I have heard from at least three people in the past week who are afraid they may lose their job. Rumors fly round their companies, cuts are coming, productivity is down as people spend as much time on LinkedIn as on their work, motivation and engagement are so low they could slide under a sleeping snake without waking it. Lots of people are scared.

I’m scared that the service I get from these companies is going to suffer. Customer service comes from people and I am not confident that there will be enough people skilled in customer service to provide the quality service to which I’ve become accustomed. I love GoDaddy because the people I speak with there, and I always get a person not a recording, are like pit bulls with a bone. They will not let me off the phone or the chat until they are satisfied that I am satisfied. And they invariably follow up a day or so later to make sure the solution is working as I’d hoped. Please note that none of the people I’ve heard from work at GoDaddy and I’ve no reason to believe their customer service will flag.

Because they get it. The Wall Street Journal today said that customer service is the best PR a company can have. Because inevitably people talk about good customer service simply because it is so rare these days. (See, I just did it in the paragraph above!) Good customer service comes from good people who are secure in their abilities and the ability to do their jobs. Can you reasonably expect good service from someone who has seen 40% of her colleagues leave and is now doing the work of two or more people? I doubt it.

Cutting people is not a long term solution. Keeping customers is. Companies will retain customers through outstanding customer service that can only be achieved when there are enough people to get the job done right. And it costs way more to replace a customer than to retain one. Contrary to current thinking, cutting people cuts profits rather than make a lasting contribution to the bottom line. Senior leaders can’t afford such short term thinking.

What does my daughter, who graduates from college in 2012, have in common with my grandfather who arrived in this country exactly a century earlier? Looks like they’re both going to wind up working a few months for no pay at the start of their careers. Allow me to explain.

When my grandfather, a tailor, arrived here from Europe he set out to find work in a sweatshop. You may question his career choice, but this was about all he could hope for upon his arrival in America.  He was informed that in order to work in the shop he had to “buy” his machine. Not that he was going to get to keep it, but he was buying his seat at the machine. And the cost of this seat equaled exactly the amount they would pay him for his first three months in the shop. Questionable business practice? Probably. Illegal? Possibly. Immoral? No doubt about it. But he did it because he had no choice.

Fast forward a century and here comes my daughter with her newly minted BA from a well regarded university into an economy with an unemployment rate of over 13% for 20 to 24 year olds. Even though the percentage of students who have jobs lined up following graduation is expected to be higher this year than any of the past five, finding a job today, even with a college degree, will be daunting. According to an article that appeared in the NY Times, the competition for the most desirable positions may be so intense that the organizations feel they can simply dangle internships and still get some of the best talent. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/unpaid-internships-dont-always-deliver.html?pagewanted=1)

Internships used to be for undergrads. With profit margins so thin some organizations, even those that used to offer jobs to graduates, are offering three or six month internships as a means of reducing costs. And the promise of a position at the end of the internship, though not guaranteed, is too good to pass up.

So my daughter fills out applications, e-mails, tweets, and makes phone calls to prospective employers and those offering internships. Maybe if I tell her that she is carrying on a family tradition she’ll feel better about her situation. But I think this is a dangerous trend for businesses, to devalue the contributions of their potential future leaders and most importantly, their future customers.

Recently I saw a piece on Workforce.com (a wonderful site, IMHO) on “succession planning.” It was a thorough and well-thought out piece by Patricia Duarte that outlined the traditional definition and aspects of a succession planning process. It stated, “Succession planning is a systematic approach to professional development with the express purpose of ensuring that selected (typically senior) staff is trained, experienced and ready to assume future leadership positions. Succession planning also focuses on individual and team transition needs and effectively guides implementation.”

It went on to detail some of the phases of succession planning, and I’ll paraphrase them here:

1. Identify anticipated vacancies and resources for management and leadership.
2. Redefine management profiles to include competencies, success criteria and behavior traits.
3. Accurately assess the readiness of senior staff and middle managers to assume greater responsibilities.
4. Assess organizational culture and the leaders within.
5. Develop individualized training, development and mentoring opportunities to reduce gaps in skills and experience.
6. Focus on individual and team transition to ensure a successful transition and performance in the new or expanded roles.

Respectfully, Patricia may have defined “succession planning” but far more important today is “succession management”. This includes all the reactive (to the current situation) steps that Patricia ably outlines and goes further. Succession management includes determining what are the positions that do not yet exist that organizations need to prepare to fill. It’s been said that the jobs that students entering high school today will fill when they enter the workforce have not yet been invented. In that vein, we need to prepare staff at all levels, not just the managers, for the jobs they will need to be doing in the near future.

Succession management includes providing the support new managers need as they assume their role. We all know that too many people are promoted to managerial positions for their technical, not managerial, expertise. To ensure their success we need to see that their training continues after they are in the position so that we can continue to monitor and manage their succession through the organization.

At least that’s how I see it. How about you?
Only the best,
Ron

I recently saw a post on LinkedIn titled, “Three Things That Will Get You Hired”. Several of the responses talked about “getting around HR”, and how obstructionist HR can be.  One even questioned the validity of having people more skilled in downsizing and eliminations involved in hiring at all.  The fact that it is very often the same skill set involved, deciding who would be best for the job, aside, I continue to be perturbed by how HR is perceived by candidates and managers alike.

As a 20+ year HR veteran (recruiting, comp, training and employee relations) I always went out of my way to find ways to partner with the managers I supported and the candidates who would make them successful. Here’s a tip from the other side. If you see HR as an obstruction or incompetent, they will respond to you that way. As Goethe put it, “The way you see people is the way you treat people.  And the way you treat them is what they become.”

When you’re trying to get hired, you and HR have the same goal. You are both trying to fill a position with the best person. The HR person needs to get that position filled to satisfy the needs of their client (the manager) and you need to collaborate with HR if you want to have the opportunity convince HR that you are that person and get the job. If HR feels like you are trying to get around them, I guarantee that you will not. HR professionals are very skilled at deflecting candidates. Especially those whom they feel are trying to put something over on them. Work with HR, reach out to the hiring manager, use every LinkedIn connection you can find in the target company and make a concerted effort to get the job.

So I don’t have “Three Things That Will Get You Hired” but there’s a nugget that can help you at least get an interview.

There’s a new one!

Reductions in force (RIF’s), redundancies, restructuring, retrenching, reorganization, just about any word that starts with the letters “re” can strike terror into the hearts of employees.

And just when you thought that corporate America had exhausted all its creativity in how to describe cutting headcount we get a new one! “Minimizing Resource Utilization”. Who gets the prize for coming up with a new and antiseptic way to deny what’s really happening? The U.S. Federal government!

This phrase, ripped from the world of computers, reduces the human element even further. As if staff doesn’t see what’s really going on. Minimizing resource utilization means simply that the organization is utilizing less of a certain resource. Only in this case it’s the Human resource.

It seems simple enough. If you’re looking to cut costs, you attack your greatest expense. In some organizations human related expenses (real estate, heat, light, AC, phones, office supplies, not to mention the obvious salaries and benefits, if the company still offers benefits) can equal 60% of an organization’s outlay. In a knowledge or service organization, where there may not be a physical product it can be even higher.

But when will senior management realize, especially in the so-called knowledge industries, that their product is their people, their human resources? By minimizing this resource utilization you are also limiting profit capacity. And that’s something nobody wants to do.

All you have to sell is the brainpower and creativity of your people. The word minimize comes from the same Latin root as the word “diminish” and that’s what you will do to your organization if the first (and sometimes only) solution you have to improve your bottom line is to send people to the unemployment line. It is simply not a sustainable solution.

And here’s a  response I got to my first post on this topic.

“I agree with you. I dislike the term “Survivor” myself and do not believe it reflects the proper status of this population. Furthermore, it dulls the true meaning of the term.
I also recognize that people have different coping mechanisms and variable timelines for action and reaction. That being said, what can HR do to ensure the remaining workforce is still motivated to take on more work (volume) while at the same time bidding farewell to friends and a 9-5 schedule?”

Here are a few suggestions. Use the ones that fit your business.
– Allow time to “grieve”. People will have an emotional reaction, acknowledge it.
– Do not pretend that their friends and co-workers never existed.
– Never tell those remaining that they should be happy to have a job. They’re not happy right now. Grateful perhaps, but don’t tell them to be happy. Managers should be grateful they’re showing up every day and picking up the slack. Show them you’re grateful by doing whatever you can for them.
– Allow for lateral growth. Take advantage of this upheaval to move people around, but don’t do it without asking them.
– Talk to your people, find out what they’re interested in doing and if possible, let them do it.
and finally…
– Communicate with your staff. Speak honestly about what you’ve all gone through, staff, managers and HR. Re-focus everyone on the task at hand so the company can return to a growth rather than cutting mode. You can’t over-communicate at a time like this. One of the worst things management can do is hide away in their offices. This only feeds the “who’s next?” rumor mill.

Your thoughts?

Someone asked me, “Can you recommend a strategy for handling post-lay off morale initiatives for the “survivors”?”

Please, let’s stop calling them survivors. They are employees. I don’t claim that there aren’t morale issues for those remaining on the job after a layoff, but by calling them “survivors” we make two mistakes. First, we do a disservice to real survivors, like people who survived the killing fields in Cambodia in the 1970’s or those who survived Hurricane Katrina in 2006. Those are survivors. Second, by calling them survivors you are sending a subliminal message to the employees that the company did something bad to all those who were laid off. Let’s show respect for all classes of employees, those we keep and those who unfortunately are let go.

This is a personal peeve of mine (aren’t all peeves personal?). We need to be careful in the language we use.

And while we’re paying attention to morale issues, don’t forget to take care of the HR people who have to manage through all the layoffs. It takes its toll on us too!

There are a lot of things about HR that drive me crazy.

One is HR people whining about not getting appropriate amounts of respect. And then I see HR people doing things that I, as a fellow HR and business professional, couldn’t respect. Like not figuring out how what you’re doing affects the bottom line. Or being so ambiguous and unspecific about your contribution that it’s impossible to define or defend. Or taking the easy way out and not clarifying what it is you’re looking for in a job posting. Here’s an example.

I just saw an ad, written by a recruiter (at an agency) for a recruiter. Here are the required skills:

Skills/Qualifications:
Recruiting, Maintaining Employee Files, Building Relationships, People Skills, Organizational Astuteness, Verbal Communication, Listening, General Office Experience, Scheduling, Technical Understanding, Judgment

Can you believe this?

Can you imagine that you’d be asked to find someone with this skill set for any other job? Where are the specifics? Where is the connection to what the business is actually doing? Where are the outputs? This is nothing but a list of undefined activities and generic characteristics. I doubt that this recruiter would be this cavalier, even slipshod, when recruiting for any other function. But when it comes to HR, well, they just need to be a good listener with good judgement. And it doesn’t even say “good judgment”, it merely says “Judgment”. Why not just say you’re looking for a “people person”?

How can anyone in HR expect to be taken seriously if we don’t show the same amount of professionalism when recruiting for our own function. You want to earn that coveted “seat at the table?” Well you’re not going to earn it if you behave the way this person did.

Make sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing every step of the way.
Make sure that your contribution is aligned with the bottom line of the organization.
Make sure senior management knows and understands what you’re doing that supports and advances the business.

That’s how you change the perception of HR from a “cost center” to a “profit center”.

Once and for all, “HR Professional” is not an oxymoron.

I’m passionate about HR and the contribution we make to the bottom line of the organizations of which we’re a part. The future of HR is limitless. So long as there are jobs, there will be people needed to do them. Our future is to understand and define the intersection of people, the work that needs to be done and how people are placed and managed in the jobs they do.  People, not things, technology, or buildings (which are more and more becoming monuments to how work used to get done) are the key to a successful future. And HR is the key to the people. We just need to keep our eye on how work is evolving to remain relevant in the workplace of the future.

I’m a trainer, speaker, author (Someone’s Gonna Get Hired…it Might As Well Be You!, PHRC publisher) and consultant. My specific areas of expertise are performance motivation and management, staffing, and creating a respectful workplace through minimizing workplace harassment.

My plan is to write about work, and the people who do it, from all aspects. The manager responsible for seeing that the work gets done; the employees who are on the line everyday, whether it is the assembly line, the customer service line, or the checkout line at the store; and the applicant looking to get a job and show what she can do. Human resources departments face all three and must understand the challenges, eccentricities, and wonderment of each. I’m an optimist. I think life can be wonderful. I think work can be wonderful. And I see no reason that the two can’t and won’t intersect.