conference call ... again?

Human Resources has been called many things, but “sexy” is definitely not a descriptor normally associated with our craft. One of the challenges of being up-to-date in the HR profession is sifting through “industry speak” and legalese while trying to define some applicability to what you have digested. So, for the ADD nation (myself included), I decided to apply Cliff’s Notes™ to a few of the current events happening in our sector of industry:

1. Headline: “Nearly $37M Awarded in ERISA Case”  Reaction: (*Yawn*); the real story ~ a company (ABB) became overly reliant on their 401(K) provider (Fidelity), to the point they neglected to maintain fiduciary oversight ~ paid too much, returned too little, assumed everything was peachy. Moral: When it’s your money, pay attention.

"this is gonna hurt"

2. Headline: “Judge strikes down union election rules citing voting flaw” Reaction: (“zzzzzzz”); the real story ~ the NLRB passed new voting rules to speed up the process for electing Union officials. They did so at a time when only 2 members of the Board were present for the vote; 2 seats were open, 1 member was absent ~ the term “fast one” comes to mind. Moral: When you miss a meeting, don’t be surprised at the outcome.

3. Headline: “Permeable Employee Boundaries Are Part of HR’s Future” Reaction: “whaaaaat?”; the real story ~ a presentation made by leaders within the National Association of Human Resources encourages HR to become more creative and to open positions for professionals from different job functions. Moral: If HR doesn’t learn to speak “business,” the business will replace the old HR model.

4. Headline: “DOL Ramps Up Wage and Hour Enforcement” Reaction: “that sounds scary.”; the real story ~ the DOL has doubled in size, wage/hour complaints have increased 6-fold in only 10 years, so companies are being hit hard when FLSA (Fair Labor  & Standards Act) infractions are found. Having been through FLSA Audits in the past, I can assure you the costs can be monumental. Moral: Employees know what’s up, so employers better get the house in order.

5. Headline: “Global Inclusion Is Slow” Reaction: “what the what?”; the real story ~ In addition to the challenge in garnering equal pay, women are still largely under-represented in Senior Leadership roles. Formal initiatives to advance women aren’t cutting it; less formal obstacles (non-inclusion, societal stigmas, etc.) are still preventing the advancement of women into many roles for which they are qualified. Moral: Rules without consequences are paper Tigers.

"...that's what I'm talking about!"

See, we’re not so boring after all! Global intrigue, battle of the sexes, Union scandals, lawsuits….when you strip away the four-syllable words, Human Resources is still about recognizing opportunities to level the playing field, correcting injustices, and preparing for the future. Thanks to the folks at SHRM for their continuing efforts to keep us informed, I’m just trying to keep it real!

John Reaves Whitaker is a Partner at PeopleResults. He joined PeopleResults to share his knowledge and interest in Organizational Design & Development. Follow him on Twitter, @JWPeopleResults

Onboarding events focused on clarifying roles, responsibilities and operating principles.

Personality assessments which enable teams to better understand each other’s communication styles and to manage conflicts; (one example is PeopleSync).

Business planning events which enable the team to explore their goals, and shape implementation plans in a collaborative way.

And there are many others. The common thread in good team-building is that there is a clearly stated learning objective, and the team activities are designed to achieve that outcome. So if people show up expecting a team-building event, and the reality is that all you’ve arranged is beer & chips, then it will probably be seen as a waste of time. Which is too bad, because getting together to socialize with colleagues is fun, and it helps foster friendship. And let’s face it – when you have friends at work, you tend to enjoy your job a whole lot more.

Team Happy Hour anyone?

Michelle Milam Davis is a Partner with PeopleResults. You can reach her at mdavis@people-results.com or on Twitter @MilamDavis.

The Perfect Job

• Have a backup… plan, that is. If you are wired for routine (like most people) then two days without the magical combination of a laptop, software and internet connection could seriously hurt your productivity and add stress to your life. Losing your laptop for a few days is a good time to learn some of the cool productivity apps out there. Some of my favorites are Evernote for keeping track of notes, ideas and information and Paper for old-school writing/journaling/doodling. I keep a list of calls I need to make in Evernote, which I can access from all  my devices. When combined with a well-maintained Contacts list, I have all I need to keep client and team conversations going while my laptop is out of commission. Plus, talking is so much more fun than email!
• Nourish your inner techie zen. Have you ever noticed how calm tech support folks are? Do they ever get their heart rate above 55? Is “certified yogi” a credential requirement for joining the Help Desk? Maintaining calm in the face crisis is an attitude we can all practice and benefit from. It helps to know some deep breathing techniques that will lower your heart rate and inject some oxygen into your brain. In addition, change your inner dialogue about the pitfalls and challenges you encounter each day. My mantra goes something like this: I can do anything for 5 minutes/2 hours/2 days/a week/longer. No laptop for a while? Sure, I can do that for 2 days. Project getting tough and stressful? Sure, I can handle that for a week, maybe two. Traffic bad on my commute? I can handle that for… 5 minutes, and then it is back to the breathing exercises.
• Enjoy the challenge. Imagine my surprise when I picked up my laptop and the technician thanked me for providing him a fun, new challenge to work on. Happy to oblige, dude! But seriously, I bet most of you go to work every day because you like to use your brain to solve problems. After all, you can only play so much Sudoku, right? Reframe those big, complex problems that need solving as gifts to make life and work more fun and interesting. Pretty soon, you just might decide to skip Work and go to Fun everyday (I never understood why we call it ‘work’ when it can be fun too!).

Next time you are faced with a sudden change in plans that you didn’t ask for, take a few tips from the Help Desk. And, don’t forget to take them some Rice Krispie Treats – you have a better chance of jumping to the front of the queue next time your computer tanks out on you.

Heather Nelson is a partner with PeopleResults. She staunchly denies ever bribing the Help Desk to fix her computer more quickly. You can reach her at hnelson@people-results.com or on Twitter at @HeatherGNelson1. Sign up to receive the PeopleResults blog at Current.

Now, in this context, the definition of stupid is: lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull. (from dictionary.com) While you and others may not consider yourself to be stupid, I want to challenge you to think about it in terms of being stale.  Are working in the land of status quo or are you consistently looking for new information to learn and apply?

Ask yourself:

• Do I do the same things in the same way?
• Do I seek out others’ opinions and perspectives?
• Do I just use the Internet for email, connecting with friends and shopping?
• Do I make time to learn new things?

I’m here to make the case that if you are not a life-long learner, you will fall into that “stupid” category and risk losing your edge or seat at the table.  Then, my friend, life will indeed, be harder!

So are you up for making life a little less hard?  Here are some ideas to consider:

• Take at least an hour each week to hop on the Internet and do some research or read articles.  I love Smartbrief.com and subscribe so I get an email each day that highlights articles and blogs that interest me.  You can select your industry and also get news related to your career and leadership. It’s an excellent source and offers easy access to tons of info.  I also love this Smartblog from  Dana Theus. She has a three-part video series on this the topic of life-long learning and how it builds the “invisible resume” of leaders. Check it out!
• Take advantage of the many FREE webinars that are out there. One group that offers a variety of topics is the Human Capital Institute. You can even bring your team together for lunch in a conference room and participate in the webinar together. It’s a great way to expose the team to new perspectives and begin a healthy dialog on the subject…a little Lunch ‘n Learn, if you will. PeopleSync is another resource. In fact, two of my PeopleResults colleagues, (Kristi Erickson and Barbara Milhizer) will be hosting a webinar on June 7th: “The Elimination of Performance Management.”
• Read, Read, Read!  It doesn’t have to just be on work-related topics, but pay attention and ask yourself, “is there anything here I can learn from and apply in some way?” Taking new ideas or approaches and applying them in LIFE, work or personal, is always a good thing.
• Be curious! Ask questions. Taking an interest in what others know is flattering and you will be amazed at how much they are willing to share with you. Take advantage of that plethora of information that may be sitting right next to you.

While you may think you don’t have time for all this, you are wrong! I firmly believe you make time for what is important and if staying at the top of your game is important to you, then I think it’s time well spent.

Here’s to “yearnin’ for some learnin’.”… Not sure if John Wayne spoke those words, but it kinda sounds like something he might say.

Martha Duesterhoft is a Partner with PeopleResults. Follow her on Twitter @Mduesterhoft or connect by email at mduesterhoft@people-results.com. 

Until one day you find yourself in the position of managing or sponsoring a major change for your company. You’ve been asked to help get everyone ready.

“Great. Sure thing”, you say as you accept the challenge.

“Yikes”, you think to yourself. Panic button.

Where do you start?

Ask yourself the following questions to see if you’re thinking about the right things. What you should look for as you scope out this effort?

• First, figure out ‘How big is the change to your company?’ Not all changes are created equal of course. The more people that have to change, typically the more effort it will take. So think about the scale of the program.
• Are you changing most of the processes in a function?
• Are you making changes to one role or to everyone in a department?
• Are you upgrading a system feature and everyone is excited about how fast it will run?
• Are you changing something about your products that all your customers will see?
• Do people like the change (or not)? Most changes – once people know about them - come with a positive or negative impression, so be aware of what people think about it to start. Is your company happy or apprehensive about the change? It may go without saying, but if you’re lucky enough to have a positive impression from the start, you may have less work to do to get everyone behind the change. However, never take a positive impression for granted. Whims of people undergoing a change have been known to turn in a flash. Be sure to put in place ways to know if the tide has turned.
• How many people will have to deviate from ‘business as usual’? If most of the folks won’t really notice because it’s a ‘behind the scenes’ change, or you just have a small number of people to work with, breathe easy. If however, a lot of key jobs and responsibilities will change quite a bit (and you need people to change their behavior), or if there is a major organization realignment involved, take notice.
• What is the risk to your program’s ROI if people don’t change their behaviors? Sometimes you are changing out a computer program or a process.  If you are replacing it, people won’t have a choice. They have to start using the new one because you turned the old one off. However, if your program doesn’t have such a clean break from the past, people may be doing what you ask for a little while. The program that rolls out seems to be going well. But then you notice that old behaviors are popping back up and resistance is taking over. If you need those changes ‘to stick’ to keep the program’s return on investment going, you may be in trouble. Or prepare for the discussion on why your program didn’t continue to acheive its benefits.
• So, what happens if the change is not implemented completely or backslides? Another way to think about this is, what happens if people don’t want to change what they are doing? If they can choose to not change, and you haven’t clearly shown them why they should want / need to change… Ouch, you really need to focus on putting in place the long-term infrastructure to support the change. Once the excitement wears off, people will back-slide.  Strong cultures are very resiliant – often to the detriment of a change program.
• Are leaders ready to walk the walk? Do you have good sponsorship from the executives? All too often what sounded like a good approach in the PowerPoint document, fails in execution because the leadership wasn’t really ready to do what it takes to make the change happen. Or they may have trouble getting good ideas and concepts translated into action. Think about how you are going to work with your sponsors so they are effectively demonstating their support.

Hint: If more than a few of these items has got you worried, you’re moving up on the Change Richter scale. Your company will feel the repercussions. Be sure you’ve got plans in place to address them…

Have you been reponsible for planning a major change? What elements of your readiness plan do you think were the most important?

Until next time … wishing you business readiness success!

Kirsten Jordan is a Partner at PeopleResults. She can be reached on Twitter @Kirstenkbdb. Sign up to receive her and her colleagues’ blog at Current.

A few weeks ago half of us marked Equal Pay Day and even then, we did so with a yawn. It seems self-evident that women and men should be paid equally for doing the same job, assuming equal performance, skills, etc. So, do we march in the streets for the fact that U.S. women in specialty professional occupations earn less than 73% what a man in the same position earns ( NYTimes Wage Gap) and that a woman has to work 108 days into 2012 to equal what a man made in 2011? Not really, the vast majority of us pledged silent solidarity and got back to work, lest we fall farther behind.

It makes me wonder if it’s a crisis of relativism. Certainly we have come a long way:

• Women make up 46.7% of the workforce and 14.4% of Fortune 500 executive positions
• 40% of US businesses are women-owned and employ 35% more people than the Fortune 500 combined
• 36% of women in the US between ages 25-29 have bachelor’s degrees, compared with 28% of men

But for every stride made and accomplishment logged, we hear 10 gut-wrenching statistics on honor killing, human trafficking, and gender selection.

We sit down and think, “I shouldn’t complain, at least I can drive, attend school, and marry/procreate if I choose to.” Serve up another slice of status quo. It’s not a zero-sum game. Raising the profile and success of women in one hemisphere doesn’t increase the plight of women in another – quite the opposite. Empowered women influence policy, inspire action, and give hope. Sounds like one step closer to “should be” to me.

Barbara Milhizer is a Partner with PeopleResults. You can reach her at  bmilhizer@people-results.com or on twitter @mother_zen. Sign up to receive her and her colleagues’ blog at Current.

Should you find yourself working in one of the many companies rapidly expanding into these markets and learning how to operate in a truly global manner, growing pains become inevitable. These are my Top 5 Lessons about employee programs and communications for companies taking global to a Big G (and actually living it) instead of throwing it around with a “little g” (which means in name only):

1. If you want to frustrate your international colleagues to no end, the best way to do it is to take a program that has worked well in the U.S./North America, and roll it out “as is” to the rest of the world. Expecting initiatives to land the same way in other countries and cultures as it does in the US is a formula for failure. Not to mention people’s inherent need for inclusion in the design, development and implementation. Just throw it over the borders instead!
2. In presentations, training materials, and employee communications, don’t make any updates to scenarios or business examples incorporating other countries, nationalities or cultures. You definitely wouldn’t want readers or participants to “see themselves” to relate. Anglo-centric is the way to go!
3. Ensure you schedule conference calls and on-line meetings at convenient times for only the US time zones and workdays. If that means participants in Shanghai need to dial in at midnight, or log in at 3am in Dubai on a Friday, well, that tells you who is REALLY committed, right? Holding the meetings multiple times, including “inconvenient” times for Americans certainly couldn’t be an option . . .  Oh yeah, and in some parts of the world, their weekend is Friday and Saturday. Their workweek begins on Sunday.
4. Load up your communications with icons, symbols and logos with different meanings in different cultures. You could think of it as your own personal Rorschach Test at work. How much harm could it cause if one country interprets the logo one way and another country interprets it another way? Surely no one would bring their religious values into the workplace with them . . . and get offended . . .
5. Don’t worry about adjusting employee communications to take out references to the seasons or specific holidays. For example, even though summer takes place different months of the year in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere, mentioning that your program launches “this summer” shouldn’t confuse anyone in Australia or Chile. Same thing for talking about Labor Day. Most countries happen to recognize that holiday on May 1, but since it’s in early September in the US, just go with it if you’re in an American company.

Betsy Winkler is a Partner at PeopleResults. She can be reached on Twitter at @BetsyWinkler1 or on email at bwinkler@people-results.com

Asking for help is a critical ingredient to finding the next job, starting your new business or learning something new. Help may come packaged as advice, an introduction or, if you’re lucky, a true mentor. We can all name times in our lives when help from another human being changed our course.

If we instinctively know that it takes help from others to accomplish our goals, why is it so hard to do?  I hear “I hate to bother people”, “I hate looking like I can’t do it myself” or “I feel like I’m putting people on the spot.” An expert would probably say those are different ways of describing fear of _____ fill in the blank.

We live in a culture where being self reliant and totally together are revered.  This is our badge of courage. Yet, in her famous TED Talk, Brene Brown artfully explains that vulnerability is the key to connection with others and meaningful relationships. It is also a key ingredient of self confidence.

When I hear a new job seeker or business owner finding reasons not to ask for help, I ask them how they felt when asked for help by others. Invariably, the answers are “I was happy to help”,  “It wasn’t a big deal” or “I was flattered.” But,  sitting on the other side of the desk and asking is much harder to do.

If your fear of asking for help is holding you back from moving forward – on whatever your path my be – put yourself out there. Yes, you may get some indifference, meet people who can’t help, or even worse, face rejection. Don’t take it personally and you’ll find that most people will help you if they can. And, be ready to return the favor and pay it forward to help someone else when it’s your turn to sit on the other side of the desk.

Patti Johnson is the CEO of PeopleResults and can be followed @PattiBJohnson or her company @People_Results.

4 reasons to promote fun at work:

1. Fun fosters creativity and innovation. All work and no play make Jack a dull, stressed-out boy with fewer great ideas. A balance of performance, learning and enjoyment, says author and corporate trainer Matt Somers, is the recipe for productivity, creativity and innovation.
2. Fun attracts employees and customers. People are drawn to fun and enjoyment. In college, I chose a summer job partly based on this “fun factor.” Waiting tables for the summer with friends at a vacation resort seemed much more attractive than an accounting internship at a law firm. If I, a logical, analytical, serious guy, based a job decision partly on the “fun factor,” how much more weight do normal people give that.
3. Fun helps retention.  One of the reasons I stay with my current organization is because I really enjoy and have fun with my partners and colleagues. Again, we tend to underrate the fun factor in engaging and retaining workers – especially Gen Y.
4. Fun can change behavior. Volkswagen recently hosted a contest to prove that fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. I was especially impressed by one entry, the Piano Stairs Video, which shows how people persuaded pedestrians to take the stairs instead of the escalator by turning steps into piano keys.

Starting to see the power and possibilities of fun in the workplace? If so, here are a few tips for those of us who are fun-challenged:

1. Build in time for energizing activities and relationships. A friend started a 3-on-3 driveway basketball league in our town targeted at guys over 40, and it was a huge success. Busy people with demanding careers and families made time for this weekly event for one main reason: to have fun.  We all need outlets like this, whether at work or outside of work. Virtual coffee with a cross-country colleague, sharing a good joke or prank, a mid-morning walk around the office, a weekly tennis match, a real lunch break, a good book, song or movie: these are little things that can make a big difference.
2. Beware of letting excessive stress get you down. If this is where you are, maybe you need more cowbell.
3. Be part of the solution.  As I was writing this on a rainy weekend afternoon, my son became restless and bored after sitting on his rear playing video games. I was in mission mode trying to finish this post, but I realized we both needed a fun break. So instead of telling him to go do something active, I challenged him to a ping-pong match. Similarly, I need to lead the charge for fun at work.

What ideas do you have for promoting fun at work?

Joe Baker is a Partner with PeopleResults. You can reach him at jbaker@people-results.com or on Twitter @JoeBakerJr.