Is It Really Age? Why Older Workers May Not Get Work

Continuing with my theme of older workers, I have had a couple of people react to my quote about companies starting to hire older workers, by calling and saying they have been trying and have been unable to get work "BECAUSE OF MY AGE." My reaction to that is to be initially skeptical. If "because of my age" means:

• You have not kept your skills up to date
• You have not become Internet savy
• You are in the "rut" of "I have always done it that way"
• You have no idea what a blog or podcast or wiki is

Then yes you may not be getting a job because of your age. So my initial response has been "take a critical look at yourself" and lay the blame there. I have suggested that a job transition coach might be valuable. Have someone teach you how to interview, dress, and present yourself. Just as when you were younger, you have to have something "saleable" about you.

Now, does this mean that there is no age discrimination? No. It is there. And this is where good HR people come into play. A forward thinking, ethical HR professional does not let their organization succumb to age bias. They help hiring managers get beyond the surface and see the skill sets, the loyality, the work ethic and the energy that many "older" workers bring to the job. However, if you don't have anything worth "buying", all your skills are dusty and outdated, then even the best HR manager is not going to help you. Nor is a recruiter. So look in that mirror. If companies are not buying what your are presenting then do something about it.

HR managers, tell me what you think. Am I delusional?

Older Workers: A Follow Up and Opportunity

A blog from a couple days ago discussed an article about older workers (See February 12th). Just this morning I read an article written by Joyce Gioia-Herman in the Herman Trend Alert entitled Older Workers in Greater Demand. (You can subscribe to the Trend Alert by clicking here.) The material in this newsletter reinforced much of what was said in the AJC article. Older workers will be in demand and one place in particular that will be actively recruiting workers is the U. S. Federal government. According to the Trend Alert the AARP "...added three U.S. government agencies and six corporations to its list of employers looking to hire people 50 and older for a range of full-time, part-time, and seasonal jobs. In all, thirty-eight of the nation's employers have expressed an interest in hiring seniors." The Trend Alert further states that "The Internal Revenue Service, the Peace Corps, and the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Disaster Relief, are the first federal employers to join AARP's National Employer Team, the name given to the association's three-year-old partnership."

The numbers are pretty staggering. "Of the two million people who work for the federal government, more than 25 percent are expected to leave over the next five years. In the next two years alone, The Partnership for Public Service estimates over 193,000 mission-critical positions will need filling."

So, if you know someone who is looking for work I would send them to the Federal government or state governments, as I am sure they are in the same condition that the Fed is in.

You Don't Have To Be Crazy to Have This Job But It Helps: The HR Personality

Human Resource Executive magazine just published its February issue with the cover story being The HR Personality. They asked the question of how HR executives differ in personality from other company executives. The findings were interesting, though not really suprising. And despite my catchy title they did not find that being crazy helps.

What they did find is that executives of all varieties share more personality traits than they differ in. But the ones where there were differences were significant. HR executives (VPs) were less strategic, less rational/logical, less directing, and less enterprising. On the positive side they were more accepting, more resolving and more self-assured. What this means it that HR VPs were:

• less visionary and less focused on the long-term
• less focused on numbers, logical systems and hard facts
• less task focused
• less competitive
• less interested in selling and spotting new business opportunities
• less inquisitive
• less ambitious
• less manipulative
• more of a team player
• more prudent
• more empathetic, good listener and more interested in others
• more comfortable with resolving conflict and dealing with angry people
• more confident
• more balanced and a greater self-worth

What makes this list critical is that the CEO is the key executive from which the HR VP differs. Subsequently the VP may not be taken as seriously or be as highly valued as is the other VPs with whom the CEO more closely matches in personality. They ask the question "Can the HR VP be more like the CEO?" The answer was YES. But it requires a true self-knowledge and the ability to take that knowledge, understand how you differ and be able to put a plan in place to change behavior. As one consultant said "Have a plan. Determine what behaviors you need. Practice those behaviors. Get feedback. And keep focused on your objectives. It can be done. I may not be a shark, but I can think like a shark."

By the way, one thing mentioned in the article is that HR levels below VP show even greater levels of divergence from the executive suite. To me this leads to much less credibility for HR with executives. But this can be overcome as well with a recognized behavioral change.

One thing not mentioned in this article was the subject of gender. Given that the field of HR has a high number of women in HR and HR executive positions I wondered if this gender difference might account for some of these personality differences. It might be an interesting personality study to compare female HR execs to female CEOs and see if the differences are still as apparent.

Your thoughts? Leave a comment.

Boomers, Brain Drain and a Quote

I was quoted in an article entitled Older Workers: Once Trashed, Now Treasured, written by Bill Hendrick for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The article deals with the subject of older workers, primarily baby boomers, and the realization by many organizations that they are facing a brain drain as the boomers retire.

There are alot of human resources issues involved in the impending retirement of large amounts of baby boomers. (BTW, "baby boomers" is a US term for children born during the period following WWII through 1964. Other countries had baby booms at different times.) Some of these issues include: healthcare, retirement income, delivery of services, succession planning, and one of the biggest, loss of knowledge.

Many organizations are struggling with this impending loss and how to retain this "knowledge" within the organization. By the way, this knowledge is not just "how to do the job", that is actually the easier knowledge to retain. The difficult knowledge to retain is the relationships these boomer workers have established with customers, suppliers and co-workers that enhance the selling, buying and problem-solving process on a daily basis.

There are a couple ways to do this that might work. One is a mentoring program. Teaming younger workers with older works. Problems may arise however because not all parties are good mentors or mentees. Younger workers may get impatient and cause discrimination problems. Older workers may feel threatened and feel like the company is trying to push them out too soon. So this process has to be set up correctly and ALOT of training needs to be done.

An approach to transfering "relationship knowledge" that I like is done by Harvey Mackay, author, speaker and company CEO. He uses something called the Mackay 66 , in which he provides a mechanism for tracking a great deal of information on customers. Things such as family information, likes and dislikes, favorite foods and sports, where they went to school, things you should and should not discuss and much more. This information is collected and logged over a period of time and retained by the company. This way if the person who was calling on this customer leaves all of that knowledge does not walk out the door with them. The next person can read that information and get a head start on retaining the relationship.

There are a number of approaches that can be used, you have to pick what fits best with the culture of your organization. But if you have not started working on this today you will soon find yourself between a rock and a hard place. Look at your organization and take stock of who may be retiring in the next 10 years. What and who do they know? Figure out a way you can get them to invest some of themselves in the future of the organization. Wally Bock, at Three Star Leadership, also blogged about this issue and had some suggestions, so check him out as well.

Thinking About Your HR Thinking: The Tool of Metacognition

Rob May, writer of the Businesspundit blog wrote about a personal subject for him that has nothing to do with HR. But in his blog he mentions the concept of METACOGNITION. He states "Metacognition occurs when you think about your thinking. It means that instead of just analyzing evidence at face value, you start to ask questions about why you favor certain facts over others. You think about whether or not you have emotions, cognitive biases, peer pressures, or other things that are affecting your thought processes. You ask yourself if you would think something different if the roles were reversed, if you had a better day, if you had not had such a bad experience last time."

His definition got me to thinking of metacognition as a great tool for the human resources professional. It is a very good thing sometimes to question why you think the way you do. Is your thinking grounded in fact or just what you believe to be fact? Do you have underlying biases about employees, applicants, groups, backgrounds, etc. that should be questioned? Do you do things because the peer pressure (or boss pressure) is there to do it that way?

If you are an effective behavioral interviewer you are already somewhat trained to do this in that you are trained to question your "gut" feeling on someone. Why not extend this to all of the rest of your HR work?

So plan to go through the exercise of metacognition and question your HR practices. Ask yourself:

• Why do we do things the way we do here?
• Why do we hire whom we hire?
• Do I have biases that get acted on in our HR processes?
• How would I see what we do if I were on the outside looking in?

Try it out and get a fresh perspective. Oh, by the way, having someone come in from the outside can be helpful in asking some of those tough questions if you can't do it yourself.

Things That Stress Out Your Employees Scenario #204: A Personal Relocation

There are alot of things that can result in someone not giving the company their best work and undivided attention during work hours. A wedding, a divorce, birth of a child, illness of a family member, personal illness, impending Super Bowls, etc. HR people are generally tuned into paying attention to these things, and in fact we have laws on the books to help deal with these to an extent. Well here is one more thing that can cause a major distraction: a personal relocation! When it is a corporate relocation there is some support for the move and typically some financial backing and assurances. But when it is a personal relocation there is a great deal of stress associated with timing, money, and time issues. Making sure the appropriate things are canceled and the other approriate things are turned on. Packing, movers, and finding temporary housing all compound the stress.

The stress increases when the sale of a home is involved because then real estate dealings are involved, potential buyers viewing the house, and once a buyer has committed you have the stress of making it through a closing, Money, timing, repairs (and more money), delays, the movers, etc. all cause your employee to be distracted and subsequently less than productive at work. ( I know this from personal experience because I just described me!).

So be aware of what is happening in your employees personal lives because you may be able to anticipate stressful times that may have an effect on their work. Your awareness and proper handling of these situations may make the situation smoother for all parties concerned.

The "Poison" Employee

I have seen a number times and have discussed with many HR managers the concept of the "poison" employee. What I mean by this is that employee who slowly destroys your organization through their actions or words, much as a spider or snake's poison starts slowly digesting its prey. You can recognize these employees because they:

• Use intimidation
• They foster "bad blood" between coworkers or managers and employees
• They spread rumor
• Circumvent the rules or encourage others to do so
• Find fault with others actions, be they formal rules of the company, or someone else's work habits
• Find fault with other people and talk about it
• Are conspiratory
• (fill in your favorite here)

The problem is these employees are often "good", productive employees and thus give you no objective reason to get rid of them. As HR people we are left trying to referee situations or dealing with the aftermath of another employee opting to leave. Managers put up with the situation far too long as do HR people.

When the situation finally gets to the point of being intolerable we terminate them, yet are unsure of the footing we are on and live in dread of the lawsuit that may follow. Businesses without any HR guidance often live with this type of employee for a long time to an unknown cost in business and opportunity.

Michael Wade of Execupundit.com had a blog on Predatory Employees in which he describes something similar to what I called the 'poison' employee. He describes the fear employers have "Employers fear how suspicious or reprehensible behavior on the part of an employee may be represented to a jury as the expected conduct of a victim. They worry, in turn, about how a manager's reasonable and appropriate behavior may be portrayed as oppressive or harassing. Their assumption is that juries will have an automatic sympathy for the underdog - the employee - versus the big, rich employer. Fear of litigation is both the sword and shield of the predatory employee."

However you describe this type of employee they are a very real problem. Wade suggests that this needs to be discussed and "Selection procedures need to be improved so the predators can be screened out. Early intervention in potential cases, with the energetic involvement of the firm's attorneys, should be the rule and not the exception. Team values need to be set forth and reinforced." That is a very good call on his part and one I hardily agree with. Unfortunately, many companies do not articulate their culture well enough to be able to screen properly.

What is your take on this? How do you prevent the poison employee, or Wade's predatory employee, from destroying your organization? Or if you have a way to screen them out what is it?

Education and the Talent Shortage

Kiplinger.com published an article entitled "Employers Seek to Improve Education" in which they discuss something that HR managers have been aware of for quite awhile now and that is the U.S. educational system is just not making the grade. Businesses are suffering and are not able to hire the talent needed to effectively compete in the world market today. This lack of talent stemming from a lack of education is most visible in the areas of math, science, engineering and technology. But it is also there in language and communication skills as well as in critical thinking.

So what are businesses doing to address this shortfall of educated talent? They are pressuring governments at the federal, state and local level to improve. They are teaming with school systems to help develop curriculums. They are pressing presidential candidates for an educational platform. But alot of companies are pushing ahead on their own to provide incentives to professionals who would like to teach and incentives for students who would like to learn, especially science and math.

Because many companies are relying more and more on immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, companies are having to offer basic education in English and arithmetic and grammer in order to get willing workers to a level of being functional workers.

HR knows this is a problem, we see it day-in and day-out as our hiring managers push us to get them "quality" workers. But this is a battleship that will not be easily turned around.

Anyone have creative ways you are dealing with lack of education in your workforce? If so, leave a comment and let us know.

Proud Employees or Victims?

I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of Alan Weiss, consultant and author. I got his February newsletter, The Balancing Act, today and, as usual, it is thought provoking and informative. In this issue he talks about his experience of riding a train where the crew of the dining car had obvious pride in their jobs and, as a result, how pleasant the trip was for him. His observation on this was "I think this individual pride, and its ability to transform work and relationships, is a crucial consideration in terms of who we hire, who we become friendly with, and with whom we decide to surround ourselves. If we hang out with people who hate the work, hate the customers, hate life, and feel constantly oppressed, we'll find ourselves subsumed in that quagmire." He further muses "But if we surround ourselves with people who merely believe that they have the power and responsibility to do the best they can, so will we."

This has always been my personal philosophy. I don't work with or associate with "downers." There is no need to. And you should not either! If you have control over the hiring in your organization make sure you are only recruiting and hiring people who have pride in themselves and their work. It will make your life more pleasant and productive and as Weiss' story shows it will make the experience of your customer much better.

To me this is especially critical of the people you have working in your HR department. Do they have pride? Are they upbeat? There is nothing worse than having the "gatekeepers" of your organization be a "downer"! Oh by the way, this goes for the operator and receptionists in your company.

If you do not have the control of the hiring and you are surrounded by prideless "downers" don't allow yourself to become a "victim." Remove yourself from that situation as quickly as possible before you get used to it and become a "downer" yourself. If this is you, find another job and start by smiling today!

Innovation in HR: Doing Something Old Better

Another good posting by Valeria Maltoni of Coversation Agent. Her blog title was "Sometimes Innovation is no More Than Doing Something Old ... Better". She gives several examples of what she means:

• Apple's new thin notebook computer, same computer, just thinner


• Google as the search engine of choice instead to the old powerhouse Altavista


• MS Word instead of Wordstar

In his book Human Resources Champions , Dave Ulrich talks about the skills that effective and progressive HR professionals need to have. But one of the key points he makes is that to be considered a "partner" you must do the basics of the job well. You must be an administrative expert. His steps for being an administrative expert include:

• Reengineer HR work through use fo technology, process engineering teams, and quality improvements.


• Define the HR role in creating value for the firm.


• Creat a shared services HR delivery mechanism.


• Measure HR results in terms of efficiency (cost) and effectiveness (quality).

Administration has been what HR/Personnel has been about from its inception. Many, many companies do it poorly. So how about being an "innovative" HR department by taking Ulrich's and Maltoni's advice and do something old ... better.