My New Year's Resolutions For HR

Do you recall the episode of Outnumbered in which Karen misunderstands the concept of New Year's Resolutions and, rather than making them for herself, she makes a list for her mum?

Well, dear HR Community, that's what I'm going to do for you today and tomorrow. Fortunately there are only two items on the list, but if we all stick to them, we'll make the world a far better place for everyone to live in!

Here's today's resolution:

We will check out the sources of any article before we distribute it to the wider world.

I have a specific issue in mind, and that is the oft-circulated and quite clearly untrue assertion that (and I quote) "90% of recruiters and hiring managers have looked a candidate’s social media profile (primarily Facebook and Twitter) as part of the screening process."

It isn't true. And ten seconds of thought would lead anyone to that conclusion. Are any of us actually gulllible enough to believe that 90% of (say) the companies in the FTSE 100 index (that's 90 companies if your maths isn't very good ... ) have HR Teams that have sufficient time to trawl through Facebook and Twitter profiles in search of Dark Secrets concerning their potential new recruits? Anyone who actually works in such an organisation will laugh out if you ask them if such activities are a normal part of their workload. There are far more pressing activities to complete and deadlines to meet than playing the HR supersleuth.

The reason that this myth is perpetuated is that we are encouraged to believe it by organisations with a vested interest in making people concerned about their online presence.

The particular offender here is Reppler who regularly feed the fires of candidate paranoia with alarming statistics on "the habits of hiring professionals." Get real HR people! Reppler are an "Online Image Management" business, whose marketing pitch is "Whether looking for a job or building up your career, it is important for your online image to represent you professionally and consistently." Their US-based research ("conducted among a random sample of 300 individuals involved in the hiring process at their company") does not stand up to scrutiny, and flies in the face of the facts.

They have a product or a service to sell, and they are appealing to the fear factor in the desperate (or possibly just the conscientious) applicant who appreciates that the current job market is a jungle, and who therefore wishes to use every tool at his or her disposal to give themself an edge over other competitors.

So please, please, please, dear HR colleagues: don't take such mouthwatering pseudo-facts at face value and mindlessly hurl them into the crowd. Read, think, and exercise some professional judgement and common sense before spreading unverifiable gossip!

I conclude this particular resolution by repeating the challenge previously made in the pages of this humble blog for anyone who is formally involved in the recruitment process to explain just how frequently they indulge in the Dark Practices that some would like us to believe.

Any takers?

Lady Gaga: My Life in HR

Readers may be surprised to note that, despite being nominated as an “alternative” keynote speaker for the 2012 CIPD Conference, Lady Gaga has currently polled only one vote on the HR Case Studies poll.

The editorial team managed to catch up with the provocateuse of pop in the middle of her “Born This Way” tour, and ask her if she’s surprised with her low popularity rating.

Editor: Despite your popularity in the world of pop, you’ve not received many votes in support of you speaking at next year’s CIPD Conference. Why do you think that this might be?

I guess it’s probably due to the fact that most people only know of my music work, and are unaware that for me pop superstardom is just a sideline. What gives my life most meaning is the work I do as HR Director for the American Bacon Federation. Like all HR roles, it’s a stressful job, and my music career started off just as a way of de-stressing after a busy day in the office.

Editor: What are the major challenges that you’re currently facing in your HR role?

Well, within the American Bacon Federation we’re really forward-looking in a lot of what we do, so we’re considering the introduction of an electronic timekeeping system to keep a record of employees’ working time, and we’re also looking into the introduction of single-status canteens in our head office.

Editor: I hear that you’ve also been working with a few UK organisations on the internal design of office space. Can you tell us a little about that?

Sure. I think that organisations need to be increasingly tolerant of all the different belief systems present in the workplace, and currently those who espouse a bacon-focused way of life seem to be neglected. At the ABF we’ve recently converted a spare office into a space for those with a devotion to bacon to practice their belief system. I think it’s important for employees to be able to take a short break from the relentless pressure of the modern workplace and just unwind in a bacon-infused environment.

To make sure that we’re inclusive, the bacon sanctuary also features interchangeable stained glass windows so that those employees with more of a devotion to cheese or sardines can feel at home in an environment where they are surrounded by images which reflect their beliefs.

We’re also working closely with an aromatherapy consultancy to explore the circulation of various food-related scents into the open-plan offices. So far, a pilot project has delivered great results, and there’s a demonstrable link with output. At the ABF we’re calling it the Pong-Productivity Effect.

Editor: If you were to speak at next year’s CIPD Conference, can you give us an idea of what you’d be presenting on?

It would have to be the importance of using bacon in any employee well-being programme. 

Editor: Thanks for that. I’m sure that you’ll be receiving a lot more votes now that people realise the contribution that you’ve been making to HR.

You're going the wrong way!

This morning my car is currently sitting in the small office car park where I work.

Nothing particularly newsworthy in that, I hear you say, but it actually represents a painful lesson learned over the last 48 hours.

For the last 12 months I have taken the same route to work. It's a journey of about 15 miles across the outskirts of London and normally takes me about 40 minutes through typical stop/start urban traffic. I measure if I'm on schedule against what's on the Radio 4 Today programme at particular stages of the journey: To arrive at work on time I need to be in the car by the business news, at Tolworth roundabout by the sports update, and driving over Kingston Bridge by Thought For The Day.

I've been convinced that my route to work is the shortest and fastest that I could take, and I've disregarded advice from those trying to persuade me that there are better routes to follow.

But yesterday there was serious congestion in the early part of my journey, and I decided to turn back and try a different route rather than just sit in the non-moving traffic. I was surprised at how free-flowing the traffic was and, even allowing for the disrupted journey, I arrived at work at pretty much the same time as normal.

So this morning I tried an alternative route to work. Simply turned left at the first set of traffic lights rather than driving straight across. Yes, you've guessed it: the route is shorter, faster, more free-flowing (and also more picturesque!) than my previous one, and it also means that I get to work early enough to claim one of the few coveted spaces in the car park.

So here I am, wishing that I'd tried a different route a long time ago. Just think of all the time, petrol and money I would have saved by listening to the advice of others and not stubbornly believing that I knew best and that there was nothing to be gained by considering other options.

Extending this a bit wider, I wonder how many of us hold onto opinions, prejudices, convictions and groundless beliefs and constantly refuse to consider the views and insight of others? It's very easy to be so entrenched in a position that it would take much more than mere traffic congestion to get us to consider an alternative position. Realising that you're wrong about something isn't exactly easy, and often it makes you see that in the past you were a bit of a fool.

But to do so may well lead to something more significant than just a place in the car park!

The fruitless search for employee happiness

Imagine this:

It's October 2015, and England are up against reigning champions New Zealand in the final of the rugby World Cup at Twickenham. In the 79th minute, with both teams level on points, in front of a crowd of 82,000 Jonny Wilkinson steps up to take a penalty which, if converted, will almost certainly give England the victory and make amends for the team's hapless performance in 2011.

Wilkinson places the ball, takes a couple of steps backwards, clasps his hands in his trademark prayer-like gesture and focuses his gaze on the target.

Quietly, just before he begins his run-up, the HR Director of the England Team steps up to Wilkinson and asks:

"Are you happy, Jonny?"

What would Wilkinson's response be?

More than likely it would be one of puzzlement and confusion at the nature of the question. Quite probably Wilkinson would state that at that precise moment in time the question was utterly irrelevant. I imagine that he'd say words to the effect of, "Right now, all I'm bothered about it making sure that this ball gets between those posts. Whether or not I'm happy is of no interest to me. Once I've kicked the ball and scored the points, ask me again and I'll tell you how I feel. But right now I have a job to do."

The same scenario could have been repeated this year with Jenson Button on the starting grid of the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montreal, or Stuart Broad as he prepared to attempt to claim a hat-trick against India in the second test against India at Trent Bridge.

In all these cases, the response of those in question would be to indicate that whether or not they were happy just didn't enter their mind as they prepared to undertake the task in hand, but that they simply had a job to do, and that any happiness would follow the completion of the challenge, not precede it.

So why do we seem to be obsessed with the concept of employee satisfaction and engagement? From the overwhelming range of tools and techniques available to measure and improve employee satisfaction, you could be excused for thinking that making the workforce happy was the sole purpose of HR's existence.

The pursuit of employee satisfaction seems to have become more important than ensuring that employees are fully equipped to do their jobs, and are effectively managed to enable their organisation to achieve its strategy.

Surely it's the case that happiness is a product of success, not a prerequisite for it?

8 million UK workers are miserable. Are you one of them?

According to research reported by the Chartered Management Institute, almost eight million of us workers in the UK are unhappy in the roles we currently occupy.

The incisive, in-depth, profound, comprehensive (and 100% sarcasm free) research into worker satisfaction found that 28 per cent of workers are unhappy in their role, although only 25 per cent are currently looking for career development opportunities elsewhere. How many of the 25 per cent listen to the news, I wonder?

Also, according to the findings, UK workers think a good salary is the key to happiness at work, with 64 per cent of respondents stating that a good salary would make them altogther more cheerful. Herzberg, where are you now that your transatlantic cousins need you?

Who commissions these surveys? I though that the Ministry for Research into the Flipping Obvious was one of the quangos that was wound up just after the current coalition government was elected?

Let's face it, we're living at a 17-year high point in unemployment. According to the Office of National Statistics, the unemployment rate stands at 8.3%. Between July and September of this year, UK unemployment rose by 129,000 between July and September to 2.62 million.

For the UK's youth, the situation is even more bleak, with over 20% of those aged 16-24 out of employment.

To make matters worse, inflation is wobbling at around the 5% mark, and bank interest rates for those fortunate enough to have any savings are so low that the biscuit tin under the bed seems an attractive location for any few coppers remaining at the end of the month.

Bearing all the above in mind, is it actually surprising that UK workers are not currently constantly convulsed with laughter?

What is irritating is not so much the fact that the outcome of such reseach could be predicted in advance, but that there is a hint that if employees are unhappy, it is inevitably the fault of management who must thereofore also do whatever it can to turn its workforce into deliriously happy chappies!

Or am I just being Mr Grumpy?

Once upon a time there was a wicked old HR Manager ....

I recently spent some time talking with the Senior Management Team of an organisation, discussing their perceptions of HR and also what sort of service they required from HR in the future.

On a number of occasions, leaders would tell me that they had heard that it was said of HR that they were slow, inaccessible, a blocker to progress or some other negative comment. When asked for a specific example of this, the senior manager would often backtrack slightly and explain that “I haven’t found this to be the case myself, but I’ve certainly heard other people saying such things.” 

My response was (as politely as possible!) to suggest that it wasn’t particularly helpful for anyone if unsubstantiated rumours, gossip and anecdotes were passed off as if they were accurate, and that spreading such views should be contained and suppressed.

Someone far less diplomatic than I might have commented, “If you haven’t got any evidence behind your statement, then you need to shut up.”

Controlling the truth of what is said of the HR profession is a difficult challenge, particularly as such nonsense is regularly spouted about us.

Here’s an example: Yesterday, a widely circulated article asked the question “Is HR Killing Another Generation of Technology Innovation?” The article concerns a recent report in the Wall Street Journal which mentions that companies can keep track of their workers by checking their status updates on various social media sites. “When HR organizations start to use these tools to track employees and measure productivity, we have killed another generation of trust and innovation that HR should be fostering” says yesterday’s article.

So what’s the picture that we’re given? It’s one of an HR function that sneakily - or possibly formally - checks up on employees to make sure that they are in the right place at the right time and that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. It’s one of an HR function that is suspicious of the company’s employees and therefore utilises available technology to keep an eye on what they are doing. Big Bad HR, doing its normal thing of suppressing innovation and destroying the trust of its employees.

Only one problem. The original Wall Street Journal article doesn’t mention HR once. There's nothing in there at all to suggest that any such initiative is being driven by HR.

But from reading yesterday’s article, you’d be excused that this is all part of The Big Plan of HR to control a company’s employees. It’s just another example of the way that sloppy reporting starts to spread stories about HR that are far from the truth.

My plea: let’s get behind the facade of the half truths about our beloved HR function. When the stories are based on truth we need to respond. When they are based on myth, we need to expose them as such.

German Rock Music and Plain-Speaking HR: Tenuous Links and Self-Indulgence!

Time for a tenuous link or two, plus some shameless self indulgence today.

First, here's the self-indulgent bit. Unless you're German, the chances are that you won't have encountered the German rock band Juli. It's a shame really, as they are equally as good, if not far better than most of the bland processed junk that we are fed in the UK. The same goes for a number of other German rock bands such as Wir Sind Helden and Silbermond.

They are all popular in their native Germany but have had limited success outside their home country, for the simple reason that they only sing in German.

Here's a quick experiment: check out the video of Juli's "Perfekt Welle" on the sidebar on the right. This song got to number two in the German charts and sold a healthy 160,000 copies. Incidentally, the song, which concerns (at first glance) a surfer who is waiting for the Perfect Wave to ride on, was removed from the German radio playlists just after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, when the lyrics were thought to be rather inappropriate.

Go on, give the song a listen.

Done that? Good. OK; now it's time for a question: What would record sales of bands such as Juli be like if the band performed in English, I wonder? Perhaps I'm simply betraying my preference for melodic and intelligent rock, but I'd like to believe that an English-speaking audience would be happy to part company with the odd couple of quid in exchange for the purchase of a CD (do people buy CD's anymore, or am I totally out of touch?) of the band. Put simply, I supect that if the band sang in English, they'd be as popular outside their native Germany as they are within it.

Right. Time for the tenuous link. How much of what we say as HR professionals is expressed in a language that only we understand? Don't we sometimes use terminology that overcomplicates what we're doing, and don't we sometimes do that because underneath it all we realise that our message is very simple, but by using long words it gives us the appearance of being experts in a highly technical field?

Basically if we spoke the language of the masses, wouldn't our message be heard and understood by a wider audience?

So who's with me as a founder member of the Campaign for Plain-Speaking HR?