Progressive HR: It’s All About Policies That Truly Engage Today’s Workforce

“[Cough, cough] I can’t come in today, I am very sick,” she said.

I told her no problem; see you when you feel better. However, when she came in the next day, I pulled her aside to talk. Drop the cough, and the sick voice —  if you need to be out just let me know, we can always work it out.

That was the end of the fake calls and everybody lived happily ever after. This employee was not an early riser but I would always leave her at the office when I departed. She normally worked to 8 pm every night.

I thought of that call this week when one of my colleagues told me of a manager  who was upset because his employee called in sick and HR demanded a doctor’s note or the employee would be docked for the day. So, the employee is sick, but, the only way they can REALLY be considered sick is to go to the doctor?

Meanwhile, this employee and his team normally work 10 hour days. Over the past month perhaps, this employee has given more gratis hours than those eight paid hours of sick time.

Policies of the past

It Usually Pays Off to Help Employees Follow Their Dream

“I became an accountant because accountants are the career choice of my family. We are a family of accountants. But when I spent my first week for one of the Big 4 firms, I knew that I could not do this for my entire life.”

“I became a lawyer because my mother and father were both lawyers. I never gave it much thought, only that I knew I would become a lawyer. I enjoyed law school and it was only when I got my first real job as a lawyer that I knew that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I just could not fathom doing this for 30 plus years.”

Both of these conversations with friends over the years came back to me this week when I read an article in Arab News concerning Saudi Arabian youth and their career choice. The title of the article was Young Saudis pursue career dreams despite the odds.

There were two profiles in this article; one was a filmmaker and the other a chef. Both faced difficulty within their families because “their” career choices were for them to become an engineer and a medical doctor.

If you are asked give it, but if not, shut up

As parents, we all want the best for our kids, and in some ways, we do more harm than good getting involved in someone’s career choice. If our opinion is asked, we give it. If not, do everyone a favor and just shut up.

Giving Up Control: It’s Key to Unleashing Your Workforce’s Power

“And the walls came tumbling down.”

Last week I read the article about Zappos doing away with all job titles and replacing them with what is called Holacracy.

Developed by entrepreneur Brian Robertson, Holacracy is a system of governance that takes things like managers, job titles and bureaucratic red tape out of the equation, distributing leadership and power evenly across an organization.

Instead of a standard hierarchy, companies in a Holacracy are comprised of different “circles” and employees can have any range of roles and responsibilities within those circles.

Coming to an organization near you

There was also the article about the company that instituted a policy that no one is to be contacted while on vacation. The thinking behind this concepts makes sense. We have become tethered to technology that we feel that we have to have in order to be on 24/7.

The 2014 Agenda: Cracking the Culture Code and Embracing Change

I had no idea that they took my candidacy seriously since I did not have a background in TV or Film. However, I was told by the board president that they wanted talent and that it was hard to find.

That was music to my ears as the story was relayed to me at a New Year’s Eve party. My friend had gotten a job as the Senior Vice President at a major non-profit organization.  An attorney by training, a lecturer at an Ivy League school, and a philanthropist with no background in TV or film — yet he was the chosen one.

An opportunity for HR

The year 2014 will present organizations with unrelenting challenges. A few items that will (or should) drive the leadership agenda are culture and innovation with talent behind the wheel. This is a huge opportunity for HR.

Can You Get Away From the Job and Relax? Finding the Key to That Puzzle

“So Dad, now you can relax since you have all this time off. I am taking my vacation the same time so we can both hang out.”

On my 12 hour flight from Saudi Arabia to New York last Friday, I thought of what am I going to do for close to four weeks off. In the Middle East, it is not viewed favorably if you are doing company work while away on vacation unless it is an absolute emergency.

I wrote a TLNT post that broke records in views and readership a while back about vacations: Americans vs. other expats. I know of so many people who have taken 30, 40 days of vacation and do not give it a second thought. But here I am in the solitude at 50,000 feet altitude wondering what I am going to do for the next month.

My wife is working; my son is also working, so my daughter said it is just the two of us to hang out. She met me at JFK and we went directly to the mall. When I suggested we go home first, she nixed that and said we are going to hang out.

Oh well; welcome home.

Breaking old habits

It seems that when we have been ingrained over the years in certain work habits, we have a tough time trying to break free. My plan was to take a few days to get settled at home, but my wife had other plans and I had the proverbial “honey do” list which took a couple of days and kept me busy.

Managing Your Career Before the Ambush Comes

I worked all those years, coming to work every day, doing a great job. Each year there was a raise and eventually more responsibility.

I went home at the end of the day and came back the following day. I repeated that cycle all those years until one day, I came in and was let go.

During all those years I had received numerous inquiries from outside headhunters, but at each call was kindly rebuffed because I loved what I was doing. My resume had never been updated in all those years, and I had not interviewed in 24 years.

Being negligent

As I listened to this call this week, I felt sad and angry at the same time.

Spotlight Friday: An Interview with Chief Human Resources and Administrative Officer Ron Thomas

Recent interview for the website: Something Different HR:  Marrying HR, Data and Occasionally Out of Place Personal Anecdote created by HR PRO Rory C. Trotter Jr. He is a HR leader with experience in Compensation, Talent Acquisition, and Employee Relations 

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1. Most job postings cite “X” years of relevant work experience and specific education criteria as requirements to be considered for the position. With this in mind, what prior work experiences and degrees/certifications/training helped prepare you for your current role?

First of all, I think when a company places those restriction on a job posting (years of experience, industry experience required), they are closing the door on such a huge segment of the market. My question is what X years of experience makes you relevant. If there is a requirement of 6 years to be considered for a posting, what happens if I have 4 solid years in the industry? I wrote a post recently that spells this out: “Industry Experience Required.”

Supporting Innovation? It Takes a Lot More Than Talking About Innovation

Imagine coming home every day from school and there in the kitchen were fresh-baked cookies or home-made pies.

Every day there was something different. My mother was a baker who believed that everything had to be made from “scratch,” using no boxed items of any kind.

The only boxed cookies allowed in the house were Nilla Wafers— and that was temporarily because they were destined for banana pudding.

My mother was on my mind this week because when I started working for Martha Stewart Living, she would jokingly tell me that she could out bake Martha on a bad day. As a matter of fact, she said all that advice that Martha gives is what she already knew and that she had been doing it for years.

I must admit that my mother knew every trick in the book about anything, from coffee stains to ink and chewing gum removal. And, she is my yardstick for all baked items to this day.

My reply to her comment about Martha Stewart was that yes, you probably could out bake and out remedy her, but you did not know how to take it to the next level. She had an idea, but that was it.

Her reply to me was to just roll her eyes.

Sure you had the idea

How Would Your Team Members Feel About Having Lunch With You?

“A lot of our job candidates are from out of town, and we’ll pick them up from the airport in a Zappos shuttle, give them a tour, and then they’ll spend the rest of the day interviewing,” Tony Hsieh says. “At the end of the day of interviews, the recruiter will circle back to the shuttle driver and ask how he or she was treated. It doesn't matter how well the day of interviews went; if our shuttle driver wasn't treated well, then we won’t hire that person.”  

"There’s never an excuse for being impolite or rude to somebody just because they drive a shuttle."

Can I get an “Amen?”

I read this quote from an interview on Business Insider and this set the framework for my day. As I drove into work that morning, I could not help but think of a former CEO who was the model for me for what leadership was about.

How a leader can set a tone for everyone

Sharon Patrick was the founding CEO of Martha Stewart Living. What made Sharon so remarkable was that she exemplified this type of behavior of Tony Hsieh at Zappos.

Everyone knew her as Sharon, from the mailroom to the boardroom. If you wanted to find her early in the morning, she would be sitting in the mailroom with her feet up talking to the guys. She thought nothing of walking through the office and grabbing a chair next to your desk to ask what you were working on.

Her laugh was a Sharon laugh; it echoed throughout the building. That set the tone and that set the culture.

I always felt that when she left the company we went into a slow spiral, and from all indications, they are still struggling to come out of it.

The key to cultural alignment is that the tone starts from the top. There’s no need to sit in some conference room and hammer out some statement, post it all over, email it all over, and expect the organization to change.

It will not happen until the lowest rung on the org chart feels it. How do you think the van driver at Zappos feels? Do you think he or she is engaged? Having the “suits” reach down to ask their opinion and get them involved has to be a morale builder.

Executive “attitude” needs to go away

I was with one of our managers recently, and security asked for our ID. I gladly provided mine, and when the guard asked a question about my companion, he snatched his ID from the agent and tried to belittle him just for asking a question.

I was incredulous at this behavior, and I can guarantee that this will never happen again. There is nothing that causes my blood to boil as when some high-ranking individual treats someone below them in a lesser way because of their status.

This is especially rampant in all kinds of organizations. I have seen the so-called “big folks” step into an elevator and not make an utterance or a “good morning” to anyone. It was as if they owned the elevator and we were invading their space.  This smug attitude by some leaders is going to have to die a slow death if they want innovation, dynamics, and profitability in return.

This brings up the debate of IQ vs EQ. There was a time that test scores, technical skills, school ranking, etc, were at the top of the list in the interview dynamic. I call this the IQ Factor.

However, people began to realize that high intelligence in no way guaranteed a life of success.

Leaders that people want to work for

I believe that individuals with strong leadership potential in today’s work environment need to be emotionally intelligent or have high EQ. The new found dynamic is moving to the forefront in the hiring process.  The dynamics of the workplace has changed with the evolution of project based or teams working on projects. The technical skills are needed but the soft skills [EQ] are paramount.

Gone are the days that leaders resided in a cocoon and you had to have title superiority just to get in the vicinity. This type of leader is gradually fading away and companies and boards should realize that a new skill set is needed to deal with the demands of these turbulent times, because these times are the new normal.

If you want great results, you must have an excess of leaders that people want to work for. These are the type of leaders that people just enjoy being in the company off.  There is nothing I enjoy more than having a conversation with our company’s gardeners and laborers. At first they did not know how to respond to me, since it seemed that no one in authority had ever spoken to them. Now, we talk and they stop by to see if I need anything.

Will people be happy meeting with you?

I had one of them tell me the other day that it is a joy just to come into HR if they have an issue. On occasion, they have even walked me to my car while taking everything out of my arms, briefcase and all. This is all because I took a few minutes here and there to ask how they and their families were doing. They are not afraid anymore.

In your organization, people may still be afraid. The further you go down your org chart, the more that may be the case.

But remember: If you want an initiative to succeed, you must go to the people who it would affect the most and get them involved. Everyone that you engage will become a brand ambassador for your department or initiative.

I have worked for companies that, for various initiatives, gave people the opportunity to have lunch or dinner with the executives. You could almost see the squirming when it happened, because no one wanted to have to sit through a meal with someone who they had no connection or relationship with.

However, I go back to Sharon Patrick and think that employees who worked under her would have been lined up around the block for the opportunity to get together for a lunch or dinner.

Would your team members get excited about having dinner or lunch with you? If the answer is NO, then your EQ is suffering.