I listened to a presentation recently about HR succession management. The main thrust of it was that while HR makes sure everyone else in the organization was carefully planning the future leadership of the organization, HR was singular in its lack of planning. Seems that while HR made everyone else do it, no one made HR do it and as a result barely more than a third of top HR people (CHRO’s) were promoted internally to that lofty position. The presenters were going to tell us why.

They pointed at all the things necessary for someone to be ready to take the reins at the top of HR. Breadth of HR knowledge, understanding of the various lines of business, solid relationships across and throughout the organization. And their conclusion was that it takes seven to ten years to properly groom a successor to the top position in HR.

Excuse me? Now I’ll agree with their premise that this is not something that can be done in 12 to 18 months, but seven to ten YEARS? And that’s the reason they gave for the lack of HR succession planning. That it took so long.

How about this. Maybe no one wants to sign on to wait that long to take on a serious senior strategic role? I’m not denying that there’s a lot to learn but what do those other two thirds of the companies do when they need a new CHRO? They go out and hire one. I’ll venture that as long as people believe it takes close to a decade to be prepared for this job that we aren’t going to see people flocking to the opportunity. How many people currently working in any job are certain that they’ll still be working for that company in ten years? How many are certain their companies will even exist?

As long as we accept the belief that seven to ten years are required to develop a CHRO we aren’t going to see a whole lot of internal promotions. Further, organizations don’t have enough respect for our function to invest in seven to ten years worth of development. It’s easier, and maybe more cost effective, to just go out and buy one.

We’re not so special in HR that it takes so long to develop a senior or superior level of expertise worthy of the C suite. We need to do all the things the presenters mentioned, but we need to do it quicker. We need to show a greater agility. The idea that an organization will take someone with perhaps ten years with the organization and say, “Now we’re going to start an eight year grooming process should we possibly need you to be our next CHRO” is out of step with the way business is done today. It’s so last century.

The last bullet on the presenters’ last slide suggested that to promote more internal succession to CHRO we might consider “Tightening the development cycle.” Ya think?

I was recently interviewed on ERE.net about the intersection of hiring and spirituality. Seems when Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, spoke with the media about hiring Tebow, he cited Tebow’s well-known spirituality as one of the motivations to hire him. The clip is only about ten minutes, see what you think and share your thoughts.

http://www.ere.net/2013/06/25/youre-religious-youre-hired/

Only the best,
Ron

Welcome to possibly the best educated class ever to march to “Pomp and Circumstance”! Are you ready for them? Better question may be, are they ready to work?

This is the first class that completed their university years entirely during the current economic condition. One would think they’d hit the ground running, rarin’ to jumpstart those careers. Surprisingly, a survey conducted by Achievers and ConnectEDU (http://www.achievers.com/resource/whitepaper/class-of-2013) found that fully 46% of this class has never held a full time job. About 10% has never even held a part time job (I guess it was all those music lessons and soccer practices). And 41% have never had an internship. So how prepared are they to assume positions in the workforce. Part of me says woefully so. Yet they are wildly optimistic about their prospects. Over two-thirds are confident that they will be able to find jobs in their field. Only 5% want to work in large firms (more than 5,000 employees) and fully 80% of them expect that they will receive lots of immediate feedback on their performance. Both they and their managers are in for a rude awakening.

Because they will not find that securing a job is as easy as they expect, and they will not get nearly as much hand-holding or feedback as they might like. On the other hand, I pity the manager that does not look at the expectations of the emerging workforce and adapt the way they run their shop. This is not a workforce that believes in or will tolerate a pure “command & control” workplace. They have voices and they expect to use them. Managers will do themselves and their organizations a big favor by paying attention to the expectations of the class of 2013. Our and their future depend on finding a path that meets the needs of both.

Welcome Class of 2013, it’s time to get to work!
Only the best,
Ron

Just when you thought the situation for job seekers couldn’t get any worse, a new wrinkle appears. It seems that BeautifulPeople.com, an online dating service, has decided to expand their services and offer what it thinks employers are clamoring for.

Beautiful employees. Not necessarily skilled or talented, just beautiful. Now I’m not saying that beautiful people can’t be or aren’t talented or skilled. Just look at that handsome mug at the top of my blog page! But seriously, since when did looks become a valid selection criteria? Here’s a link to an article about this new phenomenon:
http://www.hrhero.com/hl/articles/2013/06/14/pretty-or-plain-what-matters-when-employers-evaluate-jobseekers/?utm_source=HRHero&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=HeroLine

It seems that there is an unspoken, anecdotal belief that companies hire on looks and prefer to hire people who are deemed beautiful by today’s standards. Now there may even be some truth to this but to come right out and say that you are providing businesses with a service by making it easier for them to hire so-called beautiful people to help their bottom line? Let’s not even get into the potential ADA implications, but can a company seriously defend their hiring practices by saying they hired the person they thought was hotter?

I hope you are as angered by this practice as I am. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen. It’s been happening since the first manager chased a secretary around a desk. But we don’t have to condone it. Personally, if I found that a company was using the BeautifulPeople jobs portal as their sole sourcing and recruiting pool, I’d think about taking my business elsewhere.

Comments? Responses? Pitchforks and burning torches? Let’s hear ’em!
Only the best,
Ron

Economists project that we need approximately 165,000 jobs created every month to keep the unemployment rate stable. In May there were more than 165K jobs created, but the rate went up. Some months there are less and the rate goes down.

But as one friend put it, “If I’m out of a job,
the unemployment rate is 100%.”

And that’s the real unemployment rate.

There’s a saying that if you’re out of a job it’s a recession, but if I’m out of a job it’s a depression. The bottom line is that unemployment is personal.

The May unemployment numbers came out on Friday. 175,000 jobs were created, slightly better than projected. The unemployment rate crept up from 7.5% to 7.6%.

We need a steady 225K jobs a month for six months to a year to start to make a dent. But even if hiring was steadily 50,000+ over what we need to maintain the rate, that would reduce the number of unemployed people by less than a million. It’s almost like the rate doesn’t mean anything anymore.

There are still almost 12 million people out there who are under or unemployed. Not 12 million unemployed — 12 million individuals who don’t have a job and want one. It doesn’t help to brand people with a label because lately it seems that “unemployed” quickly translates to “unemployable.”

Companies from Apple to Zappos have come up with creative strategies to find people and get them back to work. Einstein allegedly said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” We need to identify not just best practices, but next practices. The next big idea to get hiring going. Companies must realize that they can no longer improve their bottom line by simply cutting headcount. The key to sustainable success is getting the right people in the right jobs. Then we’ll be on our way.

Only the best
Ron

Did you find HR or did HR find you?

It’s an interesting field we’re in and this is a question I like to ask HR people. How the heck did we wind up here in the first place? I like to say that I found HR. I was managing a department for a non-profit organization and considering the salary I felt like a non-profit myself. So I did an analysis of every aspect of my job (not even realizing that this was a very HR-like activity) and found that all the parts of the job I liked fell under an umbrella called human resources. Before I started this process I don’t think I even knew there was such a field. But I did my own recruiting and training for the department, handled whatever issues arose among the team, restructured responsibilities according to people’s abilities, and did the occasional termination. I was an HR person before I even knew it. So I went back to school to complete the transition and twenty-five years later, here I am.

I’ve met a lot of other people who seemed to have fallen, meandered, or been pushed into HR because of what was going on in their organization. There was the accountant who was as good with people as she was with numbers so when the HR Manager at her firm left they told her she was now running that department along with her own. I know a couple of office managers who, as their organizations grew, morphed into HR positions simply because they knew everyone and had processed everyone’s paperwork. Admin assistants have managed this same trick, often via benefits because they’re the ones who helped everyone fill out the forms.

The path to HR is not cut and dried. It’s certainly evolved from the days when all Personnel had to do was make sure that everyone got paid on time and there was plenty of cold beer and watermelon at the company picnic. Our profession has gotten more specialized yet it sometimes seems that there are as many ways to become an HR professional as there are HR professionals. More and more people study human resources in college or graduate school and certification is both a path and a goal. And yet at conferences I still meet a lot of people who say, “I never planned to be in HR.”

So how did you wind up in HR? Please share your story below because there’s a lot we can learn from each other’s journey.

Only the best,
Ron

Apparently some people do. Okay, lots of people do. But some people are of the opinion that they shouldn’t have to stand in line and have found a way around it. Apparently there is a tour service that will allow you to hire a person with a disability to be your “guide” at Disney. A person with a disability is given speedy if not immediate access to the attractions and will not be required to stand on lines that as we all know can stretch for hours for the most popular rides. And each person with a disability can bring in up to six additional guests with them.

Access to this service, offered by Dream Tours, has been shared person to person amongst those able to afford over $1,000 a day for a guide. When someone contacted Dream Tours to hire a “Tour Concierge” they were asked who referred them. “This is how the 1% does Disney,” is what one rich mom was heard to say. You can read more about the story here:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/disney_world_srich_kid_outrage_zTBA0xrvZRkIVc1zItXGDP?utm_source=SFnewyorkpost&utm_medium=SFnewyorkpost

So what’s all this got to do with human resources? Well, besides the fact that it is wrong and unethical on so many levels, it’s also a sad commentary on the plight of people with disabilities and the fact that it is still tremendously difficult for a qualified candidate with a disability to get a job. People who are able to navigate Disney for eight hours are only being employed to take advantage of their disability. Think about the skills this person must have. Customer service and role-playing skills to get along with and be able to “integrate” into a family for a day. Discretion so as to not give away the deceit. A good memory to store all the knowledge about the various parks. Stamina. Friendliness. A willingness to listen to “It’s a Small World” countless times. And yet at it’s worst, when I think about this scenario, someone being asked to provide a service to a client simply because of who they are or what they have to offer, it borders on prostitution.

It’s a sad commentary that someone thought up this idea. It disgusts me that people with means are willing to use their financial resources to do this. But most of all, I am saddened and disturbed by the fact that employment opportunities for qualified people with disabilities are still so slim that this is all some people think they are good for.

Please pardon my rant, thanks for listening, I welcome your comments.
Only the best,
Ron

Okay, let me start off by saying that I’m not saying he’s wrong. Or that I’m smarter than Ken Blanchard. I was reading what he says about the Four Pillars of Trust (being Able,  Believable, Connected and Dependable) and it got me thinking that he’d overlooked one thing, and that’s the interplay of the four.

These are clearly four keys to establishing trust, or credibility, with your workforce, your clients, your family. But these are not static and depending on what’s going on in your workplace or home you will find that you may need to emphasize one over the other. Please notice that I said emphasize, which means that you never eliminate any one of the four. Ignoring any one of these for even as little as a day or an hour could have a much longer-term impact on your trustworthiness.

So I’m going to add an EF to Ken’s ABCD. Effective Flexibility. This doesn’t mean you stretch your believability, or make excuses for your dependability. It means having the awareness to recognize which of the four pillars will do the most to effectively strengthen your credibility. If you need to step in and do the job yourself, being Able will garner the most trust. If it’s a matter of knowing who to contact to get the job done, then it’s your Connectedness. If it’s a matter of keeping your word and delivering the way you said you would, your Dependability leads the way. A lot of this clearly depends on your goal at the moment, and the needs of the people with whom you’re working. Being Effectively Flexible will help you maximize your trustworthiness as you develop Ken’s Four Pillars.

If you’d like to read Ken’s piece on trust that appeared in Chief Learning Officer magazine, here’s the link: http://clomedia.com/articles/view/the-four-pillars-of-trust

I saw a piece that started, “Negative Feedback hurts.”

I’ve always been of the opinion that there is no such thing as “negative feedback.” The speaker may be telling me something I don’t care to hear or disagree with but the fact that the person is telling me these things is a gift. If it’s my manager, she’s doing her job and while nobody likes hearing where they may have fallen short or need to improve, I need to consider this as Constructive Feedback and say, “Thank you” and determine how to use this gift.

If I decide that the feedback is “negative”, it’s too easy for me to ignore. If someone is being malicious, okay, that’s slander or gossip, not feedback. Feedback is meant to improve or at least contribute to the improvement.

When someone offers you feedback, will you be willing and ready to accept the gift? I hope so, because they’re doing you a favor. As Ben Franklin said, “Love your enemies for they shall tell you all your faults.”

Only the best,
Ron

Well, not exactly. A recent study at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that men raised in a single parent household led by their mother were at a particular disadvantage in terms of education and employment. Studies have shown that these men were less likely to have attended and completed college, therefore putting them at a distinct disadvantage in a job market that increasingly demands that employees have at least a bachelor’s degree and often more.

The impact of less education and therefore lower level jobs becomes a vicious and repeating cycle. There is substantial disagreement on whether  the reduced fortunes of men raised in single parent households is causal or casual, but additional study on the impact is underway. The declining prospects for men in the workplace, the past several years are often referred to as a “man-cession,” is one of the most puzzling and disturbing recent trends.

Here’s a link to the full article as it appeared in the NY Times:
Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/business/economy/as-men-lose-economic-ground-clues-in-the-family.html?emc=eta1