Suck it up, tighten your chin strap, and pray for some humility.  You may not ever get back the job you once had…the job you really want.  So do something else…anything…just do it, though.    Ever wanted to learn a trade? Become an electrician, become a plumber…they make coin.  Always wanted to travel? Get your truck hauler’s license and jump the big rig.  Do you support a cause, have passion for a not-for-profit? Offer your services to them at a rate that doesn’t even come close to ”market.”  Were you a Director? Apply for Senior Manager roles, or even Manager roles.  Worried about degradation?  There is no such thing right now.  If it were me, I’d go work at Starbucks, or Boarders, or Home Depot.  Shit, I’d flip burgers or wash dishes at Denny’s if I had to.  And don’t tell me that’s “easy for you to say because you have a job.” Bullshit!  I’ve washed dishes before and it’s good honest work.  It doesn’t pay diddly, but it pays a hell of a lot more than what ever you’re making sitting at home watching Ellen.

What’s the worst that can happen?  You make some money, you get out the house, you get some benefits.  I’m sure you realize this, but the longer you’re unemployed the more your social and mental health will deteriorate (see recent article, “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America”, in The Atlantic).  Your pride is also getting in the way of the economy’s recovery.  Your continued dip into savings doesn’t help anything – any wage you earn, irrespective of how small, stimulates the very fabric of our economic engine.  Hell, you might even learn something about yourself in your new endeavor that’s powerful in ways you never imagined.  But above all else, you will have something to show for your time away – your time ”in transition.” You’ll show your determination, your spirit, and your humility.  And those are all great competencies for a prospective job candidate in my book.

Opportunities to invite, include, or exclude abound in the workplace.  Whether it’s a conference call, a meeting, a business trip, a lunch, a dinner, or a boondoggle.  Someone is always going to feel left out.  Still happens to me – there’s a meeting going on right now with my executive peers in another city and I wasn’t invited.  That’s cool, though.  I understand why I’m not there and don’t expect someone to justify my absence.  Yes, I’m a big boy now.  None the less, I have some thoughts on inclusion in the workplace.

• You can’t include every one all the time.  And it is nearly impossible to avoid bruised feelings.
• Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the pot and the same applies to too many business people at the conference table.
• HOWEVER…when in doubt, over-include.
• If someone is excluded, take the time to debrief them off-line after it’s all over.  That way they won’t feel like the “secret society” continues.
• If you’re the one excluded, let it go.  If it eventually becomes a habit, talk with your boss (not your peers.) If it continues, start looking for another job.
• If you’re one of those included and you go out of your way to rub it someone else’s face and flaunt your attendance like you’re something special, get a grip…you’re nothing but an asshole. (My Mom taught me never to talk with other people about parties you were invited to unless those people tell you specifically that they were invited too).

The more I think about it, there are a lot of things we could learn from our days on the playground that would help us in the workplace.  As it relates to inclusion, just try to be a bit more thoughtful about it.

HR Fishbowl was starting to “get legs.”  With hits and subscribers increasing consistently and some pretty good external validation (F.O.T. Top 25), the momentum was exciting…and the prospect of bigger things was enticing.  But I’m kind of an all-or-nothing guy; my alliances have started to blur and I’m beginning to feel a bit torn about my ability to truly focus on everything my day (and night) job demands.

I’m going to keep blogging.  I will continue to dedicate myself to 1) the simplification of Human Resources, 2) the promotion of #TrenchHR (hearing more in the blogosphere from people who actually practice HR in a corporate environment) and 3) good ole’ fashioned debate about the caring and feeding of people in the workplace.  But I will do all of these things a bit more intermittently.  So…

Don’t give up on me, keep coming back, and subscribe.  Just be patient with me because we have 1,000 employees who need love too!

So what if we could do the same thing with employee performance records?  What if we could standardize at least a piece of those records so the data could be transferrable to new employers? Shouldn’t your development continue where it left off at the old employer?  Seems to me that your new boss would like the opportunity to really understand your weaknesses (as opposed to whatever canned answer you gave him/her during your interview.)  Seems that might actually give him/her a chance to address them head-on before they creep up somewhere down the road and hinder everybody’s progress.  It would also give him/her a chance to quickly highlight and truly leverage your strengths.  Tim Sackett and Fistful of Talent had an interesting post the other day about carrying the “hickeys” of workplace transgressions around with you from job to job.  I’m not sure any one has to see your hickey until you’re actually on the job.  And as long as there was some understanding that they couldn’t kick you out for having a hickey (after all, we’ve all had them) then why not just get them out in the open? 

I think about the many years of performance reviews I had with my former employers.  It kind of bums me out that those are just sitting in a box somewhere in a storage room…worthless to anything I’m doing today.  Electronic Performance Records (EPR)…hmmmmmmmm.

Photo Credit: peteterranova.blogspot.com/

I told my wife last night that, “I would absolutely love my job if it weren’t for this one person.”  That one person happens to be some one who has betrayed and abused my trust one time too many.  But here’s the problem: 1) He/she has an important role in the organization so he/she isn’t going anywhere any time soon, 2) I’ve tried to address the trust issue head on with him/her to no avail, 3) It’s really hard to play the role of unbiased HR professional when the issues you’re addressing relate to a peer who shares a boss with you.  It’s that third issue that brings me to my first recommendation to HR leaders out there: Have an explicit agreement with your boss on who your HR representative is in the event you need one.  It may be another HR leader, it may be corporate counsel, it may even be an HR representative who reports to you.  Either way, it should be agreed in advance that by using said representative you deliberately separate yourself from your role as HR advisor and take on the role of employee.  With that understanding you should feel more comfortable getting the same kind of support on your issues that you are dedicated to providing the rest of the company.  Here’s my next recommendation: Screw Trust!  Trust is for people you love, for people who love you.  Trust is for people your livelihood depends upon.  Trust is for people who actually matter.  But trust in the workplace is fleeting.  Yes, you should strive to be trustworthy; but unless you are a firefighter, a soldier, or a trapeze artist it’s naive to count on others to be trustworthy.  Sorry, it just is.  Try to give the benefit of the doubt, stay optimistic, have faith, have respect, strive to understand, build strong working relationships.  But keep a healthy sense of skepticism about any one and every one.  Don’t become paralyzed by paranoia, but watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing.  I’m here to tell you: workplaces are not designed for trustworthiness…trust me on this.

Recently Charlie asked for posts from the “HR Trench” and this intrigued me.  There are literally thousands of HR people who may take this term literally everyday unfortunately.  I know too many HR folks who are miserable in what they do as a profession.

In looking at this, I had to ask myself the question – “Why are they miserable and I’m not ??”

The answer was pretty clear only because of how I have been encouraged and “allowed” to perform at my Company.  About a year ago, my boss, the COO, asked me to draw a picture of what HR should be at our company.  I honestly was a little baffled because he literally wanted a picture of what I’d like HR to be.  After some deep reflection, and many cups of coffee, I came up with a picture and went back to present it to him.

I followed the “before and after” model that you see in those weight loss commercials because I wanted to express how HR was being utilized now and what it should be.  The “before” model showed every department as silos – including HR.  HR was only used if, and when, people needed it primarily for administrative tasks or employee relations problems that were now teetering on legal action.  In contrast, the “after” model took HR and spread it in a row that spanned all of the departments.  I explained that HR should be integrated throughout all departments and levels of the company because all of them have humans !!

Seems simple, but it worked.  He agreed that HR should be integrated vs. administrative.  Strategic on a regular basis vs. processing paperwork.

This frees me every day knowing that HR is expected to be integrated to move the Company forward.  I wish HR professionals everywhere would follow an “integrated” approach !!  If they did, they would see that the “trench” that we’re in is actually very cool and exciting !!

Julie Smolyansky, Playboy's "Sexiest CEO"

I’m not a sociologist and I haven’t done any scientifically sound research, but I think good-looking people have an easier go at career advancement than ugly people (I know, “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”).  As a recruiter, can you honestly tell me that your own feelings about one’s looks doesn’t play into your final recommendation about a candidate? I’m not talking about charisma, or how they dress.  I’m talking about physical appearance.  I spent 13 years of my career with Deloitte and participated heavily in campus recruiting.  I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that the “better looking” students got internships and job offers. 

Does this bias continue after recruiting? Harder to prove, but I think it may.  Wally Bock, a Twitter pal of mine, reacted strongly to a Time Magazine article on his blog, Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog.  Time suggested one’s looks could be a predictor of one’s success as a CEO.  Although the study supported this notion, I would agree with Wally that this is a stretch.  So for grins I looked at the highest paid CEOs of 2009 via CNN Money and aside from a few I can’t say many were fetching (man’s perspective, mind you.)  Then I looked at a gallery of Fortune 500 Women CEO’s at CNN Money and I think there was a bit more of a good looks factor going on there (man’s perspective, mind you.)  But I did this in all of about 10 minutes so none of this really means jack.

I’m hoping the workplace has matured enough to put physical bias aside; but I’m skeptical.    Do those who are soft on the eyes get a leg up?  Do those who make the stomach churn get looked over?  Are the physically appealing better leaders?  Are bad-looking people poor negotiators?  Do hotties get paid more?  So I’d like to know whether in your experiences as an HR professional, or as a citizen of Corporate America, good or bad looks play a substantive role in a career.

Would all you other crazy-hypersensitive-sky is falling-little ninny nanny-overly judgmental-freakazoids please just cool it?  This is a perfect example of how the general public is prone to media hysteria, hypnosis, and herd mentality.  Here’s a company that did the auto industry a favor: it injected a competitive life into the increasingly arrogant and complacent Big 3 and in the process brought 10′s of thousands of jobs to the US (their Direct Investment in the US has grown to $17 Billion and they spend $29 Billion annually with US companies).  Think of all the cars this company has put on the roads in the US over the last 53 years (27 million Toyotas on the road in the US right now) and then…this.  The media gets a hold of it, the American public cries “foul,” and the next thing you know the company is projected to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $2B by the time this is all said and done.  And for what?  Toyota owners have a better chance of killing themselves by slipping in the shower (2,300:1) than they do having even an issue (not a fatal one) with their faulty accelerators or floor mats (13,500:1).  Check it out.

One of the hardest things you’ll ever do as an HR professional is take a stand on an employee’s performance, suggest they “aren’t done yet,” and insist that you (all) have an obligation to at least try and salvage their career with the organization.  This is easy enough to do when you have some employment law risk to fall back on.  But try it when the mob is forming, when quick-judgment has already been passed, and some loud mouth is crying “foul.”  If HR professionals went along with the herd every time performance came into question, our “Grim Reaper” moniker would be well deserved.  We go out of our way to understand the dynamics at play, we gather facts, we interpret the data, and we always perform a risk analysis.  History (track record) is considered.  Multiple view points and diverse perspectives are sought.  And ultimately a recommendation is made.  But we always start with the benefit of the doubt…don’t we?  Don’t we begin with the premise that people make mistakes, that no one is perfect, that flawless performance is fleeting, and that every one should be given another (and another) chance?  And more than anything, we hate the “either/or” solution and always look for the “and/both” solution…

Why do Americans suck at this?  There are solutions to this problem, their are a number of models not subject to the issues, the company will pay for the fix, and it’s not like they are going to put new cars on the market that have the same issue.  To any one who is thinking some semblance of “I really like Toyota but now there’s no way I’m buying one,” you’re a doo doo head.  I just hope you’re not an HR professional too.

Well the times have changed and this exemption as originally designed is losing its applicability…entirely.  As an example (one that you all can identify with) I have a Blackberry on my person at all hours – in fact, it’s on my bedside table when I go to sleep.  It’s the first thing I look at when I wake up, the last thing I look at before I go to bed.  Yes, that’s sad…and mostly it’s my fault.  BUT…there is some Employer culpability here.  Employers have grown to assume – almost by accident – that the average managerial or executive level employee will be available and on-call 24/7.  This applies, by the way, even when one is on vacation.  I don’t think I’ve truly disconnected from the office on a vacation – like leave the computer and smart device at home – since our honeymoon back in 2001.  Seriously. 

My annual base salary is fair and market competitive, but if I were to calculate an hourly rate based on hours worked I can guarantee you it doesn’t come close to what it is designed to be.  See if you can follow me here…  Let’s assume: a) over the last five years smart devices have become widely adopted and used as a business tool, b) said smart device usage has resulted in, on average, an additional 1.25 hours of work every week every year over those last five years (a conservative estimate I’d say), c) annual base salaries have increased, on average, by 3% every year over the last five years.  If you can buy into these assumptions, then you better sit down.  You’re really only making .26% (yes, less than 1%) more than you were 5 years ago! 

So, Mr. DOL, I hereby propose that you amend the current exemption to read, “Should you require an exempt employee to carry a smart device so that he or she can access job related eMails and/or phone calls outside of the office, employer must also pay said exempt employee an “on-call” rate above and beyond their annual base salary.  The on-call rate should approximate 1/4 of their regular base hourly rate and should be paid for all waking hours outside of the workplace.  If employee is also required to remain on-call during scheduled and approved vacation, employer shall increase the on-call rate to 1/2 of their regular base hourly rate.”  So if you’re on board with this approach, contact your respective congressmen and let them know.  I say it’s time the market be forced to adjust to what has very nearly become free labor.