Second Law of HR Dynamics

You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
– Cecil Baxter

That quote could a variant of the Second Law of HR Dynamics. I’ve been talking a lot lately about what happens when we implement HR policies. Sure, we clean up one area, but do we dirty something else? What happens when we write a policy that says employees can’t take partial sick days? Does that make sick day occurrences go down? Or what happens when we put in one of those 70-30-10 performance plans that kicks the bottom 10% of employees out of the company each year? Are the 10% who go the worst 10%? (Don’t get me started on performance management processes…not on Monday morning.)

Think before you act. That’s what my dad used to say to me. What else he should have said was, “Think 10 steps ahead.” The Second Law of HR Dynamics is, “The acceleration of an unintended consequence depends on the net popularity of a program and how long it’s been around.” Take away a “little” gainsharing program that’s been around 30 years and find out what I mean. And fast.

HR and the Environment

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day What’s your HR department doing to show leadership on environmental issues? Sure, you recycle cans and bottles. You put all that paper from the printers and copiers in a bin. Heck, you even turn off the lights in your office when you’re not there. But it’s not enough.

Human resources — I’m talking about real, live people — deserve a clean and healthy environment that’s more than snazzy offices. And who’s better equipped to help with that than HR? Here are three things HR should consider right away to get their people thinking about the environment.

  1. Talk to No Impact Man. Colin Beavan, No Impact Man, lives a mindful life in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. Read him. Consult him. Model him. Get a guy who’s living a no impact life to give you ideas. He’s got a thousand of them and has the legitimacy to speak about environmental issues on an individual scale. Your employees would be dazzled.
  2. Watch “An Inconvenient Truth.” Al Gore won an Oscar for this film and a Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental advocacy. There are big ideas and small ones that people can get from the film. Make it available. Or at least make people aware. Start somewhere. And think about the ice in your cup. Like the Wicked Witch of the West and the polar ice cap, it’s melting.
  3. Ask, “Why Recycle?” Yes, recycling is good, but step back and wonder whether you should be putting packaging into recycling at all. For instance, if you don’t drink bottled water you don’t have to recycle the package. That’s root cause thinking. Don’t think “recycling” when the real thought should be, “Do I really need this?”

Okay, that’s a start. There are over 150 million people working in the U.S. alone. If you’re in HR and looking for a cause, how about saving the world? Why think small?

If Motivating You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

I saw this quote today by Sir Ken Robinson on Diego Rodriguez’s Metacool:

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.

That made me think about why companies use pay surveys to set their pay levels. I mean, what would you do if you had none of that information and needed to create a pay plan? Would you even have base salary? Would you make everyone a partner in the business and let them share in the profits — and invest in the business? Would the calendar dictate when pay increases should happen? Would three years be considered “long-term”? Would you run your company differently? Would you have more managers than workers?

Here’s a challenge: You should pay people at the 99th percentile. (As long as we have data, we might as well use it.) Because you pay more than everyone else you will get the best talent. And those highly-paid people will rock your world. Your company will be the place to work, and the most successful company on the planet. It could work. Has anyone proven that it can’t?

Discuss.

10 Ways for HR to Think Different

A thought for today from 10 years ago: Think different. Apple’s advertising influenced me then, and in our company we use the tagline, “Interrupt the pattern,” which is a variation on that theme. We challenge each other when the easy looks too expedient. Ingrained ideas can sometimes get a life of their own and can benefit from a critical challenge from time to time. Here’s 10 Ways for HR to Think Different:

  1. Who benefits from annual performance reviews?
  2. Do you really believe that “people don’t work for money”?
  3. If you don’t hear back, did you really “communicate” with your employees?
  4. How much more effective are your high performers than your average performers?
  5. Is there a difference between a 3% merit increase and 3.5%?
  6. Do you believe that you can teach employees to be “engaged?”
  7. Could you be just as effective with half the meetings you attend?
  8. Do you think employees don’t notice that you let slackers hang on way too long?
  9. When’s the last time you really listened to employees? Is conducting a survey really listening?
  10. Do you employ adults? If so, do you treat them like grownups?

I’m sure there are many more that could be added to the list. What’s your best Think Different advice for HR?

Daimler Chrysler to Eliminate 13,000 Employees

Daimler Chrysler announced a “Group Recovery and Transformation Plan” today that includes the elimination of 13,000 jobs. On the jobs boards, some are calling this the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Yikes. Talk about an HR challenge.

Next Page →