Month: May 2018

Do you suffer from MBSO?

MBSO: Management By Shiny Object

Symptoms:

  • Tendency to assign action items based on the last meeting you had
  • Forwarding every article on the latest management fad to your entire team
  • Inability to complete a project
  • Forgetting who you actually assigned as owner of a project
  • Vigorous head-nodding when something is suggested by the higher ups

Side Effects:

  • Frustrated team members
  • Lack of planning
  • Eye rolling in meetings
  • High turnover
  • Low engagement

Diagnosis:

  • Can usually be made within two (2) face-to-face meetings
  • Observe email syntax – probable lack of continuity; may also display needless repetition
  • Ask for a priority update on Monday…then as the same question Wednesday to see if there are massive changes

Treatment (to be administered by those around the MBSO sufferer):

  • At the next staff meeting, stage an intervention. “Joe, we love you very much. And we want you to be successful…”
  • Airing of grievances
  • Dead-eye stare at the afflicted member of your team
  • Finding a new job

MBSO can be stopped, but it takes awareness.

Don’t be that manager.

#SHRM18 Speaker Bobby Zaepfel: Dragging records into the 21st century

When you think about record-keeping in HR, what does it typically bring to mind?

If you’re like a lot of long-time practitioners, it probably means a dark, dusty room filled with file cabinets or shelving, file folders filled to bursting with documents that track the course of an employee’s employment and benefits. It may be orderly, it may be messy, but it’s probably on paper.

Bobby Zaepfel wants you to start thinking different about record keeping.

I had an opportunity to talk to Bobby as he prepares for his 2018 SHRM National Conference session Once Upon a Time There Was a Mountain of Paper, on Tuesday, June 19 at 7:00 AM. Don’t let the early time scare you off – it promises to be a great session! Bobby is the University Records Officer in charge of the records program all of James Madison University.  With a focus on process improvement, strategic goals, and vision, Bobby works closely with HR staff and campus leadership to facilitate and collaborate all areas of the records program at the university.

And Bobby is an electronics record-keeping evangelist.

As a member of the #SHRM18 Blog Squad, I get to interview speakers and help spread the word about their session, and I personally selected Bobby’s session on record-keeping because it seemed like a topic that, on the surface, doesn’t sound sexy, but is hitting HR departments hard as organizations look to modernize and cut down on their facilities footprints.bobby-zaepfel

Bobby explains, “This is a hot button topic – it tends to be deprioritized until it CAN’T be deprioritized anymore.  A lot of organizations find themselves in a ‘gotta move NOW’ situation and don’t make plans for the future.” The trick, Bobby continues, is to be strategic about how you will move forward with electronic record-keeping. Buying a system isn’t enough. Like all HR tech, you need to have a plan first.

When I asked Bobby what advice he would give to an HR department about to embark on the path to electronics record-keeping, he said, “Approach it with a heavy emphasis on workflows. A lot of the (record-keeping) systems out there are very specific about what they can and can’t do. Draw a concept map out before you dive into the pond – what are the workflows? Who needs access? Etc.”

When mapping out the requirements for a record-keeping system, it’s this last point that some HR departments forget. Bobby gave me an overview of a records-conversion project James Madison University is about to embark on (moving from an “online file cabinet” to an record-keeping system), and when they started reviewing who needed access, it was clear that the needs went far beyond HR’s records. Student records, transcripts, applications, accounting – all needed to be accessed across the university. This requirement – and the careful planning that preceded it – led them to a solution that was tailor made for higher education.

I enjoyed my conversation with Bobby Zaepfel. He’s funny, engaging, and tells a great story. His first career was in broadcasting, and you can hear the roots of that past in the way he approaches his content. His first experience with the SHRM National Conference was last year in New Orleans – guess whose session was during the tornado warning? Thankfully, it all worked out!

When I shared I live in Colorado, Bobby was quick to proclaim his love for Red Rocks Amphitheater (as well he should) and shared that he was a bit of a Dead Head before settling down. He’s the proud father of three boys – twin 6-yr-olds and a 4-yr-old.

As our conversation wrapped up, I asked Bobby if there was anything else he wanted me to share with the readers. “SHRM is a wealth of resources – if you go on their site, you can find information on pretty much any topic,” he said. “This is so incredibly helpful for smaller HR departments, folks new to the industry, and true generalists who have to handle everything on their own.”

Well said, Bobby.

 

Join Bobby Zaepfel for his session at 2018 SHRM National Conference: Once Upon a Time There Was a Mountain of Paper, Tuesday, June 19, 7:00 AM

 

Network or nepotism: where do we draw the line?

“Work your network.”

“Employee referrals are the best way to find talent.”

“Oh, I have a great person I can recommend for that.”

“It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know.”

Depending on your point of view, you either think these statements are helpful and motivating, or the embodiment of everything that’s wrong in society today.

This eternal debate is at the heart of my frustration with “hire for fit” or requests from conference planners for recommendations of speakers. On the one hand, it is important to find people who don’t necessarily “match” but certainly “go” – they complement the business in ways that moves the organization forward rather than fights for fighting’s sake. On the other hand, you can end up with a whole lot of same.  – the same thinking, the same looking, the same people, the same faces.

I struggle with this because I’ve benefited from my network. I’ve been afforded opportunities I wouldn’t have because the people in my circle of trust have recommended me for things, or have hired me for gigs, or have introduced me to people who then helped me do cool things. I am grateful to my network and humbled they think to recommend me for anything. And I really love the opportunity to refer someone I know because they are smart, talented, capable, all that stuff.

fowl-storm

And yet…

I recognize that someone else who had some mad skillz may not have gotten the opportunity because they don’t know the right people. And that it’s really hard to break into a new industry or group or company when you’re new and sometimes the “old guard” circles the wagons a little too much.

In hiring, data suggests employee referrals are the “best” – they tend to be sticky and because an employee is putting his/her reputation on the line, the referrals aren’t usually awful. For those of you who work among those with particularly niche skill sets (IT, OD, Legal,, etc.), you recognize the fact there are typically six (or fewer) degrees of separation between you and any possible candidate because we all keep referring the same people over and over.

What do we do about it? Throw out referrals all together? Avoid going to our network to ask about who should be a part of an event? Refuse to hire someone we’ve worked with before?

Yeah, maybe.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we just need be a little more aware of who we reach out to. Maybe we need to be intentional about the balance of referrals to new voices when it comes to giving opportunities. Maybe we need to take a chance now and then because it’s exciting to meet/hear/see/hire someone new.

Think of it this way – Marvel movies are great. The MCU has done a fantastic job of weaving together multiple storylines and breathing new life into old characters (you know Ironman was a secondary title, right?). But deep down, every once in awhile you kind of want to see something original. There’s a reason Greatest Showman had legs in the box office (and only part of it can be attributed to Hugh Jackman). It doesn’t take anything away from Marvel and movies you love. But it does give you glimpse of something different that you might not have wanted to watch.

So here’s my challenge for you – for every person who is your “go-to” referral for something, try to also refer someone new. It will grow the network at large and offer opportunity to those who may not have the reach that others do.

Plus, when that person turns into a star, you can always say you discovered them.

 

The currency of real network in not greed, but generosity.

~ Keith Ferrazzi