Jump Start Your Brain: Great Reading for a Monday

Last Wednesday on March 31st the HR Carnival was published at the Precept Employee Benefits Blog. What great reading. A feast of knowledge to jump start your brain on a Monday following a holiday weekend. Blog posts include:

• Succession managment
• Getting a delegated task back on track
• Employee engagement is not the end goal
• How to work for a younger manager
• How good is your performance data?
• What makes a good leader
• 9 ways to make your boss happy
• and of course my post on Strategy Alert: Too Few Workers and Union Activity

So wander on over and feed your brain some "breakfast of knowledge." You will be better for it.

The Carnival of HR: Unbelievable Learning Opportunity

This months version of the Carnival of HR is hosted at Jon Ingham's Social Advantage in his post The HR in the Social Business Carnival. The learning opportunities are unprecedented. We are talking use of social media, strategic HR, recruitment, networking, bad HR, good HR, snooping on employees, answering job seeker questions, and an  the intrguing title of  What keeps American HR Managers awake at night: the thought of bare legs. (The picture is an attention-getter.)

So, make some time and plan on alot of click-throughs. You will feel like you just completed your Master's degree in HR when you get done.

Carnival Chaos: 30 HR Blogs

Over at Recruitment 2.0 you will find the Completely Random Carnival of HR. This carnival presents 30 blog posts on a wide variety of subjects including learning, metrics, strategy, swine flu, "the apology crutch" and more. Check it out by clicking the link above.

Latest Carnival of HR

Here is the link to the latest Carnival of HR, the compilation of some great HR blog posts. This one is done in an interesting Q & A format. There are posts on leadership, jobs, thinking and using technology in HR. Give it a look.

Getting A "Seat at the Table": One Man's Perspective

“Your place at the table.” How many articles, conversations, blogs, moaning sessions, crying sessions and musings have occurred around this topic? Countless, yet the question continues to be asked. So I figured I would put in my “two cents worth.”

In my mind there are professional characteristics and personal characteristics that enter into this discussion. The professional characteristics include:

• You must be knowledgeable in HR. Yeah I know, obvious. But I mean more than just a cursory knowledge. This means you study. Be it in school (Masters degree), be it in continuing educations (SPHR) or be it on your own (reading books, magazines, websites, blogs.)
  
• You must be knowledgeable in business, both business in general and your industry in particular. This means more education. Understand how your company makes money and what it does with it. Assets, liabilities, debt, income statements, balance sheets and the other language of finance and accounting. Understand operations issues. Supply, demand, inventories, scheduling. You get this two different ways. Read! There should be several industry journals on your reading list. Relationships! Spend time with the finance and ops people.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in the world. This means you pay attention to and understand the impact of globalization, localization, politics, social trends, economic trends, legal trends and more. This means you are an environmental scanner.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in people. This means you are a student of psychology. You understand behavior and the principles of motivation and reward. You know group dynamics and team building.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in strategy and planning. Knowing “stuff” does not do any good if you cannot apply it to the current and future direction of the company.
  
• You MUST be competent and good at what you do. If you can’t keep a file straight or keep track of a new hire why in the hell would I want you at my side advising me, if I were the president of a company.
  
• It helps if you have worked in some other area other than human resources. Sales, operations or finance will all work. That gives you great perspective on the problems departments face on a day to day basis.

The personal characteristics you must have are:

• You have to be smart. Sorry, but it is the truth. There has to be the “horse power” in the cranium. There is a lot of stuff to know and apply and if you don’t have it you won’t make it to the top. You have to be able to see the big picture and read the future and that takes some brains.
  
• You have to be a hard charger. You don’t make it to the Vice Presidential level by coming in late and leaving early. You also don’t gripe about how hard it is. You eat the stuff up. You want more. PASSION!
  
• You have to have some “backbone.” If you are afraid of making decisions you don’t have the “right stuff.”
  
• You have to learn from your errors. Don’t be afraid to admit a mistake, but move on once you have.
  
• You have to have DESIRE. You want to have that VP role then you have to ASK for it. In this case the meek shall NOT inherit the earth.

Ok. That is my take. In my experience I have met few HR professionals that meet this standard. Nothing wrong with that. There are limited jobs at the top and the rest of us will be gainfully employed in some aspect of HR. But if you want to be the “lead dog” then you need to work for it and I hope this helps.

Feel free to leave me your comments, opinions, additions or suggest a deletion.

Stepping Up To Get a Seat: Reaching for the Brass Ring

Libby Sartain, one of the most respected leaders in HR, is retiring. As the past head of HR for both Southwest Airlines and Yahoo her interviews are filled with some very good advice to aspiring HR professionals. One such interview was published by WorkForce magazine in an article entitled Seats at the Table, but Who's Ready? The article starts out "When it comes to the long-sought "seat at the table" for HR leaders, Libby Sartain sees both good news and bad. Sartain, who sits on the board of directors at retailer Peet’s Coffee & Tea, notes that human resource leaders are increasingly joining such boards—a clear sign of growing clout for the profession. But she notices a dearth of HR practitioners who are prepared for top jobs in the field." (Emphasis is mine.)

So if you are one of those HR practioners that is clamoring to have your "seat at the table" how do you get prepared? Well one way is to have a boss/mentor who prepares you through education and example. But many of us don't have that opportunity. So how do we get it?

The answer is VOLUNTEER to serve on the Boards of community groups. Many community service groups are always looking for people to serve on their boards. They need people, they need expertise, they need different points of view, they need different contacts, basically they need help. Many would find a human resources perspective especially valuable when it comes to involvement with people decisions, such as hiring directors.

What do you get out of it? A valuable learning experience. You get out of the rut of your day-to-day. You see the decision-making process of a board in action. You learn about the financial operations of a group, an experience most HR people have sorely missed in their experience. You learn negotiation skills and you have the opportunity to lead. If capable, and you want it, you can step up and take on the Chair role of the organization. This truly gives you leadership experience you may not have the opportunity to get in your job. I have had the opportunity to work with several groups, a symphony orchestra board, a Rotary Club, and a Leadership Alumni group. I learned something every time.

Can it be time consuming? Sure, there will be trade-offs you have to make. Might you be asked to do some fundraising? Probably, but that in itself is a great experience for HR to have. ALL HR people should know something about raising money and being "salesy." Volunteering on a board is not for the vaint of heart or the lazy, but it is well worth the experience. It is what will help you get into that strategic, decsion-making HR leadership position.

The "Brass Ring" of strategic HR leadership is out there you just have to lean a little further to get it. And if you are not willing to "put up" to get there then shut up. Keep your day-to-day role and your 8 to 5 and don't complain when the go-getter ends up as your boss.

Measures and Metrics: What Is Your Discernable Impact?

Today's issue of the Staffing.org newsletter had an article entitled
Beware of Death By Metrics. The folks at Staffing.org are all about metrics.
In this case, as they relate to staffing. (Good site by the way.) But in this article they point out that getting caught up in measurements and metrics for the sake of measurements and metrics will get you nowhere. It will not get you the attention that you desire from the C-Suite. Many departments use, or over use, measurement to increase department efficiency. However, as they state: "...if you happen to be wearing all these additional measurements like merit badges and hoping senior management will notice, we have some bad news. They aren't, they won't, and career-wise you will eventually suffer death by metrics." There are two reasons according to Staffing.org "...first, the modest-at-best interest that C-level staff have in your efficiency; and second, the poor financial correlation between the efficiency implied by your staffing department's measurements and the success of the enterprise as a whole."

As the article points out "At the highest level of a well-run company, departmental efficiency is a management given. Decent managers are expected to be efficient. It's the low bar to staying employed." So being efficient, measuring what needs to be measured is important, not because it makes an impact, because it is how you keep your job. "C-Level staffs spend most of their time focused on the things that will have the biggest impact on the organization's success as a whole."

The author of the article then states, "The high bar for being recognized as a star manager is making a discernible impact on the annual report." What a great statement. For the people at Staffing.org that discernible impact for a staffing department would be "...focusing relentlessly on staffing's core functions: locating and hiring splendid people, at a reasonable cost, as quickly as possible. "

DISCERNIBLE IMPACT! What a strong and succinct statement. Spend some time today and think about what you are measuring in your HR department. Is it to make you more efficient? Good thing, you need that to keep your job. But are you measuring the one thing that will make that discernible impact on the bottom line of the organization?

If you truly want that ever-sought "place at the table" that is what you will have to do to get there.

Thinking Competitively in the HR Department

I just finished reading an article on Thinking Competitively by John Sullivan. He states "Having the competitive advantage is now essential to the survival of any business function, especially human resources. In the past, it was possible for HR to focus 100 percent on internal issues, never demonstrating superior performance when compared with talent competitors.
This internal perspective is no longer acceptable. The business world has changed dramatically, and global competition for talent has been ratcheted up several levels. Now more than ever before, the HR function and its activities affect the success or failure of the business."

He outlines a number of steps that HR departments must take in order to become competitive or to provide a competitive advantage for the company or organization. Those of you who have taken classes from me will have heard me say many of the same things he says.

At this time of the year if you are doing some planning for next year perhaps you can incorporate some of these steps.

The only issue I have with this article is that it was written by someone who has been in the academic world for 30 years. So I wonder if he has ever run an HR department. Regardless, the advice is still sound. Read the article by clicking on the link and tell me what you think.