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    Entries in Human Resources (86)

    Thursday
    Aug062015

    This is why we can't have nice things (HR and Talent Edition)

    If you follow the news, particularly the news relevant to the workplace, HR, and Talent Management, you probably caught a couple of recent stories that have been pretty widely reported, circulated, and dissected.

    One having to do with compensation - Gravity Payments Raising Minimum Salary to $70,000

    And the second, a straight up benefits story - Netflix To Offer Unlimited Parental Leave

    Both of these stories, one about how one company is raising its minimum salary to a pretty high level compared to local and national statutory minimum wage requirements, and the next, about how another large US company is extending and enhancing a much-needed employee benefit (parental leave), were initially met with positive or at least neutral reactions.

    But then, predictably, the backlash and criticism of both of these policy changes, and from a wide assortment of commentators began.

    The decision by the Gravity Payments CEO to raise his company's minimum annual salary to $70,000 was the easier mark. Outlets from the New York Times all the way to the site I contribute to Fistful of Talent, took apart the Gravity plans. Unworkable, unaffordable, unfair to top performers - the list of holes that were poked in the Gravity plan are too long to recount. 

    Netflix' decision to extend parental leave to an unlimited amount for an entire year has been met with relatively less criticism, but at least one major publication, the Washington Post wasted little time in alerting the rest of us that in fact Netfilx' innovative policy was likely "a bad idea for your company."

    Whether it is these recent stories from Gravity and Netflix, or older and more familiar stories about novel, innovative, and worker-friendly policies from companies like Zappos or Google, there is always one element they have in common. No matter what the specific issue is, (increases in pay, enhanced benefits, more worker autonomy, etc.), once the news makes the rounds almost immediately thereafter commences the chorus of commentary that strikes a familiar, and tired, refrain. 

    And these critiques are always the same. They are always some combination of 'This is a terrible idea/bad Talent Management' along with its corollary 'Sure, this might work in Silicon Valley, but it will never work for you'.

    And I have to say I find that pretty depressing. 

    Why do we have to immediately and forcefully look to take down or at least diminish the significance and importance of new ideas that are clearly intended to improve work, workplaces, and the lives of workers?

    Why do we instinctively look to marginalize the significance of any employee welfare improvement initiative that comes out of some Silicon Valley tech firm as something that could only work in that progressive environment, and not at any 'grown up' company?

    Why do so many HR and Talent folks immediately look to identify why they can't look to follow some of these leading organizations like Netflix and Google and the like, instead of admitting that they might be able to learn/steal from their ideas?

    Look, I understand the arguments knocking the compensation plan that Gravity is trying to implement, and the realities of costs and budgets that make offering up to a year of paid parental leave hard if not impossible for many companies to copy. The criticisms are often valid and well-reasoned.

    But the problem is that they usually just try to shut down the conversation, and don't offer any insights into how these modern, innovative, (and certainly outlier) ideas can be adapted to work in a more mainstream and widespread way. Instead of saying something like 'You can never copy what Netflix is doing', how about we try 'You may not be able to do exactly what Netflix is doing, but here are some ideas on how you can leverage these ideas in your shop'.

    But instead we almost overwhelmingly react negatively. As if raising the minimum salary in an organization to $70,000 is an abomination, and giving new parents unlimited leave for a year are concepts that if adopted in the mainstream would somehow crack the foundations of modern business, and of HR/Talent Management. As if somehow these ideas threaten us.

    What are we afraid of, really?

    Thursday
    Jul232015

    PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 217 - The HR Round Table - Part 2

    HR Happy Hour 217 - The HR Round Table with Hebert and Brennan, Part 2

    Recorded July 9, 2015

    Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese

    Guests: Paul Hebert and Sarah Brennan

    LISTEN HERE

    This week on the show, Trish sat down for a HR RoundTable with Paul Hebert and Sarah Brennan.  With Paul's expertise in reward and recognition and Sarah's expertise in HCM technology and research, we had a lively discussion around emerging research in the Talent Acquisition space, thoughts on the recent LinkedIn hack-a-thon, and where reward and recognition fits into the organization of today.

    You can listen to Part 2 of the show on the show page here, or using the widget player below:

    Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

     

    And in case you missed it, Part 1 of the Episode can be found here.

    And of course you can listen to and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or via your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to download and subscribe to the show and you will never miss a new episode.

    The show was so lively that we had to record two episodes to fit it all in!  Please be sure to listen to both Part 1 and Part 2 of the HR Round Table episode. It was a fun show and great to have two guest hosts while Steve was out-and-about in China preparing for HR Tech China!

    Have a great day!

    Thursday
    Jun112015

    PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 215 - Operation Rob Lowe

    HR Happy Hour 215 - Operation Rob Lowe

    Recorded Wednesday June 10, 2015 at the Globoforce WorkHuman Conference

    Hosts: Steve BoeseTrish McFarlane

    LISTEN HERE

    This week on the show Steve and Trish recorded the HR Happy Hour Show live at the first ever Globoforce WorkHuman Conference in Orlando, Florida. The event was definitely fun, definitely interesting, and definitely different, as it was much less about any specific technology but rather about work, workplaces and people's relationships with work and their colleagues.

    From Improv sessions, to TED-style talks, to what was a (surprisingly to me anyway), really engaging and energetic keynote from actor Rob Lowe - this event left Steve and Trish with plenty to discuss. 

    So tune in to the show to hear Steve accuse IBM of stealing his 'Culture-Strategy-Talent Triangle' concept, Trish then agree with Steve and then reverse the heat and disagree with him at the end, and what Rob Lowe had to say about the secret to building great work teams. Hint: It was more about 'Talent' than culture or strategy.

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

    Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio
     

     

    And of course you can listen to and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or via your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to download and subscribe to the show and you will never miss a new episode.

    This was a fun show and a fun event. Many thanks to the folks at Globoforce for having us at the event and definitely check out something from the Rob Lowe filmography this weekend.

    Wednesday
    Jun102015

    HRE Column: On Recruiting and the Technology Transformation

    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 that can be found here.

    I kind of liked this month's column, (I suppose I like all of them, after all I wrote them), but felt like sharing this one on the blog because it touches upon what has been in the past a pretty popular topic with readers here - the kinds of transformations that organizations can drive via the application of modern HR technologies.

    Here is an excerpt from the column, The Recruiting Technology Transformation:

    Technology continues to fundamentally transform how, where and when work gets done, and the ways that HR leaders can drive improved business performance. In the HR tech world, recruiting technology is helping to drive that transformation and is making the recruiting function perhaps the most transformed of all HR disciplines.

    This phenomenon was on display at a recent event I attended, HireVue’s Digital Disruption in Park City, Utah. At the event, numerous HireVue customers—spanning a wide variety of industries, including banking and finance, airlines, publishing and national retail chains—shared how technology has impacted and, in some cases, radically altered their talent-acquisition efforts.

    Just a few of the examples from the event reveal the potential benefits of adopting modern talent-acquisition technologies for organizations of all types and sizes:

    Educational and general-purpose publishing company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt adopted a three-pronged approach to improving its ability to identify, engage and hire inside sales staff. That approach resulted in increased quality of hire, faster time to fill their open sales roles and improved business results, which were measured in how many new sales-team members were attained.

    By redesigning the process to better identify the candidates most likely to succeed through a combination of a statistically validated online assessment, video interviews that replaced the former recruiter phone screens and consistently applied behavioral-interviewing techniques for the candidates who passed the assessment and video screen, HMH was able to show top-line and bottom-line ROI.

    The general lesson from this story is this: Applying modern tools and technologies to the talent-acquisition process, particularly for revenue-generating roles, provides HR and recruiting leaders with one of the best ways to help drive organizational results. In this example, HR could show how it was a significant contributor to sales and profits, and not just an administrative cost center....

    Read the rest over at HRE Online

    Good stuff, right? Humor me...

    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 wash your car or cut the grass for you if you do sign up for the monthly email.

    Have a great Wednesday!

    Tuesday
    Jun022015

    CHART OF THE DAY: Which job candidate gets the most attention from hiring managers?

    Quick answer - It is Candidate #4.

    Some back story on that conclusion...

    Recently researchers at Old Dominion University published a study called 'How quickly do interviewers reach decisions? An examination of interviewers' decision-making time across applicants' in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. They found that hiring manager decision-making takes closer to five minutes for the first interviewee, and reaches closer to eight minutes by the fourth applicant. After this, however, the time hiring managers take to reach a decision begins to decrease with each additional interview.

    Here's a chart from the study:

    From the researcher's conclusions on this data:

    Interviewers tend to take longer to evaluate applicants near the beginning of their interview schedule and take less time to evaluate applicants near the end of their schedule. This may prevent applicants who appear later in the schedule from having a full opportunity to perform. Organizations may benefit from limiting the number of interviews an interviewer conducts in immediate succession to around four, which may decrease reliance on more automatic information processing strategies.

    What conclusions can we draw from this data, and what changes might we need to consider to make sure we are not falling into the 'Candidate #4' trap?

    Well, the first step is just being aware of this potential tendency. If you have to set up an interviewer or a hiring manager for a day-long set of candidate interviews, make sure you schedule some breaks such that they are not seeing a dozen people in a three-hour block. Chances are everyone after Candidate #4 are not getting a fair look, and we are wasting hiring manager time as well. 

    Next, if you are brining in a smaller set of short listed candidates for a second round of interviews, don't slate them in the same order with every interviewer they have to meet. Mix up the order across the interviewing team to try and reduce the effects of 'interview fatigue' adversely impacting any single candidate.

    And last, keeping this data in mind should make us be more careful about tracking more data around interviewing and interviewers - how much time they spend per candidate, how much does the 'Candidate #4' efffect exist in the organization, and how can we use data on these processes to get better.

    Data is our friend. Use wisely.