer branding, how to engage employees, hiring managers, and business leaders to help spread important employer brand messages, and to best position GE as well as communicate, support and align with business strategy. She also shares some ideas about how to get employer branding and recruitment marketing programs off and running, even with limited, (or maybe even no) budget, staff, or resources.

You can learn more about GE at www.ge.com/careers where you can learn about GE's new initiative to place 20,000 women in technical roles.

We also chatted about bourbon, snowstorms, and Trish and Shaunda both shared some incredibly important news of their respective company's recent announcements with the NBA. This is HUGE news (definitely to Steve anyway).

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

This was a fun and interesting show, thanks so much to Shaunda for joining us!

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and all the podcast apps - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.

Best of 2015: By the time you catch Google, it may already be too late

NOTE: As 2015 winds down, so will 'regular' posts on the blog. For the next two weeks, I will be posting what I thought were the most interesting pieces I published in 2015. These were not necessarily the most popular or most shared, just the ones I think were most representative of the year in HR, HR Tech, workplaces, and basketball. Hope you enjoy looking back on the year and as always, thanks for reading in 2015.

Next up a piece from April, on how chasing 'Best/Top/Most Awesome Places to Work companies like Google is a tough game to play.

By the time you catch Google as a 'Top Place to Work', it may already be too late

Here's a quick note of caution for any employers chasing 'Top' of 'Best' of 'Most Amazingly Fantastic' organizations to work for lists - the kinds of lists that are almost always topped by legendary companies like Google, courtesy of a recent piece on Business Insider titled In terms of 'prestige', Google is now a 'tier-two' employer, says recent Comp-Sci grad.

A quick excerpt from the piece, then some comments from yours truly, (it is my blog after all):

When Google offered a recent grad from a top CS program a job, the new grad said no.

That despite monthly compensation of $9,000, including a housing stipend.

Why?

In an email, the engineer gave us four reasons:

• "Lower pay after tax. Housing stipend is taxed more, and several places pay more than Google. That being said, Google is still very competitive. Google's full time offer is very average (105k starting salary) and the best startups pay more."
• "Less interesting work. It's a large tech company. The impact I'd have is minimal."
• "Lower prestige. Outside of tech, and maybe within average CS students, Google is the place to go if you're one of the smartest engineers. However, within top CS students, it's not considered that great. Probably tier two in terms of prestige and difficulty to get an internship. I have lots of friends barely passing their CS courses that are interning there. Saying you intern at Google just doesn't get you that much respect."
• "Less upside. For full time specifically, you get equity at a startup. If it IPOs, you make millions if you're one of the first 100-1000 employees.

Lots to take in there but the gist is pretty clear - at least according to this Comp-Sci grad, even one of the most highly lauded top companies in the world isn't immune to being 'topped' by competitors for the best, most sought after kinds of talent. If Google, with it's history, success, mythos, and bucketfuls of cash is getting beat out (at least in the perceptions) of top recruits, it reminds everyone that while chasing companies like Google might seem like a great strategy, it eventually is a failing one, since Google can't even keep up with Google, if that makes sense.

But there is also one other nugget in that quote worth teasing out a little and that is the way this Comp-Sci grad talks about how he and his peers think about and talk about companies and workplaces. From the quote, there definitely seems to be an odd kind of peer pressure and one-upmanship going on with these recent grads. The desire not just to get a great offer and work on great tech and projects but to be able to brag to the other kids in Comp-Sci is pretty high on the list of desires for this group.

Interesting stuff it seems to me, and a great reminder that no one, not even Google, is immune to competition, changing values, and the need to constantly be moving forward and re-inventing their value proposition in order to keep their lofty status on whichever 'Wonderful' Place to Work list you subscribe to.

Have a great weekend!

Technology, process, or message - which one should come first? #OOW15

I am out at Oracle Open World for a couple of days this week and have been reminded (in a good way) of just how massive both this event is and the breadth and depth of the technologies and applications that fall under the Oracle banner. This event is really more like 10 events in one, with all the various technologies and application domains, (sales, marketing, finance, HCM, etc.), all having their own segments, content, and dedicated demonstration areas. It is just a huge event.

One interesting nugget from my first day out at Open World was an observation that was made in a session I attended called 'Connect Sourcing, Recruiting, and Onboarding for Better Not Just More Candidates', that was given by Ann Blakely and Jim Fox from the consulting/advisory firm BakerTilly. It was a solid session with many smart and practical steps that organizations can take to better design, optimize and rationalize the steps in a classic talent acquisition process flow.

But to me the most interesting aspect of the talk was the way that the typical 'People/Process/Technology' relationship was described. Typically, and in most of the 3,490 times I have seen someone discuss the concept, the importance of aligning each element (people, process, and technology), and making sure that each one individually is given adequate attention and resources, each one is treated more or less equally. In a nutshell, people, process, and technology are all kind of viewed as the same, or equal elements or sides in some kind of HR tech equilateral triangle. 

Which is cool, or at least better than the classic mistake of leading with technology or becoming a slave to pre-existing (and often inefficient) processes at the expense of the other elements. Usually no one seems to make the 'mistake' of placing too much value or emphasis on the people side of the triangle, which is both odd and illustrative I guess.

But to get back to the presentation yesterday which was fully in the context of improving the overall talent acqusition function, the speakers looked at the 'people' side of the classic 'People/Process/Technology' triangle and instead referred to it as 'Message.' But more importantly than just the semantic change, the speakers emphasized that in talent acquisition the 'message' itself - the Employer Value Proposition, the brand values, the ways in which the company wants to portray and position itself in the talent market, all of these things, that the message should more of less define the processes and then lead you to finding and deploying the right technology.

It was more or less, a call to lead with 'people' as opposed to lead with one of other sides of the triangle, (which we know never really works out), or even to treat them all at least conceptually equally. Figure out the message, essentially who you are, what you stand for, what you truly believe are the core values that will make you an attractive employer, and build everything else out and up from there.

It was a cool idea, and one that for me, I know I have not heard advocated much in the past, maybe not at all.

Let the 'people' and the message drive how you design the processes and how/where/what technology will be leveraged to support it all. I am coming to think more and more that HR tech and tools that put 'people' first will be the ones that win in the long run....

Like I said, a really cool idea shared in one small room of a massive event.

Have a great Wednesday!