Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sensibilities

There is a place where our learned morals and beliefs instinctively meet the outside world. These are our sensibilities. They tend to surface when offended, but otherwise lay dormant. Since they are a part of us, they follow us to events with people of mixed backgrounds and sensibilities like propriety. Those of us that like to create a splash run amuck of said sensibilities on a regular basis whether accidentally or by design. At least the Victorian's were honest about being tightly wrapped. We are "professional" when we play the politically correct game and watch our words, even at a coworkers home on off time. HR is expected to lead the way in propagating this false veneer of civility and vanilla communication. This explains why I avoid the social events and go for drinking with the other HRs. One of my employers actually allowed jello shots and beer at the company picnic. People actually asked the HR Manager to sit and have a drink. The remaining companies that aren't too stuffy to let their young employees text and everyone blow off steam at a picnic, thank you!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

More on Balance

The concept of balance is an odd anecdote between the fluid in our ears keeping us upright and the notion that moderation makes us better. Balance is staying upright in spite of how thin the beam is. Internal equilibrium is not about moderation, but how far the fluid can flow from one side to another before we tip. Some of us have great balance. Others don't know when the fluid is at its limit and they keep falling over. I posit the theory that the obsessives of this world are the reasons for the greatest breakthroughs. Moderation is the greatest killer of innovation. It is time to cut loose and go a little ADD/OCD on something! I'm knitting my eighth mitten and hat set and it is August.

Thanks to Brazen Careerist for the question on "work life balance" and Bruce Kneuer, a social media scientist, for getting me on this train of thought.

Monday, August 23, 2010

I Got to My Problems Through My Solutions

My husband and I purchased a foreclosure home that needed some landscaping help. What can be so hard about fixing a concrete block wall? Well, besides removing all of the blocks, hand trenching and reseting the block, not much, or so we thought. We worked in the cold of an early West Michigan spring and put together a mighty fine new wall. Pleased, we went back to our daily lives enjoying the look of our new wall and anticipating buying shrubs to put in it. Then one day, walking through our basement master suite, the carpet was squishy and wet. All winter, through the spring thaw, and the first big storm of the year, no water issues. What was different? It took me a day to remember that we had created a water way that ended at the foundation of the house including a damaged drainage pipe straight from the front eaves. Our beautiful and cost effective solution caused our problem. Fortunately, an inexpensive drain repair, filling the trench edges with soil, then growing grass there fixed our solution. We had to empty half the master and set up fans to dry out the carpet twice. Reviewing this great suburban drama reminded me that the best laid plans often have unexpected consequences. It is easy for managers to judge an incident afterward and expect the participants to anticipate that the beautiful landscaping would have lead to the basement floods. It would be like Timberland knowing that buying cattle hides, a by-product of meet processing, in Brasil would cause them to be austracized by Greenpeace. Sometimes we get to our problems through our solutions. In the middle of drying out your master bedroom carpet, it is not the time to decide who should have known that the trench for the block would flood the basement. Let's all try to stay in the present and get around to the next solution that gets to our next problem.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Vacation and the Blackberry

Why do we work three hours over on our last work day before vacation? What makes it so hard to turn off the blackberry and store it in a drawer for a week? Our work is a big part of our identity. When you get with a group of professionals and start introductions, the general protocol is to give your name, profession, and employer. That's what makes it so hard to be out of work; nothing to share in them employer column. This identity creates a sense of urgency and ownership in most of us for various reasons ranging from personal integrity to group loyalty to plain old control. Letting the phone go and getting out of touch with that big part of our lives is scary. The urge to turn that phone on when we get home is huge. Of course, I couldn't resist this time and spent about 2 hours working on work the last 3 days of vacation. Shame on me for not having enough identity to fill 9 days with things other than work. I challenge you to get out of work on time to start vacation and to not look at a piece of business electronics until the start of your first work day back. Whether you are a person of great integrity or a garden variety control freak, take a complete week off!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Loyalty Part 3 - The Company

Thanks to Taren for calling today and getting me on topic. Loyalty to a company often means two things. One, getting employees "engaged", which is more of a marriage reference than we realize and Two, making employees feel the company has a stake in them. These two items constitute a major focus of HR efforts. We don't just hire someone; we select, onboard and orient them. All of this intended to make the newbie feel part of the group and focused on company goals. We strive to provide initial job training that helps them feel successful from the start and then provide growth training that gets them to their next desired step. This is motivating for those capable of the current job and with potential to be capable of the next job. Supposedly good hiring makes this so for all employees (really...). We construct feedback processes for good work, bad work and even average work, so everyone knows where they stand and how to impact their compensation and career future. HR even takes the effort and expense to survey the employees and ask what they feel about the job, work relationships and management. Then we build leadership and soft skills training into the management learning programs to make the managers better at retaining our employees. What was that word I just used? Retaining? Yes, every program, entitlement, perq and feedback process exists for one purpose. They all serve the bottom line function of keeping knowledgeable people at the company’s beck and call to please customers and encourage more business. All of this without the cost of hiring and training new people and managing dysfunctional employee relationships like lawsuits and regulatory complaints. Loyalty to the employer is a function of hitting the job satisfaction sweet spot for the right employees. Now we are back to my discussion on moving targets. Good luck!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Where have you been?

Well, it turns out that a week of corporate interrment camp, no matter how valuable, keeps a blogger from providing info to her faithful readers. It was a great meeting and learning experience, however, the long days prevent anything except sleeping and managing the work you can't do because of the meetings. At least, I have a lot of good and quirky colleagues that make it feel more like I fit. Once I returned from "camp", I had one afternoon to finish processing paperwork to get 3 people hired/promoted and to get one processed for his start date in a system I've never used. Of course, I ended up working until almost 8pm. The next morning, we packed up and headed for vacation. I'm out in the scenic woods of Northern Michigan overlooking lake Bellaire. My first round of 18 (golf) in nearly a decade was harder than expected. Thank God for the Jacuzzi tub at the condo. Another 18 awaits on Wednesday. There is still the matter of the series on loyalty. It will wrap up this week. If you have never been, I highly recommend the Traverse City, Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsula's and Bellaire for booze, water, and light gardening a.k.a. golf.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Loyalty Part II - Employees

It is interesting what people expect compared to what they are willing to give in return. It didn't even take 7 years in management, not to mention 12 years in HR, to figure out that some employees expect the world for their periodic presence in the building. On the other hand, some employees will give their time, home life and physical well-being for nothing more than their pay check. The tremendous dichotomy could be urban as opposed to rural, young vs. old, or maybe it is a simple matter of values and integrity. Some employees display high levels of loyalty from day 1 including speaking only positives about the company, defending the company against negative statements,performing above and beyond job expectations, and working to bring teammates together. Some take time to decide if their managers and company provisions meet their expectations. The lines of jobs blur for them and they want to see their managers working on hourly tasks and to see the company give large amounts of paid time off and benefits. If the bosses meet their expectations, they will do the work and maybe put in a little extra over time. Others, decide that being hired is their ticket to a pay check for as long as they want. They feel that work should not directly interfere with their social life (texting, chatting with friends on the clock, cell phone calls). They extend this social life into gathering friends and followers at work, because they need someone around to complain about their job. Obviously, any job that digs into their free time must be a bad deal. The funny part is that the company would be content with an employee that comes to work on time, does their job, and doesn't say anything bad aobut them. It seems easy enough. It makes sense that selection processes would touch on this more, instead the usual practice of measuring this only in existing employees. We aren't in charge of the social systems that cause some to be ultra loyal and others to be disloyal, but there must be better ways to bring in those that are more likely to be loyal. We'll explore this in Part 3 - Employers

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Thank You

Thanks to Ghost Writer for that word from our sponsor. Your regularly scheduled author is working excessive hours to get ready for a week of corporate interment camp and then a week of vacation. Our mini-series will return once I get a night wiht 7 hours sleep and a day with less than 6 hours of driving. Cheers to all of you workaholics that think my work days and sleep habits are indulgent.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Second Commercial...

This message brought to you by Tuition Reimbursement Programs and the Ghost Writer

After years in manufacturing and watching people feel "trapped" by lack of education, when I achieved the glorious role of middle manager, I became the personal evangelist for the company's (whatever company it was at the time) tuition reimbursement program.  Most employees hear about it but either don't understand the ease of accessibility or have never been encouraged to learn in a positive way.  Try this as a positive way. "Look, it's the only benefit the company gives you they can't take back, and if they lay you off or fire you, you don't have to pay it back."  Ok, so that's the hard sell, but you get the point.

This is one of those mentoring moments as a manager, as a colleague, where showing Human Resources Leadership separates a mere manager from a Person of Influence.

As someone who regularly gets Christmas cards from her now-well-educated former employees, all I can say is, "Talk about Tuition Reimbursement.  It might make you feel happy in the future."

End of Commercial... back to the loyality mini-series, unless, like the Super Bowl, there's just one more advertisement.

Too Many Hands in the Pot (commercial break from mini-series)

It is interesting what happens when companies add layers. More departments at the top attract more ambitious leaders with personal growth agendas. There are politics that manifest in annoying busy work for middle management. A field manager can't just send up a report to the owner, so they can be sure that it is corrrect. It has to go to the next level admin, then their main office service person, who forwards it to the main office service person assigned to the report, who consolidates it to submit to upper management. Now a simple report has turned into an electronic version of the telephone game and opening the consolidated report is like guessing which prize is in the cracker jack box. One thing is for certain, it never matches the value you put into the box. Ideally, the result is benign and amusing, however, periodically the "translated" version of the data leads to a pointed message from a high level boss. No matter how the explanation of the bad data is written the field managers feels lame for something they couldn't control. Here is my appeal to the head honcho's out there. Please save us field managers from chasing paperwork around an army of contact points. Pick where it goes and point us that direction!
 
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People Platform HR by Marti Nelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.