I’d Rather Drink Gasoline than Wear a Suit

Gasolne
I’m writing this article in my Aeron chair. Black. My MacBook Pro case mod. Black. My t-shirt. Black. Jeans? Faded blue.

That’s the uniform here, at least for me. Black t-shirt and jeans. Sure, I have to dress like a grownup when I visit certain clients. But I’m even working on amping my “cool factor” to 11 so that I can go to clients in my “uniform.” (11, by the way, is Steve Jobs cool.)

I’m not alone in my feeling about comfort and creativity. If you want to hire IT freaks and geeks, you’re gonna have to loosen the ties that bind. Albert led me to a developer site and an article called Take Off Your Suit Pants and Jacket — It’s Web 2.0!. Brendon Close writes:

It’s time to take off that uncomfortable suit and put on those comfy jeans you left at home during the dot-com crash. And while you’re at it, grow that tidy corporate haircut out, let your facial hair run wild, and visit your local tattoo parlor so you can show off some visible ink.

The word is out. IT rock geeks are back in demand and stereotypical “dot-com” culture (and smell) is back in vogue. Managers are again in a bidding war to compete with their rivals and new Web juggernauts like Google to retain their best employees by offering a laid-back environment to benefit staff moral, retention and productivity.

I dunno. I don’t think I’m any more creative in my jeans and t-shirt, but one of my life goals is no more sweaty waistbands, and I’ve achieved that. It’s a start.

How’s your dress policy coming along? Because some of your best hires would rather drink gasoline than wear 3-piece suits and cover their tatts. The best and brightest often aren’t the ones who comply. After all, look at Albert Einstein.

If an HR Department Sets Policy in the Woods and No One Listens, Does It Make a Sound?

I had some other choice titles for this article that I abandoned because, well, because. They included these gems:

Well, cooler heads prevailed, and JT suggested this title and a link to an article that got me going on my little jag. Business Leaders Don’t See HR as Key To People Strategies appeared in Workforce Management with this introduction:

According to a new survey, only 23 percent of corporate leaders believe their HR departments play a crucial role in coming up with corporate strategy and have a significant impact on operating results.

Hey, that’s a little depressing, non? So what’s HR to do? It looks like it may be as much about turning around prevailing attitudes as it is about “having a place at the table.” The study by Deloitte Touche Tomatsu and The Economist Intelligence Unit seems to suggest that HR needs a marketing push:

[M]any business executives have a negative view of their HR departments. Only 4 percent felt their companies had “world class” HR and people management, while 31 percent said that significant improvement was needed. And while 52 percent of HR leaders believe they are major contributors in shaping a company’s culture, only 32 percent of business executives saw their HR leaders that way.

Zoiks! Four percent? I mean, that’s just sad. How’s that possible? Does that mean that, for the most part, HR is the B-team? Perhaps all that hand wringing by HR professional organizations is on the mark. We’ve been hearing for years about HR “having a place at the table.” How’s 2015 suit you? That’s what a PWC study of HR directors uncovered:

Almost two-thirds of HR directors believe there will be a chief of human resources on the board of most organisations by 2015, research has revealed.

Okay, I’m gasping. 2015!? There’s thinking big. Let’s plan eight years out. How about now? Does now work for you? “Go big or go home” is how one senior executive I know in the retail business says it. Now’s the time to stop talking about a place at the table and actually get one. These studies show that wanting to be at the grownup table doesn’t work. You’re a big kid now. It’s time to step up, grab a chair, and declare your place.

Hey, HR, You’d Better Hear This

I can hear you. Got gossip? Sit next to me.

I just saw this reference to overhear.us on TechCrunch and had to go check it out. And if you’re running HR or IT policy, you might want to check it out, too. Here’s how overhear.us describes itself:

overhear.usSome things you need to say at work are hard to say at work. So every organization has a “grapevine” for information that’s too sensitive for company email. The problem with the grapevine is that it’s inefficient. Word spreads from person to person via phone calls and conversations in hallways. By the time a story gets to you, who knows how much it’s changed?

Overhear.us is your new web grapevine. It lets information spread instantly between coworkers. It’s more private than a public forum because you need an email address within your organization to participate. But it’s safer than using internal email, because it’s hosted at our site.

This isn’t just a site for people to complain about the organizations they work for. We think grapevines are a good thing. Most organizations would be worse off without them.

Information is going to spread between coworkers. Overhear.us ensures that it at least spreads quickly and accurately.

Forewarned is forearmed. Rumors are one thing, but having those rumors documented on a website using a company e-mail address? Hmmm.

Women Make Less Than Men: 5 Things HR Needs to Do Right Now to End Pay Inequality

Unexplainable Pay Inequality in 2007
Women make less than men. In 2007. When controlling for all factors. How is that possible? Do you know anyone who actively and consciously pays women less than men? Well, it happens.

Women Earn on 80% Of What Their Male Counterparts Earn Right Out of School
The American Association of University Women released a new study that shows that women make less than men right out of school, continue to fall further behind as their career “advances,” and it’s not pretty. The AAUW reports:

In the report, Behind the Pay Gap, the AAUW Educational Foundation found that just one year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn. Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the research indicates that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained and is likely due to sex discrimination. Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows.

This seems like an issue that HR should have solved a long time ago. How can it possibly be in the days of discrimination testing and pay surveys that gender pay differentials are still so large (or different at all)? It’s astonishing.

It’s Time for HR To Take a Stand on Pay Inequality
You know, I can practically understand how there could be gender pay inequalities in composite (for non-normalized data). Men don’t take time off for having babies, they tend to not be the primary caregivers, and for that, they stay in the workforce and get more promotions and money. But it just doesn’t reconcile when it starts out with inequalities right out of college. How in the hell can that be?

5 Things HR Needs to Do Right Now to End Pay Inequality
It’s time for HR to take a stand. To stand up and say “It’s our responsibility to provide equal pay for equal work.” That it’s not acceptable to pay women less than men right out of school. To think it’s just okay that men make more. Here are 5 Things HR Needs to Do Right Now to End Pay Inequality:

  1. Do a normalized study of pay equity in your organization. Find out if your organization’s results mirror the AAUW findings. If they do, be afraid, be very afraid.
  2. If you’re paying women less than men for equal skills and experience, then fix it. Today. Don’t pull that “We need to reconcile this over years” BS. You have to fix it now. Best time to plant a tree? Ten years ago.
  3. Put gender-based pay inequality on the discussion for each and every pay strategy session that you have with other senior managers.
  4. Ask yourself, “With all the data and testing that we do, how could it be that women make less right out of school?” Think about the culture of your organization. If you talk the talk about diversity, do you walk the walk and pay fairly?
  5. Scream from the rafters that you won’t tolerate gender-based pay inequality, make it a much-discussed policy, and fire people who think it’s okay to pay men and women differently for the same job.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (U.S.) and 1970 (U.K) is decades old. Maybe it’s time to just get with it and comply. Doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.

Just Because You’ve Been Diagnosed as Paranoid Doesn’t Mean That Your Company Isn’t Watching You

Under the Microscope

Note to employees: Your company is watching you. And as much as I personally dislike that (and many of you do, too), it’s their equipment and they’re paying you to work…not play. So, you might want to think about sending notes to a co-worker who isn’t your wife that says, “I think about us together all of the time. Little moments like watching your face when you kiss me.” Oops. That’s what USA Today reports in a story called Wal-Mart alleges sex, misdeeds in counterclaim to firing lawsuit.

Lots of Inappropriate E-Mail: The Repercussions
If that Wal-Mart story isn’t enough to remind you of how to use company e-mail (as in, if you wouldn’t want your grandmother to read it, or if you wouldn’t want to see it printed in USA TODAY, then don’t send it), then I’ve done a public service and added a couple other cautionary tales for your reading pleasure.

Rep. Mark Foley and the White House Pages. We all know about this one, but the Rep. Foley story tells about e-mail monitoring and how hitting delete doesn’t work.

I once witnessed an incredible e-mail faux pas a long time ago, sort of at the early entry point of e-mail in business. A guy in a group I worked in, which was very few men and a LOT of women, wrote up a detailed report of partying and debauchery at his bachelor party…in Las Vegas. And somehow, instead of sending it to the group he wanted to (I can’t imagine why he’d want to send it to anyone) he accidentally hit “All Group” in Lotus Notes. And before you could say ruh-roh in your best Scooby-Doo voice, over 100 people were reading his e-mail. And what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. Not once he hit “send.”

Use Your Own Equipment for Your Own Business
Here’s what my dad would have said: Don’t be a bonehead. If you have personal business, either on the phone or by e-mail, use your own stuff. I’ve seen it happen all too often that people get caught up with what they think is private communication when they might as well have written it on a flying banner over the Super Bowl.

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