I know, I know - you're the consumate HR pro, no bias.  You're a straight shooter, the model of fairness, and you never make a call on who to hire based on:

1. What the candidate looks like;

2. What company the candidate has worked for in the past;

3. The clothes the candidate wore and the proximity of those duds to the styles where you like to shop (WalMart is the new Target people); or

4. Who they know, or what their spouse does for a living.

You're perfect.  Of course, if we did the blind candidate taste test, you would have no shot, you imperfect fool.  From the Wall Street Journal:

"During regular “blind taste tests,” in which Microsoft asks randomly-selected consumers to score the quality of results from various Internet search engines, the quality of Microsoft’s search results have so improved that people can’t tell the difference between Microsoft and Google search results, says Mr. Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business group. But when Microsoft slaps the Google brand name on the results from Microsoft’s own search engine during another portion of its tests, users invariably score them highest.

“Just by putting the name up, people think it’s more relevant,” he says.

Just got a new laptop with XP.  First thing I did?  Changed the search default in IE7 to Google.  Gotta keep it clean. 

And the candidates I interview?  I bring no bias to the table.  Wait a second - if I'm imperferct and I'm not aware of the bias I have, am I accountable for that?

I'm interviewing an Enron candidate this week just to look progressive...

And so we’re trapped. We’ve spawned narratives that make the HR function seem like a cross between Mother Teresa and Stuart Smalley, while the team members—aka employees—we serve actually need more tough love, a cross between Jack Welch and Dennis Miller. They need that little thing called the truth, effectively washed down with a bit of leadership, personality and, at times, humor.

Let's roll...

The Fouth Biggest Lie in HR: It’s the company’s desire to provide strong benefits to all team members. How many shades of gray are there on the color wheel? While we like to take care of team members, if it wasn’t part of the American health care system and a competitive necessity related to talent, employers would be out of the benefits business so fast it would make the collapse of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts seem glacial in comparison. As someone who has been fortunate enough to run a self-insured health care plan in a smaller business environment and witness the humanity firsthand, I can tell you the biggest component to this lie is our unwillingness to hold employees accountable for their own health. HR professionals talk about our cost increases during open enrollment, but most of us never really try to change employee behavior through incentives or penalties.

The truth: If we had the guts, we’d tell employees: We’re not Mom. We only provide benefits because it’s an expectation we have to meet in order to compete in the talent game. We have little to no control over insurance costs incurred, and due to our collective unwillingness to penalize smokers and team members who are gold members at Krispy Kreme, we never will. Employees have to take the cost increases we give them as a result, and if we ever get brave enough to try to change the behavior of the outliers, we’ll find we’re too late due to a legislative environment that protects those making unhealthy choices. Wow, that was depressing to write.

Put the donut down and ponder this: If you’re a good HR pro and don’t feel like you actively pitch the lie above, do you actively preach the truth?

If the answer is no, you’ve got work to do before you’re part of the solution.

See the whole list of HR Lies at Workforce here, or wait - I'm previewing them all week long.  Lucky you..

And so we’re trapped. We’ve spawned narratives that make the HR function seem like a cross between Mother Teresa and Stuart Smalley, while the team members—aka employees—we serve actually need more tough love, a cross between Jack Welch and Dennis Miller. They need that little thing called the truth, effectively washed down with a bit of leadership, personality and, at times, humor.

Let's roll...

The fifth biggest lie in HR: We’re responsible for the work/life balance of team members. I believe it was a man named Jack Welch who infuriated a bunch of HR pros at SHRM 2009 in New Orleans by daring to say that “there’s no such thing as work/life balance. There are work/life choices.” I’ve never met a star who didn’t absolutely outwork the competition for promotions, yet in our HR universe there’s endless talk about the search for balance.

The truth: Employees are responsible for their own work/life balance, and if they want more money, promotions and fame, they’re going to have to work harder than those around them. That holds true even if they’re as smart as Al Gore, who had to work really hard to create the Internet and get invited to SHRM 2010 as one of the keynote speakers. If you happen to be a team member reading this, the reality is that the business world is chaotic, and everyone’s winging it, to a certain extent. Most companies try to staff at levels relative to the work at hand (more revenue always helps in that regard), but it’s always going to feel like a free-for-all at times. Or, as Neutron Jack might say, it’s your choice. Either you work hard and create the Internet, or you don’t.

If you’re a good HR pro and don’t feel like you actively pitch the lie above, do you actively preach the truth?

If the answer is no, you’ve got work to do before you’re part of the solution.

See the whole list of HR Lies at Workforce here, or wait - I'm previewing them all week long.  Lucky you..

But for the love of Lebron, please stop using the stock photos where everyone looks the same, happy and not like anyone you've ever seen at your company.

Am I saying your employees aren't attractive?  No.  I'm saying your employees:

--don't wear plastic smiles...

--don't look like they just finished a GQ photo shoot, or

--don't look like things are always going great at your company.

Does anyone not know that those photos are total BS? Why is it that 99 out of 100 pieces of recruiting collateral are stale? A while back I wondered aloud if recruiting collateral featuring a nose pick was ever appropriate.  Call me sophomoric, but I'm simply trying to interrupt the pattern of played, vanilla, risk-free recruiting collateral. 

I think the safe play is now the dumb play.  I think that if you use those stock photos, the best talent knows you're full of crap.  I think the way to get engagement on the recruiting trail with the best is to break away from the lame pack.

Attached below - here is our latest play at DAXKO. We used real team members at DAXKO for the pics and went with a counter - "how not to get hired".  As a result, we made fun of the hipster alternative to the handshake (the pound), people who steal our free sodas and those that have the audacity to sneeze at the most inopportune times.  The piece is designed to be used at career fairs and is front and back (think the size of a door hanger), with the front playing out the theme and the back laying out the opportunities and how people can follow the DAXKO vibe online via the various social media sandboxes we play in.

Feel free to carve it up in the comments. We learn from comments.  Hit us hard enough and we'll go back to the stock photos <sniffle>...

I'm here today on a mission of mercy.  From Downtown.  From Mitch and Murray.

I'm here to talk about the Manager Pass-Through.

Don't know what the Manager Pass-Through is?  Put that coffee down, you'll recognize it soon enough.

The Manager Pass-Through is what managers of people do when they don't want to own tough or difficult news with employees.  It's been alive and well in every organization I've ever been a part of, and it's alive and well in your company.  Rather than owning bad news or a difficult conversation with an employee, managers look for an easier out.  You explain deflective reasons why the action you're requesting is necessary.  God forbid, you end up using terms like "them" and "we" to describe what's going on.

"Them" and "we" (and words that mean the same thing) are at the core of the manager pass-through.  Rather than explaining to your team member why a particular course of action is necessary for the business, you end up rationalizing - you say that you've been told to do something, and the conversation you're having is the next logical step.

It's not you that's asking for more or something uncomfortable from the employee, it's them.  Who is them?  Usually it's a tribe known as "management" or "leadership".  Could also be the customer.

Whoever "them" is, what you're doing when you use the manager pass-though is making it clear that it's not "you".

And it's lame.  Before I step off my high horse, allow me to confess - I'm guilty as well.  But the first step in recovery is acknowledging you have a problem.

The next time you're delivering bad news or asking for something you know is going to make a direct report uncomfortable, listen closely.  You may not say "them" or "us", but you probably in the neighborhood.

You've got Stockholm Syndrome - you've began to identify with the group you spend the most time with - but that's not what you get paid to do.  As a manager of people, sometimes you get paid to be in a lonely spot.  Owning tough news or requests as your own, even if you didn't start the fire.

Good luck with the next conversation.  I hope the first day of the rest of your life as a manager goes really well.

Frank Roche had some great data up over at Know HR on Pay Transparency last year - go check it out, because it's the real deal regarding how people really feel about pay transparency - not how individuals want YOU to feel.

I'm on the record as saying that the employee relations fallout from complete pay transparency dramatically outweighs the benefits.  While it's trendy and seems progressive to call for full transparency in pay rates and pay practices in organizations, the folks who are calling for it don't have to live with the employee fallout. 

While I'm here, let me go on the record with another piece of information:

HR PEOPLE HAVE PROVEN TO ME THAT COMPLETE PAY TRANSPARENCY IS A BAD IDEA.

That's right, I'm calling out my own, not pointing to other people.  Work with me on the following flow chart:

1. HR Pros have access to all the pay data for the units they serve.

2. HR Pros often have access to all records, including the units they don't serve.

3. While we never sign an agreement or a code of ethics, I expect people to treat that pay data with complete confidentiality.

4. Complete confidentiality and ethics for HR Pros, who have access to all pay data, means they never use their access for their own benefit.  At least that's my standard.

5. Many HR Pros can't handle the realities embedded in the pay comparisons they make between themselves and others and, as a result, become vocal about the differences.  Worse yet, they may not become vocal but choose to leak pay data to other parts of the organization.

It's sad, but true.  The HR pros I've encountered in my career have proven that you can't have full pay transparency.  I'm going to guess that I've worked with 50 HR Managers in my career, including bosses, direct reports to me and peers.  Out of those 50, at least 10 have wigged out when they came across pay data they thought proved that they were undervalued.

Except it didn't.  And the folks who complained and caused employee relations issues were always the low performers.  Their pay was fair from an experience, credentials and performance standpoint. 

I'll say it once, I'll say it a thousand times.  WITH GREAT ACCESS COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.  You have access to all the pay data in HR?  You need to get mature - real fast.

I've seen the same things, albeit on a less frequent basis, from accounting pros with access to payroll data.

If HR Pros can't treat compensation data with a mature eye and that's a job requirement, what hope does the whole organization have?

I'm just sayin'...

Last note - most of the HR pros I've worked with have treated the access with great responsibility.  To you, I throw a salute.  You're a pro, and I'm glad I'm working (or have worked) with you.

To the rest of you - get out.  You're hurting the profession.

I wrote on this topic in my monthly column at Workforce.  You'll probably be surprised at my take... Mikey likes it, but not because it's the right thing to do.  Here's a taste of what's over at Workforce:

"I’ve learned that for every 10 interviews you make a hiring manager perform against their will, they are going to get two or three pleasant surprises. They had no clue about the experience Lisa from marketing had in their new target sector. Lisa’s résumé doesn’t capture it either, but because you forced the interview, the resulting dialog made both parties aware they had a much better match than previously thought.

The same logic applies to minority candidate interviews that managers don't want to do.  See the entire article at Workforce here.