SHRM-Atlanta

What can Tim O’Shaughnessy, the 29-year old CEO of Living Social, teach us in HR? When you are the captain of a two-year old company that expects $1 billion, yes $1 billion, in revenues this year and has 3500 employees…plenty.

1. Keep your hiring process right. Make sure you are getting the people who can live your company core values and culture.

2. The company’s hiring process includes interviews with the hiring manager (of course) as well as people on the team that the potential employees would be working with if hired. In addition, a person from another group, who works with that team, interviews the candidates and has veto power. Lastly, someone is responsible for interviewing for culture fit and also has veto power.

3. Living Social ensures that everyone lives the values. As in many organizations, the value lists are hung on walls around the company. The keys to success are providing tangible examples and recognition for people when they do live the values.

4. The CEO says that people in the company work hard from Monday to Friday. Since the weekdays are company time, sometimes employees have to stay late to finish things. Weekends are for recharging.

So what do you think? Good advice? I think so.

The Core, mission, vision and values, is the centerpiece of your organization. When you hire people who are aligned with the Core, they bring passion and high performance to work each day. Including people, other than the hiring manager, ensures buy-in and fit; the more diverse the interviewers, the better the decision. The precursor to success is to ensure that each interviewer is trained in the interviewing process.

How many organizations have values nailed to the wall (probably covering the holes from the last list) and on the Home Page on their intranet? Until they are explained in behavioral terms and lived, they are just a list. Furthermore, values should be a part of each person’s performance evaluation, another reason for the need to define them in behavioral terms.

O’Shaughnessy’s last point of working hard during the week and regenerating on the weekends emphasizes the work-life balance that younger generations are looking for as they search for the right organization. More employee turnover is caused not by a lack of skills and abilities but by a lack of culture fit.

The bottom line is to take the advice of a successful CEO: (1) Define your organization’s values and culture, (2) hire according to these values and culture using diverse interviewers in the process (3) recognize people who live the values, (4) and remember that your employees need time off from work to regenerate.

Dr. Jane Goldner, president of The Goldner Group, is one of the nation’s leading authorities on talent retention and trusted advisor to Fortune 100 Companies, government and military organizations, and to mid-sized businesses. She is the author of Driven to Success: A 10-Point Checkup for Achieving High Performance in Business, a step-by-step business guide for leaders. Dr. Goldner is a highly rated adjunct professor at Kennesaw State University Coles College of Business. She is a recovering “Everything to Everybody Woman” who focuses on helping other women recognize and address these behaviors. 

Dr. Jane Goldner will also be featured as one of the speakers in the Organizational Evolution track at the 21st Annual SHRM-Atlanta HR Conference, October 17-18, 2011 at Cobb Galleria.  More information on Dr. Goldner’s session, LEADER UP to Strategically Lead HR Forward is available here.  For more details on the conference, please visit our conference website

 HR Leadership: Becoming a Strategic Partner

Stephen Covey advised us to “begin with the end in mind,” sage words for HR professionals who want to become strategic partners with leadership. This advice is particularly true if you want to add value to the sustainability of your organization by helping senior leaders ask and answer the ten critical questions for creating the culture of the future…now.

Question 1: Have you clearly defined and communicated the Core of your company (mission, vision & values) and given employees opportunities to align their Cores with the Core of the organization? All roads to a successful future begin here. A compelling, shared Core provides the focus, direction and passion that drive results.

Question 2: How well is your business doing from a customer as well as from an employee perspective and how do you know? The right, deep assessment helps you get beyond symptoms to root causes which allows you to pinpoint the gaps and designate priorities. Go beyond the climate survey that asks how employees feel to culture assessments that dig into the many levels of culture that drive the business.

Question 3: What are you doing to develop the current and future generation of leaders? Your organization is the reflection of the quality of your leaders. Providing the right developmental opportunities ensures the sustainability of your company. By the way, training is only one developmental possibility and not always the best choice.

Question 4: How are you building customer loyalty? You are only in business as long as you have customers. This fact is also true for not-for-profit organizations as well as nonprofits. Ongoing communication with your customers is essential for success. Doing something with customer feedback is even better. Many CEOs recognize that customer service has become a key differentiator for success.

Question 5: How are you ensuring that everyone in your business is a strategic thinker, not just senior leaders? The days are gone when senior leaders do the thinking and everyone else is the “arms and legs.” Teaching everyone to ask, “What am I doing in my job today and how will it affect the organization tomorrow?” is essential for success.

Question 6: Are you using more than just a rearview mirror to measure success? You have to know where “there” is before you can declare victory. Using only financial measures puts you at a disadvantage because once the numbers are in, you can’t change them. Leading indicators provide a look into future results so you can adjust appropriately.

Question 7: How are you innovating and improving your processes to keep pace with and ahead of your customer’s demands? As products and services have become more homogenous, innovation is the key to sustainability of the business. Processes should be customer-focused and employee-enabled.

Question 8: What are you doing to attract, develop and retain top-notch employees? It has been an employer’s market in the new economy but the talent war is coming. Understanding what self-motivates the different generations to come, stay and contribute to your organization is essential.

Question 9: How small is your corporate impact on the earth’s resources? How large an impact are you leaving in the community in which you operate? Responsible businesses take action to leave a lasting environmental and community legacy. Younger employees are attracted to organizations that contribute to the greater good.

Question 10: What other actions can leadership take to ensure a belonging, learning and contributing culture that attracts and retains the right people? For example, saying “good morning” when people show up for work, provide motivating and challenging assignments, and showing appreciation for jobs well done.

Do these questions take work to answer? Absolutely. You might pilot the process in your own function so that leadership knows “the cobbler’s children do have shoes,” and, now, everyone wants a pair.

Dr. Jane Goldner, president of The Goldner Group, is one of the nation’s leading authorities on talent retention and trusted advisor to Fortune 100 Companies, government and military organizations, and to mid-sized businesses. She is the author of Driven to Success: A 10-Point Checkup for Achieving High Performance in Business, a step-by-step business guide for leaders. Dr. Goldner is a highly rated adjunct professor at Kennesaw State University Coles College of Business. She is a recovering Type E Woman who focuses on helping other women recognize and address their Type E behaviors.

“Companies have long set aside resources to develop and market consumer brands. Now, some are finding that to attract and retain the best job candidates, they need to put similar resources into their so-called employer brands.” (Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2011, pg. B9) How is your organization targeting potential employees to make it a desirable place to work? Furthermore, how is your company retaining its valued employees?

Here are a few statistics for you to consider:

• There are approximately 78 million people in the baby boom generation who will be retiring sooner or later (Maybe, later than sooner but they will be retiring), but only 46 million in Gen X, approximately 32-47 years old to fill those spots. Big labor shortages are coming as is the talent war.
• By 2012, 70% of the workforce will be women and minorities. By 2014, 48% of the workforce will be women.
• The MetLife Inc. ninth Annual Study of Employee Benefit Trends indicated that employees have “grown more dissatisfied and disloyal, to the point where a startling one in three employees hopes to be working elsewhere in the next 12 months.”

Have I got your attention now?  As Human Resource experts, we have our work cutout for us. We need to become an even stronger strategic influencer at the organization table.

How do we play that role well?

1. Bring the near-term future scenario to the table, including the above cited statistics, in order to light a fire within the power players. Senior leaders may have put this issue on the back-burner because it has been an employer’s market over the last several years. Come equipped with the longer-term picture to add emphasis that this is not just a short-term issue. Know the specifics for your industry.
2. Educate senior leaders about the motivations of each generation, what they are looking for in work. Senior leader Boomers need to understand that Gen Xers and Millenials are not motivated by the same things that motivate them. Creating the right culture can do more to attract this talent than compensation packages.
3. Scrub your company’s approach to recruiting. The logo and products or services are not enough to attract talent. For example, include video profiles on your careers website of actual employees. What hard-to-fill positions are available that potential candidates might not know are opportunities in your organization? Appeal to these technology-savvy generations by leveraging LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and iPad apps.
4. As more women move into the ranks of leadership and accept more responsibility, the potential for stress levels to rise is inevitable. Keep in mind, women manifest stress very differently than men. Stressed-out men are Type A (the stress syndrome we have heard about all these years). Women become Type E, everything to everybody, a very different set of behaviors. What is your organization doing to help these high potential women cope? If nothing, these talented women may just find a company that is more work-life balance friendly.

So, what are you and your organization doing to shine its image as a great place to work? Would you advise your best friend (given the appropriate skill set) to work there? Better yet, if you had to do it over again, would you work for your company? Why or why not is a good place to start the discussion to ensure your organization is able to attract and retain the right talent to sustain it. Then, onto a shiny employer brand…

Dr. Jane Goldner, president of The Goldner Group, is one of the nation’s leading authorities on talent retention and trusted advisor to Fortune 100 Companies, government and military organizations, and to mid-sized businesses. She is the author of Driven to Success: A 10-Point Checkup for Achieving High Performance in Business, a step-by-step business guide for leaders. Dr. Goldner is a highly rated adjunct professor at Kennesaw State University Coles College of Business. She is a recovering Type E Woman who focuses on helping other women recognize and address their Type E behaviors.

The popular TV show, Undercover Boss, is fun to watch and…to learn from. These leaders learn that, depending upon where you sit in your company, the perspective can be very different. On the show, these real bosses disguise themselves as employees and work at some low level positions in the organization to get a first-hand look and feel for the jobs. Most find the view embarrassingly different from their high-level perspective.

Two undercover bosses from this show talked to a packed house at the SHRM Atlanta meeting on the evening of April 21^st.  They shared video clips from the show, talked about what it was like to commit to doing the project, and, most importantly, lessons learned.

Coby Brooks, President and CEO of Hooters of America, emphasized that culture is everything (music to my ears) and that it is important to keep a culture that works. He indicated that it may be difficult as companies go from private to public, as Hooters is doing, to keep the family atmosphere. Coby also emphasized that people are not numbers, music to HR folks. Through working tough jobs down in the organization and meeting some employees in difficult family situations whom he might not have otherwise met, one of the lessons Coby walked away with was his intention to spend more time with his family. Even CEOs can have a difficult time balancing work and family life.

President and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment Corporation, Joel Manby, discussed the importance of company values which are reflected in the performance appraisals of their leaders. The “how” work gets done and the numbers, “what” gets done, are equally critical. He emphasized the importance of healthy relationships and, to this point, said: “Your customer satisfaction will never be higher than your employee satisfaction.” (Research indicates that employee satisfaction is a six-month precursor of customer satisfaction.) During the recession, the company cut 5% of the vice-presidents’ salaries, gave no raises nor matched 401k plans. The company saved millions and was able to keep from cutting 500 jobs. Through constant communication, the result was that both employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction went up. Joel had the opportunity to meet some employees who had dire financial situations, which caused him to ramp-up the company foundation that awards money to employees for a variety of needs. The experience of being an undercover boss gave Joel the opportunity to hear “the unvarnished truth” which he indicated CEOs rarely receive.

In today’s “do more with fewer employees” mentality, do you and the leadership in your organization really know what it takes and what are realistic expectations of employees in their jobs?

Here is some advice:

1. Leaders are still a “work in progress.” It is never too late to learn.
2. Requiring leaders to have expectation setting discussions with employees allow reality testing as long as employees are encouraged to provide honest input.
3. As your business reorganizes (and it will over time), make sure that you continue to reality-check job expectations. Overwhelming people creates stress and lost productivity, not to mention a revolving door of employees leaving to find better places to work as the economy continues to recover.

Remember, it is about creating a belonging, learning and contributing culture that allows employees to do their best work. Employees want to do a great job. They will as long as they (1) belong to an organization that they are proud to work for, (2) have opportunities to continue to learn, grow and develop and, (3) believe they are contributing to the success of the business.

If you are a boss, how can you get the unvarnished truth and have some of your own lessons learned?  As an HR leader, how can you help leaders in your organization do the same without having to go undercover? Although, spending time in employees’ shoes can do wonders! So, perhaps, go undercover to find out how your employees feel about your organization and whether they are enabled to do their best work…of course, without retribution.

Jane S. Goldner, Ph.D. is president of The Goldner Group, a firm that works with clients to create a successful culture that attracts, engages, and retains top talent. She is the author of Driven to Success: A 10-Point Checkup for Achieving High Performance in Business and is a frequent keynote speaker on that topic. www.thegoldnergroup.com

It is an exciting time for SHRM-Atlanta, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with some great organizations in 2011 that share our desire to build a better Atlanta.  We continue to be passionate about giving back to the Atlanta community through various organizations.  Our members have been the key component to our success in doing so and we thank you!

This year, we are continuing to partner with organizations where we have a track record of success and we’ve added some new organizations to the mix.  We’ve been honored to partner directly with the current and past Mayor of the City of Atlanta, Kasim Reed and Shirley Franklin, respectively for the past six years to provide workforce readiness and interview training to high school students within the Atlanta Public School system.  The training takes place on Saturday mornings about six to eight times per year.  We just wrapped up the first session for 2011 this past weekend.  We also partner with the Dekalb Youth Program that serves high school students in the Dekalb County School system.  We assisted over 700 high school students combined in APS and Dekalb County combined last year.  It is such an honor to continue to partner with these organizations and very rewarding for our members and the students.

We are excited to work with three new youth organizations this year to include Junior Achievement, Year Up and 21^st Century Leaders.  Our member volunteers are providing specific training on marketable skills, interview and workforce readiness training for the latter two programs.

• Junior Achievement is a nationally-known and recognized program that currently exists in all of the Metro Atlanta area school systems, grades K-12.  This program trains SHRM-Atlanta members on their curriculum and allows each volunteer to deliver a hands-on curriculum in grades K-12 in schools located in their own community.
• Year Up is a program designed specifically for recent High School graduates, age 18-24 to bridge the gap for low income, young adults by providing the skills, experience and support to transition to careers and post-secondary education.
• 21^st Century Leaders is a program that provides leadership and interview training to high achieving High School students in the Metro Atlanta area starting in their Sophomore year through their Senior year.  About 97% of those that complete the 21^st Century Leaders program enter college and approximately 72% take on leadership roles in their colleges and communities.

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We have continued our partnership with the Georgia Centers for Non-Profits and are thrilled to serve as their HR partner to provide functional HR resources, tools and support to their members.  Another new partnership for 2011 is the Partnership Against Domestic Violence, this is a natural fit because such a large portion of our members handle these types of HR related issues and investigations in their respective places of work.

We are well on our way for 2011 and we’re looking forward to providing more detailed information on these programs on our website.  Stay tuned!

Update provided by Teela Jackson, EVP of External Relations for SHRM-Atlanta.  Teela is the Director of Talent Delivery for Talent Connections, LLC.  Engage with Teela on twitter for more HR updates and information.