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Employee Coaching Is a Form of Accountability

March 12, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

I ran across this image the other day from last year’s HR Technology Conference. It reminded me of the times when an employee has said to me, “My manager is out to get me.”

In fact, I was conducting a training session with a group of managers recently and someone asked about having HR in the room when managers are coaching employees. My thought on this is “No, HR should not be in the room” when a manager is coaching an employee. Maybe if a manager is disciplining an employee. But not coaching. It sends the wrong message and can imply that the process of being performance managed out of the company has begun.

(Side note: Don’t take that last sentence as a bad thing. Sometimes, companies want to send that message. And HR plays a role in doing it. But those moments must be used strategically.)

The whole notion of having a witness during coaching implies that coaching means something bad is going to happen. Coaching isn’t punishment. Coaching is a two-way discussion that’s focused on holding people accountable.

Accountable for following organizational rules, policies, and procedures.
Accountable for delivering excellent customer service.
Accountable for creating outstanding products and services.
Accountable for being a team player and collaborator.

…and the list goes on. You get the point.

I sometimes wonder if when employees say, “My manager is out to get me.”, they really mean, “My manager is holding me accountable. And I don’t like it.” I know accountability is easy when we do something awesome and less easy when we don’t. As employees, we need to realize that accountability conversations will happen.

And as managers, we need to understand how to hold people accountable in a respectful way. Because at some point, employees are going to hold managers accountable for supporting them.

Bottom-line: If you want to hold others accountable, you have to be willing to hold yourself accountable. It’s like respect. If you want people to respect you, then you need to be respectful. Now that doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. The key is to be willing to take responsibility for our actions.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby at the HR Technology Conference in Chicago, IL

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March is Women’s History Month

March 9, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

In the U.S., March is recognized as Women’s History Month. The theme this year is women in labor and business, so I wanted to share a few interesting statistics I found, courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.

As of July 2014, women outnumber men in the U.S. – 162M to 157M.
The percentage of social scientists who are women is 63 percent.
Of the firms in the U.S., women own 35.8 percent of them.

Women have been instrumental in developing today’s workplace environment. If you want to learn more about the accomplishments of women in labor and business, check out this Women’s Day video from our friends at Kronos.

In fact, you might have noticed that yesterday was International Women’s Day. It’s been observed since the early 1900’s to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. Originally called International Working Women’s Day, it focuses on respect and appreciation toward women to celebrate their economic, political, and social achievements. The United Nations encourages its members to recognize the day for women’s rights and world peace. This year’s theme was #BeBoldForChange and asks people to help create a better working world – a more gender inclusive world. I think it’s a challenge we should take on all year around.

As part of last year’s Women in Technology event during the HR Technology Conference, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Tacy Byham, CEO of DDI, a global leadership consultancy with more than 42 offices in 26 countries. She made this comment about diversity programs in today’s organizations. “if organizations want diversity, they need process change. Organizations have to remove unconscious bias to create high potential talent pools. Women must have equal access to the same opportunities for coaching, mentoring, work experiences, etc.”

If organizations want to truly be diverse and inclusive, they need to create cultures that allow for diversity of thought, ideas, innovation, and creativity. Days like International Women’s Day are great for reminding us that we need to promote and celebrate diversity every day, not just one day a year. That might involve being bold for change. Organizations that embrace diversity are better in every way because they hire the best talent and it shows in their bottom-line results.

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Reduce Turnover: Develop an Employee Experience Strategy – #WorkInspired

March 7, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 3 Comments

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. Kronos was named one of the 2017 Best Workplaces for Giving Back by Fortune Magazine in conjunction with consultancy Great Place to Work. Congrats to them! Enjoy the post.)

I know the phrase is well-worn, but the reality is that “the war for talent” is on. Forty percent of employers say they’re struggling to find qualified candidates, according to ManpowerGroup’s most recent Talent Shortage Survey. And while there’s talk about artificial intelligence (AI) helping organizations with recruiting processes, let’s face it, people want to be hired by people.

So, what really helps organizations attract and retain the best talent is having an exceptional candidate and employee experience. At Kronos, they call this WorkInspired. Chief People Officer David Almeda calls it a mutual promise between employees and the company. “Kronites bring their passion, ideas, talent, and customer-first mentality to work every day. In return, the company is committed to providing an engaging, transparent, collaborative, and high-trust employee experience. Being a great place to work is quite literally one of a small number of high-priority imperatives that are communicated to all employees each year as part of the company’s overall business strategy. In other words, being a great place to work is every bit as important as our traditional business priorities as a global software provider, such as application development and migrating customers to the cloud.”

We all know that people are candidates before employees, so I asked Almeda how Kronos brings WorkInspired to the hiring process. “We consider those early recruiting days with a prospective Kronite to be the beginning of an extended, very intentionally created employee experience. Our hiring process is meant to emulate the same WorkInspired experience and attributes that current employees enjoy.”

3 Ways to Improve the Candidate Experience

Make it easy for job seekers to find and apply for jobs. If the company can’t attract applicants, they can’t hire employees. Basic but true. Organizations need to be where candidates are and in today’s world, that’s on social media using a mobile device. Pew Research reports that as of January 2017, ninety-five percent of Americans own a cellphone of some kind and roughly half own tablet computers. Add to that seventy percent of Americans use social media, and it’s easy to see the importance of having a social and mobile recruiting strategy. If an individual isn’t ready to apply, organizations can use talent networks to stay engaged with candidates and keep them informed of what’s happening around the company.

Create a robust internship experience. One of the things that’s impressive about Kronos’ talent acquisition team is their commitment to go above and beyond for candidates and help them find the next best career move, with Kronos or elsewhere. Where you can really see that in action is their internship program. Kronos is committed to giving interns the best experience for their career, which includes participation in an “Intern Olympics” competition between Greater Boston technology companies. The event focuses on networking, leadership, and fun. It’s something the interns will hopefully remember for a long time, especially when they’re looking for career opportunities.

Give candidates a realistic job preview. At Kronos, candidates are exposed to as many potential colleagues as possible so they can better understand the company culture, the work environment, their would-be role, and performance expectations. Recruiters routinely share their expertise with candidates to demystify the job search process and help candidates present themselves in the most genuine and positive manner. Hiring managers are encouraged to make each candidate touchpoint special by demonstrating what WorkInspired means to them by sharing emails, articles, photos, and more to emphasize what it would be like to not only work at Kronos, but on that particular team and for that specific manager.

3 Ways to Improve the Employee Experience

Develop a meaningful feedback process for the employee experience. At Kronos, employees are asked to rate their managers twice a year. The ratings are focused on four key areas of manager effectiveness that they’ve determined makes up the DNA of their strongest people managers. Managers then share their results with their teams along with their plan for developing their areas of opportunities. Managers are also encouraged to share these results with candidates as part of the interviewing process – providing even more insight into what it would mean if they got the job. Additionally, managers are provided with target development goals while at the same time being held accountable to continuously improving their results.

Offer employees a competitive pay and benefits. Almeda acknowledges there never will be a one-size-fits-all benefits and perks program. “Kronites have a number of different interests and priorities driven by factors such as age, location, parental status and many, many others.” so we work hard to research what matters most to our people. We examine the data provided by our bi-annual global engagement surveys, run focus groups, and partner with third parties to develop a well-rounded package of benefits that is competitive, affordable, and appealing to Kronites. These programs fall into four core buckets: Care for Each Other; Care for Our Customers; Care for Our Families; and Care for Our Communities. The benefits are meant to maximize work-life for employees, with a stress on the fact that our families are the number one priority – not work.”

Create a productive office environment. If you’re not aware, Kronos is in the process of relocating their headquarters from Chelmsford, Massachusetts to the nearby city of Lowell. While moving more than 1,400 employees is a challenge, Almeda said Kronos used it as an opportunity for employee involvement. “Our very first action was to assemble a core team of advocates to work alongside our real estate, facilities, and procurement departments to build a new facility befitting our culture and the company we’ve become. The advocates’ responsibility is to act as a conduit between the Kronos design team and their individual departments: providing information and office updates downstream to their colleagues while bringing new ideas and feedback upstream to the core design team. We are also leveraging our internal collaboration platform, Chatter, to post move updates for Kronites, share plans and photos, and run polls to get a feel for what employees want to see in their new space or gather data about a specific design decision.”

Everyone Deserves a Great Manager

Whether it’s candidates or employees, recruiting and retaining the best talent takes great management. Almeda said Kronos is committed to developing Kronites. “We believe that everyone deserves a great manager. But being a great manager is not easy. It takes work. It takes coaching. It takes guidance. Above all, it takes courage. To maintain our success as a company, we know that we must invest in what we call manager effectiveness. A key part of evaluating the effectiveness of our 750-plus people managers around the world is how closely connected their direct reports feel to our overall corporate strategy and, more importantly, can see clearly how they directly contribute to our success.”

Organizations that want the best talent need to bring their recruiting process full circle. Create a candidate and employee experience that’s welcoming and inclusive. Then, inspire employees to drive the innovative ideas that moves the business forward. Ultimately, employees will share their stories. That’s what creating a best place to work is all about.

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How to Confront a Trash Talking Manager – Ask #HR Bartender

March 5, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

With unemployment decreasing and the challenges finding qualified candidates increasing, it’s sometimes amazing to me that employees have to deal with these manager situations. But they do.

I have a question and am hoping you can provide some advice. I overheard my supervisor speaking ill (very ill) of me and other team members. She also took complete credit of a situation that I handled with letting an employee, where I coached them on ways to improve their work.
This is the second time she’s spoken ill of me. The first time, she vented to our department director that I wasn’t doing a certain assignment. If she had come to me, she would have learned that I was completing my work, just not the way she does it. So, how should I handle this type of situation?

No one wants to find out that their boss is talking trash about them behind their back. I believe employees want to hear directly from their boss when they are not meeting expectations, even if the conversation is uncomfortable. Employees want the chance to fix the situation. Same is true for personality conflicts. If employees are in conflict, then managers should confront the situation and try to come to some resolution.

In this particular situation, we don’t know the specifics of what was said and how it was said. We don’t know the supervisor’s intent. We also don’t know the consequences of the supervisor’s actions. We’ve answered similar situations on HR Bartender before:

Documenting Conversations with Your Boss

How to Tell If Your Boss is a Bully or Just Tough

The other thing we don’t know about this situation is whether the reader discussed the matter with human resources. We’ve covered a couple of situations here on the blog where HR was brought into the situation, but it didn’t appear to help:

What to do When HR Doesn’t Listen

HR Failed to Investigate an Incident

I did ask our friend Mark Neuberger, an employment attorney with the firm of Foley & Lardner, if employees have legal recourse when a manager is trash talking about them. Here’s what he said:

“There is no law that says you have to be nice to employees, at least not yet. However, if the employee were the member of a legally protected group (race/sex/age/etc.) it would be easy for them to make a prima facie claim of discrimination. This would be especially true if they were the only victim of Mr. or Ms. Potty Mouth’s trash talk. Here is the problem – the employer could theoretically defend such a claim by proving the trash talk wasn’t because the employee was a protected group member but rather, for some other reason. But how will they do that? By proving the supervisor talk trash about other employees who are not in a protected category? That there was a business justification for talking about them like that? Those are horrible excuses and as someone who only defends employers in employment litigation, is not something that I would want argue as a defense to a jury.

Also, the victim could file a defamation law suit against Potty Mouth. To succeed in a defamation suit, the employee would have to prove 1) Potty Mouth made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff, 2) Plaintiff must prove that Potty Mouth communicated the false statement to others, and 3) The employee has been financially damaged.

A separate defamation lawsuit is not really advisable for a lot of reasons not the least of which it would be very hard to prove actual financial damages short of the victim losing their job. However, this would be the type of claim a good plaintiff’s side attorney would strap on to a lawsuit raising the type of discrimination claim discussed above. Plus, in a defamation suit they could sue Potty Mouth individually, which would really get their attention.

The bottom line is a manager shouldn’t be verbally abusive to employees even if it’s behind their back, and companies shouldn’t tolerate trash talking supervisors.” My thanks to Mark for sharing his experience. And, hopefully, we can all agree that his last sentence about “a manager shouldn’t be doing this and companies shouldn’t tolerate it” is the real takeaway.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the Flora Icelandic HR Management Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

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10 Recruiting Tips for First Time Managers

February 26, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

One of the things that often happens when you become a supervisor or manager is that you’re invited to participate in the recruiting process. It could be because you’re now responsible for a team of employees. Or another manager will ask you to participate because you will work closely with one of their employees.

Regardless of the reason, there are a few things that new managers need to understand about their role in hiring.

Tell HR when an employee resigns. And tell them right away. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average time to fill a position is 42 days. The typical notice period is two weeks. If you tell HR about a resignation when it happens, then you’re only potentially without an employee for 28 days (assuming you get a two week notice). If you tell HR on the employee’s last day, that increases to 42 days. Allow HR to help you – tell them as soon as you know.

Review the job description. This is the perfect opportunity to make sure that what’s written on paper about the job is what the employee actually does. Responsibilities change regularly – and that’s okay. Just make sure the job description reflects what the employee is going to do. And make any necessary updates.

Discuss contingent staffing. In #1, we talked about how long it takes to fill a job. If you already know you can’t live a month without an employee, talk with your boss and HR about what can be done. Maybe overtime can be authorized or a freelancer can be brought in to help.

Hiring managers are allowed to source candidates. When job openings occur, remind the rest of the team that the employee referral program exists (you do have one, right?). Encourage them to tell the opening to their friends. Send out info about the opening to your social media network. Sit down with HR and tell them where you have connections. Work with them to source applicant flow.

Don’t assume you know how to interview. I know on the surface that interviewing sounds very easy. But it’s not. There are questions that are illegal to ask like “How old are you?” and in some states asking “How much money do you make?” There’s an art to interviewing. Ask HR if there’s an opportunity to attend interview training.

Take good interview notes. Don’t try to remember everything! If you interview 3-4 people, it will be tough to distinguish between candidates. Find out how to take good (and legal) interview notes. Tell candidates during the interview that you will be taking notes.

Collaborate! I’m a big fan of collaborative hiring. Identify a couple of people who the employee will work with regularly and get them involved in the recruiting process. It helps to create buy-in and it allows a new hire to know more than one person when they start. Every organization has unwritten rules and new hires will want to find answers – but maybe not from their boss.

Keep the candidate informed. At the end of an interview, tell the candidate how the recruiting process works, the timetable to make a decision, and who they should contact once they leave. But first, make sure you and HR are on the same page about this information. Even if the candidate doesn’t specifically ask, let them know anyway.

Always send a TBNT (Thanks but No Thanks). The people who interview with your company have the opportunity to also buy your product / service. You don’t want to lose a candidate and customer at the same time. If a candidate isn’t being considered any longer, let them know. They will respect you and the company. Coordinate response letters with human resources.

Look for talent, even when there’s not an opening. In #4, we talked about managers helping to source candidates. That doesn’t have to take place only when there’s an opening. Managers should always be looking for talent. For example, I’ve never worked with a sales director that wasn’t always on the search for good sales talent. And when they found them, they presented the candidate to the company. Didn’t matter if we had an open requisition or not.

When it comes to recruiting, everyone has the same goal – find the best talent, as quickly as possible, using the most cost-effective means. It’s not just “an HR thing” because managers will ultimately work with the employee. So managers should join the recruiting process. It’s a win for everyone involved.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby at the 34th Street Graffiti Wall in Gainesville, FL

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What To Do If You’re Placed On Suspension – Ask #HR Bartender

February 19, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 3 Comments

I know. You’re reading the title of this post and probably saying to yourself, “What the –?!” That’s exactly what this HR Bartender reader is saying as well.

I would like to know if I have the right to contact my employer regarding the outcome of an investigation.
I was placed on suspension in November 2016. I don’t know why I was suspended and HR didn’t ask me any questions on the day I received my suspension. I haven’t heard anything. My manager said he doesn’t know what’s going on because the person in HR is on leave.

There’s a lot going on in this situation so it’s not possible to give a single response. However, there are a few things about suspensions that you might want to know. To offer some insights, I asked employment attorney Donna Ballman to help us out. She’s helped us before – one of my faves is the post “Can You Bring Your Mother to a Meeting With HR?”

Please remember that Donna does have a full-time job and her comments should not be construed as legal advice or as pertaining to any specific factual situations. If you have detailed questions, they should be addressed directly with your friendly neighborhood labor attorney.

Donna, in your experience, why are employees placed on suspension?

[Ballman] Holy cow! What a question. It could be just about anything. Sometimes it’s just because there is an investigation going on. It’s usually paid if that’s the case. The best example I can give is one we’ve seen in the news when a police officer is involved in a shooting, so they are placed on suspension pending investigation. An unpaid suspension could be because the company has concluded the employee did something wrong or for a host of other reasons.

Should an employee expect to be interviewed if they are placed on suspension? Why or why not?

[Ballman] It would be normal for a company to interview an employee either before, during or right after a suspension. Before would be the norm if the suspension is after an investigation for some kind of wrongdoing. Most companies would interview the employee before coming to the conclusion they did something wrong (but that’s not always the case).

If the suspension is pending an investigation of some sort, then the interview could be before, during or after the suspension. The company will usually want to get the employee’s input on the investigation. They’ll do it before if they need the employee’s information and witness names before they can complete the investigation. They’ll do it during or after if they want to find out what any witnesses and evidence showed before they talk to the employee.

It’s important to know, though, that there is no law in any state I’m aware of that requires the company to interview the employee either pre- or post- discipline.

It only seems logical that if an employee is placed on suspension, there needs to be follow-up. How should an employee contact the company (if they think the process is taking unusually long)?

[Ballman] I’ve seen employees left in limbo for months, and some never get an answer because unscrupulous employers want to claim the employee quit so they leave them hanging indefinitely. I’d definitely follow up at least once a week (unless told otherwise), in writing via email with a read receipt and delivery receipt, something to the effect of:

“I am following up on my suspension which commenced on [date]. I would like to return to work as soon as possible. Please let me know when I may return. I am ready, willing, and able to provide any additional information you need.”

While an employee is on suspension, does the manager have a role in communicating with the employee?

[Ballman] Either HR or the manager should be communicating with the employee. Sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing though. I would suggest that the employee clarify with the company the protocol as to who they should be communicating with.

There are some details we don’t know about this organization in terms of size and how many HR representatives they have on staff. It is possible that someone in HR went out on leave or had a serious accident. What can organizations do to keep HR processes moving when HR is unavailable?

[Ballman] If it’s a suspension with pay, you’d think the company would be right on top of that so they aren’t paying someone to stay home. If it’s without pay, they may not care. Normally, it is wise for a company to have a person designated to handle HR issues in the absence of the HR person. If they have a policy saying employees should report, say, discrimination or the need for Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) to HR, then having nobody there or telling nobody who is covering could cause serious liability problems.

Remember, even tiny companies could be subject to state laws and local ordinances about discrimination and other issues. Here in Florida, several counties have discrimination ordinances covering employers with 5 or more employees. I know it’s tempting for a small company to be a little loosey-goosey in its procedures, but having someone designated to deal with HR issues at all times is just basic. I would consider this a bare minimum requirement if the company wants to prevent employee lawsuits.

My thanks to Donna for sharing her knowledge with us on this difficult topic. Please be sure to check out her blog on employee-side employment law issues, Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home. It’s been named one of the American Bar Association’s 100 best legal blogs for the past five years. And she’s the author of the award-winning book “Stand Up for Yourself Without Getting Fired: Resolve Workplace Crises Before You Quit, Get Axed or Sue the Bastards.”

This reader note is a prime example of the need for good organizational communication. Companies need to communicate expectations. Managers and employees need to regularly communicate about performance. HR needs to communicate policies and procedures. Follow-up communications need to happen.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the 2016 SHRM Annual Conference in Washington, DC

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Being a Leader and Tacit Approval in Today’s Workplace

February 14, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that I used to work for a boss who had me issue the same memo every year about tacit approval. The memo was designed to remind everyone of their responsibilities as a manager and leader as well as the basic principles of business.

I was reminded of tacit approval recently and dug out the memo. Believe it or not, some ten plus years later…I still have it. Not only does it apply to our roles at work, but in other places like our volunteer and civic roles. Here are a few key takeaways I see every time I read it:

The word tacit means “expressed without words or speech; implied or indicated but not actually expressed.” It represents silent consent and acceptance. In our workplaces, tacit approval is given whenever a manager fails to speak out about existing conditions. Tacit approval leads everyone to assume that existing conditions are acceptable, will be tolerated and allowed to continue.

Not only does tacit approval work against improving performance, it makes it unlikely that standards will be met. Let’s use a simple example, like when a supervisor doesn’t say anything about an employee who’s wearing something more suited for clubbing. What’s going to motivate the employee to wear the proper attire in the future? The supervisor’s silence implies that it’s okay to wear unprofessional clothing. Other employees will see this and, before long, the office has turned into a Pitbull concert. (No offense to Pitbull fans. I like his music too, but we probably don’t want the office to look like that.)

Back to the story. Trying to re-institute the policy at this point requires a major retraining effort not to mention an internal public relations campaign. To avoid this situation, the supervisor should be vocal, but not in an overbearing, sarcastic or caustic way. A timely comment can bring general awareness and serves to remind everyone of the policy.

Some other common examples of tacit approval in the workplace include:

Passing the buck. Someone in another department has an inappropriate screen saver on their computer. Because this employee is in another department, the manager figures it’s not their responsibility and doesn’t address the issue. Even though they realize the screen saver could offend a co-worker or even a customer. The assumption that someone else will handle it is misconceived. Meanwhile, the employee has the silent approval from a member of the leadership team.

Setting a double standard. Let’s say an employee doesn’t arrive at work on time. The employee must be coached on the need to be punctual. Failure to say something would be silent approval of tardiness. But this also means that the manager needs to be punctual as well. The hypocrisy of enforcing one standard while demonstrating another will cause resentment and more problems.

Tacit approval takes many forms and arises for a variety of reasons. It can often result from fear of conflict or rejection, lethargy, or misguided intentions. All that really needs to be done to eliminate tacit approval is to recognize the reasons that tempt us to overlook a situation that we know needs attention.

Leaders must become comfortable speaking up in every case that warrants it, despite our apprehensions. Before long, the reasons for remaining silent will cease to exist. Our feelings about speaking up to correct something that’s wrong becomes less important to us. It becomes about something being wrong that shouldn’t be.

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