There once were two surveys, both of equal importance; one was administered Globally and the other to the small remote nation of Localville. This is the story of both surveys and the people.

The global survey was a big hit, all the people could see change coming. They were honest and forthcoming with suggestion to make the world better. Hopes were high that the worldly leaders would read the peoples suggestions and concerns and would bring forth a new period of communication between tribes. Months go by and the people wonder ‘where is our change’. Alas, after completing the survey the people never heard word of their suggestions or feedback.  The survey, to this day, collects dust somewhere in the archives of the worlds capital building.

The survey given to the Localville residents was not as welcomed. They moaned and groaned, grumbled to each other until the sun retreated. Their responses to the survey dripped with resentment and bitterness, they turned on each other in an attempt to make  simple points. The few in the town that saw the purpose of the survey were honest and provided some suggestions to help the town prosper. The leaders of the town were not surprised by the infighting or even by those that provided honest feedback. The towns leaders took the survey back to the people and shared the infighting and negative responses. The leaders opened the floor to the people and gave them the opportunity to make changes, form committees to write the laws for the land and committees to bring forth change.

Globally the world is tired, broken, and sad.  But there’s small light coming from the town of Localville where the land is prospering and the people are the laughing with each other.

Ok, silly story to make a simple point. Share the results and act on the suggestions. Even if employees grumble about the survey, they are likely to provide you with good feedback about the department.  Administering a survey and sweeping the results under the rug will only prove to the population that management likely doesn’t care.

I love the idea of this weeks HR Carnival and I just cant pass it up.  Safe at home can mean so many things to so many people and each one is different. Here’s whats on my mind when I think about Safe At Home.

When I originally read the idea I thought about the office, naturally.  Specifically how when you are content and comfortable in a job, it kind of feels like home, it makes leaving a great employer that much harder.  So when you leave and consider going back, it’s like going home to be safe. Safe where you know how things work, you know where the notebooks are stored, and can get to the drink machine in your sleep.  Sometimes it’s better to not be safe at home in that context; get out, spread your wings and fly, so to speak.

I also thought about traveling for the job. Safe at home in that context is a longing to be at home where your life is, where your loved ones are, where your home is.  Hotel rooms are lonely, cold, and smell funny. Traveling sucks. Enough said.

But today, as I sit on the couch I think safe at home and think about family.  I think about my husband laughing at something our cat did or something goofy that I said. I think about making up words that mean something to only us. I think about the smell of bacon on a Saturday morning.  And it makes me smile.

Safe at home is a feeling you have deep down in yourself. It’s comfort, its warm, it’s a place you know without a shadow of doubt is where you can be yourself and not be judged.  You can make suggestions for new benefits, suggest off the wall solutions for problems, dress up as the EVP for halloween and have him laugh at it. Home it’s a place you can make a fool of yourself just because, a place where seeing you with a grape jelly jar on your head is not out of the ordinary, it’s a place where you can cry until your laughing, and laugh until you cry and still be loved.

Those are my thoughts on safe at home.  What does home feel like for you?

Today we celebrate…something, drink green beer, and pinch people that dont wear green. Fountains and rivers run green, and men in kilts parade downtown.

But today is also my little blogs second birthday.  The last two years have been just an amazing experience.  I’ve met some wonderful people, made some new friends that get me into some serious trouble, gotten involved with the local HR chapter and I’ve learned.

I missed my blogs birthday last year. Work had me all over the place and life felt like it was crashing in around me.  Over the last year I’ve traveled a lot, written less than I planned, and worked my ass off.

Birthdays are like a new year, time for new promises and resolutions. I don’t have any promises or resolutions to make for the blog. I just want to say thank you for reading my random thoughts and occasional rantings.

Happy birthday PseudoHR, Happy St Patricks day, go drink some green beer, go eat some cake.

I’m reading a fiction book that touches lightly on harassment in the workplace.  I can’t get away from HR issues even in my favorite escape.  It has me thinking though, how often does harassment happen in the workplace?

I’m not referring to sexual harassment, but other forms of harassment such as physical threats, actual physical harm, verbal abuse, emotional abuse etc.  Even outside abuse that is brought into the workplace.

Harassment makes its difficult to come to work, it makes it difficult to get excited about an otherwise fulfilling job.  Employees should not be subjected to the violent behaviors of a crazy boss or coworker.  There is no excuse for verbal or physical harassment/violence in the workplace and as an HR Professional I do not tolerate it. To those that get their jollies from harassing staff or coworkers, I have one thing to say: see a counselor.

When harassment trickles into the workplace from the outside I find scares employees a little more. Maybe that’s because they have procedures they can follow to report the harassment and going home can be an escape from the aforementioned crazy person. The main concern from most of these employees is Am I going to lose my job over this.  How do you escape harassment when it comes from your personal life into your work life?

From an HR perspective I always tell employees dealing with this type of harassment to forward those call to me. If the harasser shows up at the office, we’ll call the police and slip the employee out the back door.  Calls get reported to the police if they become a serious problem. Often it only takes one stern conversation with these people and they stop calling the workplace.  But either way, employees are encouraged to report it to the proper authorities.

Harassment in the workplace, be it verbal or physical, from a coworker or boss, or something that trickles in from an employees personal life, is scary.  Employees need a person they can trust and someone they know will help them take care of a scary situation.  In my office, that’s part of why HR is around.

If there’s one thing in the office I will put off doing until it kills me, it’s filing. The only time I willingly file is when I have something on my mind, it’s good work to do when your mind is elsewhere.

I spent most of yesterday doing something similar to filing, personnel file audits. Ugh, I know, but it has to be done.  I’ve inherited three boxes of old files from a center in another state that lost it’s HR person.  Upside, they have me now.  Downside, I have their jacked up files.

While going through the files I’ve learned a few things about what bad HR people find appropriate for personnel files.

• The United Way is a creditable source of documentation to satisfy the I-9.
• I-9s are stored in personnel files, always.
• Don’t bother signing the I-9, who needs to waste time with signatures
• PTO requests dating back to 1998 should be kept with the W-4
• FMLA paperwork and short term disability, those go in the front
• Any and all excuses, even emailed from home, must be kept in the file until they disintegrate.
• Organization is so last week, no one does that anymore
• Workers Comp info with the injury form goes in the back so you can get to it
• Appointment cards for upcoming appointments should be kept as a reminder; clean teeth means happy employees right?
• And lastly, if an employee gives you a prescription as a proof of illness, staple it to the inside cover of the file.  We need to see that first before anything else.

These files make me sad and a little cranky. I don’t care how busy you get, how distracted or disengaged, this is basic HR stuff and should be second nature.

Let’s talk about your high performing disengaged workforce for a moment.

I’m betting there’s someone at your company that fits this bill; maybe even someone on your team.  Someone feeling a bit overworked and under appreciated.  Someone still working hard to accomplish those business objectives, just not as hard as they were say three months ago.

High performers are high performers even when they are disengaged. It’s their nature.  But this doesn’t mean they’re crazy working machines.

So why is that person, lets call him Bob, feeling disengaged? Arent we supposed to feel rejuvenated at the prospect of a new year?

When was the last time you thanked Bob for the hard work he’s been doing?  Genuinely thanked him; not that cheesy ‘hey good job man’ and a pat on the shoulder crap.

Monetary incentives for your high performers are all well and good, who doesn’t love some extra cash, but that’s not the incentive that lasts.  I like money as well as the next person but hearing my boss/ceo/chairman whoever signs my check tell me I did a kickass job makes me smile, makes me feel appreciated.

It’s review time for a lot of companies. Some are doing these without a compensation budget.  You’ve got to do something to make your high performers feel appreciated and keep them engaged.  Continuing to pile work on them is the fastest to way to opening a replacement requisition for that position.

Tell Bob you appreciate the hard work and long hours he puts in.  Give Bob a day off with pay and leave the dude alone for that day.  Cough up a hundred dollars and send Bob and his SO out on a date.

Do something nice for Bob. Keep him engaged and keep him a high performer at your company or I’ll steal him away for mine where I’ll thank him for his hard work.

So Chris Ponder over at xtremehr has a series going called Be A Storyteller.  He’s asking three questions of his readers, twitter followers, peeps and such; the questions are about themselves.

And you know how we love to talk about ourselves

The first question he posted is “Tell me about your career”.

I don’t think I’ve done a post here about my career. Imma direct you to my LinkedIn profile.

Wait, that’s not the point the series? Fine.

I’m one of those HR professionals that fell into HR.  I was working for a small local financial institution that had an opening for an Accounting Specialist/Payroll Administrator.  I had no desire what so ever to process payroll but it was a step up so I took it.

Not one to just do the minimum of a job, I strived to learn everything I could about the payroll process.  I wanted to fully understand the process, the roll, and how it tied back to the business.  This got me to the SHRM website where I read about the PHR/SPHR certifications.

Seeing a need for an HR role in the small company I worked for, I pressed the issue and formed a business case to bring the then outsourced function back in-house.  I formed my own HR Department, I was master of my domain.   At least I was until the market crashed for financial institutions. It was hard to continue justifying an HR Department of one for rapidly shrinking workforce.

Next I moved on to my current company as the HR Administrator for the local office and a few remote locations.  Again, not one to do the minimum required, I wanted to learn more.  I took on extra projects, volunteered for projects; sometimes I think I’m superwoman.

While trying to be superwoman I agreed to be on the implementation team for our new HRIS project.  My love affair with technology was giddy.  We overhauled everything we had. The core system, the time attendance system, the recruiting process. Everything was new. And I was in tech heaven troubleshooting problems, working out solutions to roadblocks, and learning how all the systems tie together.  Frustrating as it can be sometimes, I enjoy it to no end.

I was a generalist for six years. I fell into the generalist role. I kind of fell in the HR Tech role and I LOVE it.  It’s where I excel; technology doesn’t fight back and if it does I can reboot it. Have you tried rebooting a person after they harass a coworker? That almost never works.

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Ok, enough about me, who cares really.  Head over to Chris’ blog and tell us about your career.