Quality Character = Quality HR

Last week I wrote a post about crappy HR. It could have been construed as a rant. I didn’t write it to rant but I could see where someone might get that impression. Fast forward to later that day, post publication when I got this Tweet:

Stuart brings up a good point. One that hit home with me because I realized I have spent more than one or two of my previous blog posts complaining about HR, which is not what I intend to do (on a regular basis) on this blog.

Having spent a bit of time in HR I try to turn my observations of HR into insight that we can use to better our organizations and ourselves professionally. That sounds pretty lofty, slightly idealistic and perhaps naïve; But I aim high in life and haven’t been beaten down yet so I think that’s a great goal.

With that in mind, this week I am focusing on some of the best people in HR I have had the pleasure of working with. I can’t name all of them so instead, I’m focusing on the best character traits that make HR pros successful and effective. All together I narrowed it down to ten, I’m talking about five today and will wrap up with the top five on Thursday!

Numbers 10 through six are….

10. Relentless- people have a way of avoiding HR; you can’t be intimidated about contacting and re-contacting people as well as following up. If you don’t have this skill, stuff falls by the way side, there isn’t much in HR that can safely fall by the wayside: “sorry I didn’t get around to closing out that complaint, it was hard to schedule a meeting with the department manager” – that doesn’t quite cut it.

9. Salesmanship (saleswomanship) – it’s not just recruiting that can be compared to sales. Think about it, we are always selling in HR: new benefits plans, compensation/bonus plans/new policies/getting rid of old policies/etc;

8. Thick Skin – A thick skin is pretty essential in HR, after all we are the ones telling a manager why their brilliant pay scheme won’t work or why they can’t hire their mistress. It’s (usually) not personal but when you tell people “no” they can take it out on the wrong person…that’s you HR. And that’s why it’s important to have a thick skin…

7. Reasonable – This is important because the perception that HR is not reasonable is rampant. You know the reputation we have…policy police, fun-killers, angel of death, factories of sadness….so it’s vital to show how reasonable you are. The best HR pros know they make no friends by being the policy police.

6. On-the-spot -Decision Makings – this goes hand in hand with #7, at some point you will be forced to draw upon your experience to make quick decisions in very murky circumstances. The best HR pros can quickly and reasonably make the necessary decisions and all with composure and confidence. It’s a tough skill but invaluable to being an effective HR pro, you can’t always hold a meeting and get back with someone “tomorrow.”

Well, that’s the start of my list; what do you think so far? What have I missed ? What do you think I should include (Thursday’s post isn’t written yet)?

Stop by again on Thursday to hear the top five traits!

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Melissa Fairman in Changing HR 7 Comments

It’s all about the heart

You can find me over at Performance I Create today, blogging about the heart….here’s a snippet to whet your appetite:

Unfortunately, we usually don’t realize we need someone until we hear a rumor that they are looking or we get a resignation notice. At this point some managers start hyperventilating and scurry about trying to figure out how to get the employee to stay. Depending on the person, this is one of those CODE RED situations where managers are stalking HR trying to get authorization for a stay bonus or some other ridiculous perk.

Click over to Performance I Create to read the entire post. When you are over there, take a minute to look around the newly re-designed site. Lots of good stuff there!

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Melissa Fairman in Guest Posts Leave a comment

The Smallest Minority

I was reading an article about Ayn Rand the other day (don’t worry this is not about laissez faire capitalism) and came across this quote, which is one of my favorite quotes from her:

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual). – Ayn Rand

Most of the quote talks about basic human rights, i.e. the statement that it is not right for a majority to take away the rights of a minority. But the part in parentheses is often over looked and shouldn’t be:

…and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.

Think about it, we are all different whether it is an external factor (skin, hair and eye color) or an internal factor (intelligence, religious/political beliefs), so in essence we are all minorities. There is no other Melissa in the world, you would probably be hard pressed to find another HR blogger who also plays violin (if you do though let me know).

How can we build organizations that include and respect all types of people, not just EEOC defined groups? How do we create a culture where all individuals feel included and valued?

These days most organizations recognize and value diversity. This is a wonderful thing, it’s a comfort to people like my mom to know that the chances of hearing “we don’t hire people with accents” are greatly reduced. But what about all the other things that make us different besides an accent? It’s impossible to create individualized recruitment programs for the various segments of our population (personally I prefer the targeted recruiting of HR bloggers ).

To create and sustain cultures where all individuals feel valued and included I believe we must continue to strive toward creating cultures of inclusiveness; creating a culture where people are free to be you and me. Inclusiveness is more then just saying “we want more female lawyers” it is about saying we want lawyers that come from diverse and different paths in life because all perspectives help our organization. After all, how can we produce profitable products and create jobs for a country of increasingly diverse individuals if we don’t have diverse people building, selling and marketing those products?

Ayn Rand: 10 great quotes on her birthday (csmonitor.com)

Related blogs

Joe Gerstandt Blog - a true diversity and inclusion expert!

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Melissa Fairman in Future of HR 1 Comment

Hire For the Long Term

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the “skills” gap” that is preventing employers from hiring qualified workers. Employers have jobs but they don’t have people to fill them. I don’t believe the skills gap plays a large role in the the problem of high unemployment but I think organizations spend too much time focusing on finding a narrow of a skill set.

If you are having trouble filling a position, think about the skill set necessary to be successful in the job and in the company. What core skills are or should be universal throughout the company ? What skill sets will help fulfill the long term strategy?

In other words: hire for the long term!

Stop writing up 10 paragraph job descriptions with twenty three extremely specific job requirements. Take a look at the job and really boil it down to what is essential. Then think about how that role could change in the next year, two, or three and look for that simplified skill set.

There are two (at a minimum) great benefits to this idea:

1. Depending on the job and industry it may take a long time to find a fit for that long list of requirements but it is easier to find someone with essential skills, the right outlook and team fit. Look at New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham, he played college basketball initially. If NFL scouts discarded anyone who didn’t have four years of high school and four years of college football experience, the Saints would have missed a key part of their 2011 team.

2. You will attract top talent. Powerhouse companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon can attract top talent because they have a vision and strategy that is farther in the horizon then making their quarterly numbers. They have visions that stretch years into the future. From a candidate perspective this can be a mind altering experience. Not many companies can outline their strategy and vision ten years down the road and tie that back to day-to-day work.

So what is holding you back from trying this tomorrow at work?

You may hear that this strategy is too time consuming or people may balk at the possible extra time and money required to bring someone up to speed. Hiring and training employee’s is the cost of doing business. If you treat your employees right and continue to offer them interesting and challenging work, they will stay with the company. As for the argument that it is too time consuming to widen your search pool, I would respond by asking how much time and money you are wasting leaving a position open for a year?

Next time you are looking at your open requisition report and see jobs entering that “open for too long” zone, stop and think about what is required for that position, is all of that really necessary? Just ask yourself that and really think about it… you may be surprised how unnecessary some of those requirements are.

Why I Won’t Hire You [Hiring] (lifehacker.com)
There’s no such thing as the perfect job candidate (sfgate.com)

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Melissa Fairman in Strategy Leave a comment

Retention on a zero budget

Have you seen an exodus from your company lately? Notice a steady increase in exit interviews on your calendar? Wonder why people are leaving and what you can do to make them stay?

Many large companies have engagement surveys and fancy HR metrics to help them figure out why people are leaving. But what about the small HR shops? I’m talking about the everyday practitioner in an small to medium sized company. How do you begin to even figure out a retention plan with your small budget?

Here are some retention tips for your company that cost little to no money:

Why wait until someone has left the company to figure out why they are leaving? Have a stay interview instead. Interview your top performers and find out what they like and don’t like about the company. Compile the results and use those as a data point in discussions with managers about what they are doing right. For more information read this blog post from Tlnt.com
Do you have a work/life policy? If so is it enforced or laughed off? What does it take for an employee to utilize the policy? If you offer flexible scheduling or other work/life benefits make it easy for people to apply for these. They shouldn’t need the sign off of the president to work four ten hour days. Again though, this depends on the type of business and workforce you have.
Attend local HR/SHRM group events to find out what other companies in your area offer. There are a couple advantages here:

You will get to meet other HR practitioners, swap stories and get some best practice info.
The knowledge you gain is a good starting point to figure out where you want to take your (non medical) benefits: market leader, mainstream, etc; You may find out you are actually a leader in Work/Life balance benefits – great information to pass on to your employee’s!

Take a look at your management team. Who has been hemorrhaging employee’s lately? Who has the steadiest team with lowest turnover? You can learn a lot about your company by its most popular and least popular managers. We all want to feel like our work matters and has value, make sure your employee’s feel that way and it will go a long way to help your retention efforts.

Finally, I have one other option for you but I warn you it costs money….pay people a fair, market leading salary. Why? Money doesn’t buy happiness or employee retention but it makes life easy: flexible child care, ability to take a real, relaxing vacation, afford a gym, good food, etc;

If you implement some low cost retention strategies, train your managers and pay your employee’s well, I think you are on the way to retaining good employees. But if you are struggling with the budget numbers start with the four bullet points above and I think you will see improvement. What do you think? Tell me in the comments!