To give you a general idea of how big this is here are some stats:
Over 18,000 attendees
Over 1200 international attendees
280 speakers
Over 200 sessions
and 700 attendees
That adds up to over 18,000 people.

The kickoff key note was Fareed Zakaria. I was not familiar with him, but after listening to him I will be following him. Hillary Clinton also spoke, unfortunately as a member of the “press” I was barred from listening to her. Oh well…

Next up is Blake Mycoski, the founder and CEO of Tom’s Shoes.

I attended a session at 7 am on Auditing Compensation Practices. I know, I am a glutton for punishment. I will tell you more about that in later posts.

More later…

Is sociology the HR degree of the future?

Just a quick thought for you on Future Friday. With the growing importance of social media and the ever changing nature of people and society the science of sociology has taken on a new importance. Marketers in particular have been paying attention to sociology for some time. Perhaps it is time for the business of human resources to do so as well. Sociology is a social science which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity, structures, and functions. Graduates of the degree come prepared to deal with data and behavior.

I think it would make sense today for large companies to have a sociologist on staff in addition to the talent manager, the compliance expert and the employee relations specialist.

Might this be the HR degree of the future? At minimum HR degrees should include courses in sociology.

What do you think?

There are 7 reasons you have toxic employees that cause you stress.

I was reading an article on ways to lower your workplace stress, written by David Posen. Number 5 on Posen’s list was: identify problem people and deal rid of them. As he said “Abusive people wreak havoc in the workplace, keeping coworkers on edge and distracted. They kill engagement, morale and productivity.” I agree with him and it reminded me of a post I wrote back in 2008 about toxic employees. In Toxic Employees: Some Are Like Atomic Waste and Never Go Away, I listed 7 reasons you have toxic employees.

Mistakes you keep paying for

We have all had toxic employees or have them now. They serve as a constant reminder of our mistakes. Mistakes? What mistakes you ask? Here are the mistakes you have made to get that toxic employee:

1. You did not clearly understand what you needed in a new employee.
2. You did not clearly understand your corporate culture.
3. You allowed time pressure to outweigh your common sense.
4. You did a rotten job of interviewing because you did not know what you were looking for.
5. You “sold” in the interview instead of “asking.”
6. You got “wowed” by a school, a degree, a title, a company.
7. You did not do your due diligence and do a thorough background check.

Why you still have them

Here is why you still have them:

• When you realized they were “bad news” you did nothing about it, hoping they would get better.
• You did not measure their performance.
• You did not document their poor performance.
• You did not act to stop their “bad mouthing” the boss/other employees/the company/etc.
• You ran scared because they were (in no particular order): over 40, female, black, Asian, Hispanic, pregnant, Islamic, Jewish, Baptist, Catholic, disabled, etc.

So to avoid toxic employees avoid hiring them in the first place. If you have one act on doing something right away. Posen says “Employers need to identify problem people and put them on notice that their behavior will not be tolerated…. Fix them or Fire them.” Otherwise if they stay they poison everyone. And sometimes even when you do get rid of them they keep coming back and back and back. They threaten lawsuits, they file lawsuits, they harass you and other employees, they “bad mouth” your company, they steal your employees and generally make life miserable for you in any way they can. They end up costing money, time and energy.

So get some backbone, make good decisions and don’t procrastinate. Hire slow and fire fast is what I always advise. What can you add to this discussion? Other tips or reasons I missed?

To be exempt a manager has to perform primarily managerial duties.

We all know that to be exempt means that the employee is not eligible to be paid overtime. This is not determined by job title. There are several factors that go into deciding if an employee qualifies to be exempt. First they have to be paid a salary, but that is not sufficient, a mistake many companies make. Secondly is the importance of the primary duty they are performing. A recent case demonstrated how important this is.

Primary purpose

In case of the executive (managerial) exemption “The employee’s primary duty must be managing the enterprise, or managing a customarily recognized department or subdivision of the enterprise.” Further, “’Primary duty’ means the principal, main, major or most important duty that the employee performs. Determination of an employee’s primary duty must be based on all the facts in a particular case, with the major emphasis on the character of the employee’s job as a whole.”

According to attorney Eunice Majam-Simpson of Nossaman LLP this was the deciding factor in a case against Safeway grocery stores. In her article Did You Know…“Primary Purpose” Is The Appropriate Test To Determine Exemption Status Of An Employee, Majam-Simpson describes the case of Heyen v. Safeway, Inc., in which “Heyen claimed that Safeway should have classified her as “non-exempt” because she regularly spent a majority of her time performing checking and bagging duties.” Safeway claimed that Heyen was performing managerial duties at the same time and was thus properly classified as exempt.

The court did not agree with Safeway. They said “…that when a party claims an employee is engaged in concurrent performance of exempt and non-exempt work, the jury must consider the time to either be exempt or non-exempt, depending on the “primary purpose” for which the employee undertook the task.” Majam-Simpson explains there is no hybrid category. If Heyen were truly performing managerial duties it would have been exempt work. However, she was performing clerk duties in order to avoid going over the budget of hours allotted to the store, thus she was primarily performing non-exempt work and was thus due overtime. She was not fulfilling the primary duty aspects of the job of being a manager.

Burden of proof with the employer

Majam-Simpson concludes that this case shows “…that the burden of proof of showing an employee’s exempt status rests on the employer. To meet its burden, Heyen requires employers to show that the primary purpose of tasks performed by their store managers relate to employee supervision and/or management of the store.”

I have written a number of times on the importance of proper classification. Title means nothing. It is the job description that holds sway. You don’t have to hold to it 100% of the time but the preponderance of work needs to be in that job description. Otherwise you can be racking up non-exempt overtime that could actually permanently alter the exemption status of the position. So be careful.

The EEOC is bringing more lawsuits against companies based on the illegal use of genetic information.

When the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) was first published many people were puzzled. They thought “We don’t collect genetic information. We are not taking swabs and running to the lab, so how are we going to get in trouble with this law?” Well companies are getting in trouble and GINA lawsuits are becoming more common.

Examples of cases

On May 7^th the EEOC announced that they had settled a case with a company called Fabricut for $50,000 for a violation of an employee’s GINA rights. On May 16^th they filed a lawsuit against the Corning Rehab Center for GINA violations. Both cases involved using medical questionnaires as part of the hiring process. Asking questions that reveal family medical histories, and thus genetic backgrounds, is prohibited as part of the hiring process. Both of these companies then went on to exacerbate their mistake by using this information to then deny positions or to rescind offers based upon this information.

In addition to GINA violations the companies were also cited for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because under the ADAAA some of the genetic conditions discovered also qualified as disabilities under the ADA. A double WHAMMY  for the companies. In Fabricut’s situation these mistakes cost them $50,000. The Corning case involves more people so I am guessing it will cost them more.

The lesson

The main lesson in this is that medical questionnaires as screening tools are illegal. Many smaller employers are still using them as a way to try to avoid big hits on their insurance policies but it is a prohibited practice that will cause you nothing but trouble. Eliminate those questionnaires.

I have written about GINA several times but here is the post that lays out much of what is important about the law. GINA Final Regulations are Effective 1/10/2011: Are You Ready? This post might also be instructive to read because it talks about how you can also “innocently” run afoul of the law. Breast Cancer Awareness Month and GINA

FMLA includes “bonding” time for fathers.

On April 30^th Yahoo changed its parental leave policy. Of course because it was Yahoo, which previously eliminated its telecommuting policy, the fact that they instituted a very friendly parental leave policy made the news. The company instituted a policy that allowed 16 weeks of maternity leave and 8 weeks of paternity leave. This immediately raised questions of gender discrimination. Was it?

The answer

This policy deals with PAID leave and is taken as part of the FMLA policy. So to answer any question related to FMLA I go to Jeff Nowak, the attorney blogger, who writes FMLA Insights. In his post, When an Employer Provides More Parental Leave to Mom than Dad, is this Gender Discrimination?, he provides with a video answer. It was an interesting discussion and I encourage you to listen to the entire video, but I will give you his answer on the question. But before I do what do you think?

Well if you said “no” then you are correct, at least the way this is structured. Under the FMLA the paternal leave provided to fathers is for “bonding.” The 16 weeks provided to mothers at Yahoo takes into consideration birth recovery and bonding. The standard recovery time accepted for a normal birth is 6 to 8 weeks, so Yahoo is providing the 8 weeks. They are then saying that there is an additional 8 weeks for bonding. So, according to Jeff, the leave time provided for bonding is equal across genders and thus there is no discrimination.

Where this could be considered gender discrimination would be if the facts were different and mothers who adopted where given the entire 16 weeks, but fathers who adopted were only given the 8 weeks. According to Jeff, because there is no needed recovery time, providing an additional 8 weeks to the mothers would indeed be gender discrimination.

Certainly Yahoo should be applauded for being so family friendly. Most companies cannot be that generous. But the questions raised by their policy points out the potential unintended consequences of being too “family friendly.” Be careful in how you craft your policies.

Black swans are rare birds and thus rare events are called black swans.

Here on Future Friday I try to introduce terms and methods used by the futurist community, in my attempt to help make you a practical HR futurist. One of these terms that has become popular is that of “black swan”. You may have seen it, here is what it means.

 History

Although the term used in its present context is relatively new, it comes originally from the Latin poet Decimus Lunius Luvenalis, known in English as Juvenal. He said some events were “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” (“a rare bird in the lands, very much like a black swan.” This term was popular in 16^th century London as an statement of impossibility. At that time all swans were white. Thus a black swan was considered to be impossible. That however was laid to rest when black swans were discovered in Australia by Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh. They are however still rare birds.

In the 21^st century the term was introduced by by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2001 book Fooled By Randomness, which concerned financial events. His 2007 book (revised and completed in 2010) The Black Swan extended the metaphor to events outside of financial markets according to Wikipedia. His books deal with the effect of randomness and the effect that a random event can have. These random events are also know by other names such as “wild cards”, “disruptive events” and “outliers”, the last term made popular by Malcolm Gladwell.

Definition

By definition a black swan is an event that is unforeseen, thus it has a very low probability yet, if it occurs, it will have a major impact. According to Taleb a Black Swan has three features:

1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
2. The event has a major effect.
3. After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. The same is true for the personal perception by individuals

Taleb downplayed the importance of paying attention to trends, since in his view black swans are responsible for the major changes in the world. Futurist Stephen Millet, in his book Managing the Future, says that Taleb is correct in emphasizing the importance of emphasizing black swan events but he says Taleb is incorrect in totally discounting paying attention to trends and continuities.

The Lesson

The premise of a black swan is that it is something that cannot be foreseen and thus there is no way to prepare for them. Millett disagrees with that premise, as do I. Millett says that one big error that people and companies make is in not considering the possibility of unexpected events. Millett says “So the strategy is to be aware of the possibility of an approaching black swan and be prepared to deal with it when it lands. In this situation, the mental attitude of awareness of the possibility and the willingness to be flexible are more useful than trying to see a black swan in the dark.”

Millett suggests that in order to be prepared you need to consistently monitor know trends and to continually scan for emerging trends. (These will be future topics.) He does say however, that trying to imagine events that today seem unimaginable is a challenge. His solution to this dilemma is continuous learning and exercise of the imagination.

You can sit there in some moments of quiet reflection and start asking yourself “How would we deal with ______?” The exercise of developing answers for each of the different words you use to fill in the blank will help you develop a flexibility that will help you handle the black swan.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons from Rubybottoms

Vendors help pay your way and provide valuable information to help advance your career.

The SHRM national convention will be held in Chicago this month on June 16^th through the 19^th.  I am attending as an official blogger which makes me “Press”. I feel a bit funny with that title but I did it last year in Atlanta as well. It was fun, I learned a lot, especially in the marketplace and that is why I am planning of visiting the vendors at SHRM 2013. If you are going I recommend you do the same.

People think I am crazy

One of the frustrations many vendors have is that conference attendees don’t come and spend any time talking to them. Granted they don’t have to make too many “good” contacts to make it worthwhile, but they do spend money, a lot of money, to have a booth. That money makes the price of your attendance much less than it would be without their attendance. For that reason alone you need to show them some love.

“Yeah Mike but I don’t want to be sold to and besides I am not the decision maker.” My question to you is how will you ever get to be a decision maker if you are not informed? The marketplace is where you become informed about innovations in technology and you cannot tell me you keep up on that on your own. The marketplace is where you find out about innovations in benefits. I came across one last year in Atlanta that offered an employee car buying benefit. Discounted car buying as a benefit? Yes sir!

The marketplace was where I found out about a program to help companies deal with disabled employees. They had a program, including providing equipment, to help you accommodate disabled employees. They had the expertise and did the case management. This certainly goes a long way to complying with the “interactive discussion” requirement of the ADAAA.

The marketplace was where I found a training company that I ended up partnering with, MindEdge, because they already had a product that offered what I wanted to offer. They kept me from having to create the content myself. What a time saver.

To advance you need to know

When you attend a conference you are there to learn. The sessions this year look spectacular. My schedule is full. I will learn things to help keep my clients informed. That is what you are there to do as well, with your “clients” being your management team. This ability to inform and identify trends is probably the best reason to visit the marketplace. Yes I understand you are not the “buyer” in most cases, but you can be the “influencer”. So gather information, learn new technologies and be prepared to report on what you saw and learned. By being a forward-thinking “influencer” you will be more likely to one day be a forward-thinking decision-maker.

A final reason to visit the marketplace

In one word the last reason to visit the marketplace is SWAG. The vendors have a ready supply of gizmos, pens, toys, and more to hand out. They also have some great gifts. I always do some collecting for my granddaughter and for myself. I love creative pens. I got some pens that light up last year that have come in very handy in dark rooms, dark cars and dark bars.

So if you are attending show the vendors some love and if you happen to see me say hello.

Chicago here I come.

Hiring for attractiveness is not illegal but it can get you in trouble.

Physical attractiveness has been in the news quite a bit lately. Abercrombie & Fitch have been excoriated because of the statements of the president of the company about only wanting attractive people wearing their brand. And now the website Beautifulpeople.com is causing a hub-bub by offering a website that features only “beautiful” candidates to employers. The reaction to it has not been a positive one based on the comments posted on the Mashable article. Here is my take on the good, the bad and the ugly about hiring only beautiful people.

Attractive versus Ugly

There has been a great deal of research that has shown that attractive people do “better” than unattractive people at least in American business. Most sales people tend to be higher on the attractive scale. Companies use attractive models to push their products. I wrote about this previously in ISM Number Seven: Ugly-ISM. Scientific research has shown more positive reactions to “attractive” faces, even at the level of infants, suggesting an innate tendency to be attracted to “beautiful.” As we grow our definition of “attractive” and “beautiful” change with our own circumstances, current tastes, and our judgment of the “internal beauty” of people we meet.

In the days before Linked In profiles résumé counselors would suggest to “attractive” candidates that they send their picture along with their résumé knowing that it would most likely be stricken from the document but would have a chance to interject a positive bias. The same thing works today with our LI profiles. We want to have a nice looking photo on our profiles in order to project the most positive impression we can. We are trying to introduce some positive bias to help us with jobs, contacts, business or whatever. But is this bias illegal?

The “Good”

The “good” in this sense is that “ugly” or “attractive are not protected categories under Title VII of the Civil Rights act. Thus companies can, and do, make decisions based upon the physical attractiveness of candidates, at least attractive in their eyes. It promotes a brand. It can even be deemed to be job related if their products are things like clothing, swimsuits, make-up, etc. So from an employer stand point you are not violating any Federal statute if you use physical attractiveness as a criterion. You just have to make sure your definition goes across racial, national origin, religious, and gender lines. Hmmm… I seem to have missed a couple of protected categories. What about disability and pregnancy? How does that enter into the mix?

The “Bad”

From the employer’s standpoint the “bad’ aspect of this that the EEOC is looking at making “being too attractive” a form of bias. I wrote about this in Would You Like to be Declared Ugly Enough to Be a Protected Category? They are actually investigating creating a protected category of “ugly”. Anyone want to step up and claim protection under that category? Read that post for the absurdity of this action by the EEOC.

But as I mentioned above there are two potential areas that an employer can get in trouble with if they hire solely on the basis of physical attractiveness. The biggest of these is disability. The ADA requires us to give consideration to candidates with disabilities if they can perform the essential functions of the job with, or without, a reasonable accommodation. Take the example of a sales rep with a stellar sales record who has become disfigured by burns. He would be considered disabled under the ADA. He would be able to demonstrate all the abilities of handling sales because of his previous record. Yet due to the disfigurement many employers might be hesitant to hire him. Doing so solely on the basis of that disability would probably lead to a lawsuit. The other area that would be problematic when hiring on physical attraction would be pregnancy. I don’t think I will say much more about that one.

The Ugly

The ugly aspect of this for employers is that you may suffer the same fate that Abercrombie & Fitch have suffered and that BeautifulPeople.com is starting to feel. To most people discrimination of any sort is wrong. I think they are incorrect. I think all employers need to be discriminatory in their hiring. They need to have a bias toward ability and skills. They need to discriminate on the basis of capability. They need to discriminate on the basis of “fit” to the culture or on the basis of “lack of fit” if that is what you are trying do.

The Reality

It is good to be good looking (or so I am told). But as the saying goes, beauty is only skin deep and looks fade with age. Hiring someone on the basis of their looks will be a fleeting success. Despite the punch line of a sexist joke the secretary that gets hired most often is the capable one. If we direct our efforts to determining if someone is capable of doing our jobs we will be more successful in finding people who promote our business. If they happen to be more attractive, well that could be considered a bonus.

Books can unleash ideas, dreams and passions.

Books have always held great power for me. As a young boy they would transform me into an adventurer, a soldier, a spaceman, time traveler and many other roles that were not possible from my chair or bed. As I grew older the genre’s changed and the world of fantasy became a favorite subject with goblins, wizards, dwarfs, elves and heroes became my pleasure fare. As I became more studious the worlds of history, archeology, psychology, biology became my daily consumption as I worked my way to my college degree. Those books and many more held sway on my thinking that drove me to my degree and beyond.

Books drive ideas and dreams

I get many things from books. I am a good trivia partner. They help with my crossword ability, though I am light on the literature questions. I can carry on a conversation about many subjects, which is actually a good skill to have in the business world. Today I get business success from books. Brian Tracy says “Read an hour every day in your chosen field. This works out to about one book per week, 50 books per year, and will guarantee your success.”

I also get friends from books or at least from a mutual love of books. To this end two of my friends, Todd Schnick and Bill Ramsey, have agreed to meet with me monthly to discuss some mutual reading. We have agreed that we will record our discussions and from them create podcast book reviews that we will offer on our websites. We hope that you will benefit from these and be prompted to read as well.

The point of this post is that reading can be transformational for you. Such is the case of Lisa Bu, who came to the United States in need of a new dream. She found it in books. She offers some wonder suggestions for reading, particularly in her discussion of comparative reading. This video is only 6 minutes long and is well worth the small effort to watch it. I hope you will be inspired to read.

Before the video here is a quote to think about: “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” ― Mark Twain

Click here to view the embedded video.