Are your human capital assets or chattel?

Like most HR professionals my inbox is bombarded with data almost all day. But one caught my eye the other day, which led me to begin to think about the question I posed in the title to this post.

One of the posts I get is from the Networked Lawyer Blog (http://www.networkedlawyer.com) in which they discussed the case of USA vs. Nosal in which a recruiter for Korn Ferry was charged with the theft of Korn Ferry proprietary and confidential information in the form of candidate information.  When I talked to some of my recruiting friends the response I got was that the candidates belong to the recruiting agency not the recruiter.

I worked for several recruiting agencies in the past and the same situation prevailed there as well. What bothered me the most in this situation was that in this social media connected world, can a recruiting firm or a corporation truly claim that the background of those employees or candidates is a trade secret. For edification I looked up the definition of trade secret and found that the definition states that a trade secret is a secret process, technique, method, etc., used to advantage in a trade, business, profession, etc.  Nowhere in the definition does it say human capital assets.

In 1973, just as I was starting as a recruiter a blockbuster book was released by Allan Cox (http://www.allancox.com) titled “Confessions of a Corporate Headhunter” in which Allan Cox laid out the whole recruiting process to the general public. So I reached out to him and asked him about his thoughts and he responded “ what good is a recruiter to the world if s/he doesn’t remember, especially talented people he comes across, presumably many of them, for their gifts and accomplishments.”

Here is my take on the question. There was a time and place when we paid our human capital based on what they made or produced. In this new interconnected world we now pay them based on what they dream. There is no reasonable way that we can control the ideas that are in their head. We also can’t control the flow of ideas in this interconnected world.

If we claim that our human capital are assets to the organization , then we need to realize that they are assets and not a piece of property. HR’s role in our organizations is to be the gatekeeper to talent acquisition and we can’t expect that means we have to confront this issue headfirst.  Allan Cox went on to state that “ all executes we meet in searches, though not appropriate candidates for an existing search can be suitable sources for referrals for those they know or know of who might make an ideal prospect for the current search we are conducting.”

Thus as an organization we are confronted with a decision. If we believe that they are assets to the organization then we have to treat them as such. We need to recognize that the human capital assets are non-owned leased talent who can go anywhere. If that is your true feelings then we need to recognize they are not property of the organization. On the other hand if you are living in an outdated world where you think of employees as property then recognize in the long run your talent searches are going to be limited. Understand that you will drive away talent not attract them in this innovative world we find ourselves in.

Are your human capital assets or chattel? Lets start a discussion on how the human capital fit into our cultures. Email me at dan@dbaiconsulting.com with your thoughts.

Yesterday is history tomorrow is mystery today is present

You read that real quick didn’t you? But go back and really consider the implications of the words themselves to the human resource professional in the daily exercise of their responsibilities.
Yesterday is history
There is no organization that is free from having made really bad human resource decisions. We have all fed into the corporate mantra, even though we may believe differently. We have been fed the Kool-Aide that the corporate organization is always right. We all are guilty of telling an employee, asking us a question –“That is not my job” resulting in the alienation of the very talent we need to maintain the organization. We have all enforced decisions which in the basis of our moral beliefs we felt were wrong. We failed to send a candidate on for further consideration because the hiring manager said he/she would not hire someone like that. The EEOC press releases are filled with very stupid actions on the part of management. We can’t go back and change them. These actions are now part of organizational history forever enshrined in the persona of our organizations. The good news is that these actions are in the past.
Tomorrow is a mystery
Flip the coin over. We are not psychics that enable us to predict the future. As human resource professionals we have an uncertain view of the road ahead of us. We are certain that the nature of our jobs will change. Demands on our time will increase whether from regulatory requirements or the implication of change within the organization. Some are suggesting that we return to the time when we were called Personnel. I would suggest that we covered that in yesterday is history, we can’t reasonably return to the past and expected to be productive in the new environment called the global workplace. The role we increasingly play as the gatekeeper of talent management is not very well served by going back to the future. Our organization’s future will not be well served by returning to an era when we were just paper pushers. We moved to that era following the change away from the Quaker business model to the human capital as numbers mentality. It did not work when we changed to a knowledge economy.As result it is critical that we prepare the organizations for that uncertain future. The way we do that is to delve into the present to resolve issues that in the past have been a detriment to the organization.
Today is present
Taiichi Ohno of the Toyota Motor Corporation is reported to have said “the past is the past and what is important is the current condition and what we will do next to go beyond where we are today.” As the human resource professional within the organization, it is critical that we become the change leader for the organization. We can’t afford to rely on the strategic response that this not how we do things here. We can’t rely on the strategic response that we have done that and it did not work. Not only HR but the entire organization must begin to look at how we can do thing better, faster and cheaper. We need to look at our long term objectives from the rose colored glasses which tell us that we need to do things better (less errors), faster (now instead of procrastinating) and cheaper (less cost outlay). We need to look at our current situations and seek to bring about change to improve the organization in the future. We need to begin to see the problems and feel how they impact on the organization. Once we have reached this plateau we must lead the change within the organization to correct these problems. The human resource professional is the only one with all the keys to meet these challenges.
Consider a recent action by the EEOC in which a financial institution agreed to pay $95,000 and provide injunctive relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC had charged that the bank failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for a former employee’s disability and discharged her because of her age. Yesterday is past. The bank made the mistakes.The future is a mystery due to the unclear picture whether management understood that change was needed. The present is here because the organization must pay the fine and provide relief to the employee. It is also inherent that the organization learn from the past and take corrective action so the problem does not reoccur.

What is your 8" diamater plate?

The NBC News reported on Sunday that the Washington State Department of Transportation reported that a construction project to construct a tunnel in Seattle had been halted because the world’s largest boring machine had been stopped by an 8 inch diameter steel pipe. When I stopped for a moment to consider this I asked myself in our HR functions what is our 8” diameter steel pipe?

The majority of HR professionals will tell you that they meet that 8” pipe every day. We are told by a manager that a position needs to be filled ASAP and then they drag their feet on their end of the process. We try and introduce a new policy or procedure which will align HR with the strategic initiatives of the organization and are told several reasons why it won’t work. Do these responses seem familiar?

o   We tried that before and it didn’t work

o   That is just not how we do things here

o   It is too complicated our employees will never go for it

As we begin the New Year it is time that we step back and look for that 8” diameter steel plates. They are the obstacles which cause us to never reach our goals. Some are hidden within our corporate culture. Others are an aspect of the fear of doing something different. They are based in the old attitude that if it is not, broken don’t touch it. However in reality everything we do in our organizations is broken in some fashion. Everything we do can be improved with some minor corrections in path.

So as a New Year’s Resolution ask yourself what is my organizational 8” diameter steel pipe and what do I have to do to get through it? E-Mail me at dan@dbaiconsulting.com and let me know what your 8” plate is and how you plan to get through it if your world class borer can’t.

Learn how to become a HR strategic animal

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I Know I am Right. Because it is my job!!!!

Several years ago I walked into my favorite bookstore and was fascinated by a book on the shelf. What caught my eye was the bright orange cover and the band of duct tape across the cover. The book was Chip and Dan Heath’s first book titled “Made to Stick.” Since then I have been looking forward to reading their other works. It is no different for their newest work titled “Decisive.”

In Chapter 7 titled “Ooch”, they talk about a company which scheduled interviews for an open position. After the interview each candidate was asked to present an example of their work for review. In order to remove any sense of bias on the part of the interview team, the work examples were numbered as to disguise the source. When all the work examples were submitted the management reviewed the collections and made a judgment as to who would best fit their open position based on the works alone. The candidate that was ultimately chosen was the individual that those conducting the interviews, felt were least likely to do the job to company standards. They were dead wrong in their assumption based on the interview. The Heath’s make the claim that our interviews are less predictive of job performance than work sample or even peer ratings of past performance. They even state that if we provided our candidates with a simple intelligence test it would predict performance levels better than the interview.

So here is the question. As HR professionals we tell our managers, our sourcing vendors and the organization that we can adequately evaluate prospective talent based on our prowess as interviewers, because we know we are right. We know we are right because that is our job. But what if we are not right? What if we have underserved our organization because we turned away the very talent the organization needed because we did not think based on the interview that the candidate fit?

I have been through interviews during my career which in looking back made no sense as to whether I could do the job. I have to confess in my management roles when I was doing recruiting I fell into the trap of thinking my interview skills were proficient enough that I could make the right decision. Part of our tendency is to consider who we like or who we feel we can trust when we interview candidates. However if we don’t like someone does not mean that we will always find, locate and attract the diverse skills we need for the new marketplace. Some of my consultant colleagues suggest that the behavioral interview might improve the success rate but those too can be based on our views of the responses.

Email me at dan@dbaiconsulting.com and let me know how  accurate are your predictive skills in interviews and are you short changing your organization by eliminating skills you might need for the future.

Do these wrds still have meaning in today's world?

Recognize these words and do they have any meaning in today's marketplace?

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

 150-years ago my 5th cousin removed, President Abraham Lincoln, uttered these words that every American child has heard at one time or another. The question is whether over a century later these words hold any value in today's rapidly changing world. Clearly this could be used to express a particular political doctrine, but that it not my intent. The intent is what message does this drive to our organizations on how we treat our human capital assets. Easiest way to present my view is to break it down into several segments:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

We are involved in a major shift today. We are not talking about inequality in compensation or the same ilk. We are talking about a shift in perspective in which we are all part of the same team. The idea of command and control is passé. Our new managers now need to know how to be coaches and leaders not “managers.”

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

Lincoln was partially correct in that in many organizations what you do will not survive over time t the outside world. The corporate graveyard is strewn with names that have joined their brethren but we forget who they are. However whether they are still fully functional thriving or part of the graveyard, they have delivered a clear message. The message being that as organizations we have a job to do. That job is to create organizations which are aligned, are innovative and are continuously looking to create strategic initiatives which enhance both the organization and its human capital assets. We do this through our words, our actions and our organizational values.

Big red bulls eye changes policy - sign of the times or bad move?

As I do most mornings I was watching Good Morning America and across the bottom of the screen in their news scroll was an item which stated that Target had announced that they were removing from their employment application all questions pertaining to criminal records or offenses. Which poses the question above—is this a sign of the times or a bad move?

There is much that can be said for either response. In a letter dated August 29, 2013 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a response to a request to reconsider their April 2012 policy statement titled Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, stated that there was the potential for disparate treatment under Title VII because of the tendency for certain demographic criteria being more inclined to be subject to criminal records than others.  The EEOC never said that it was illegal to ask questions regarding criminal background checks; it only said that the use of them should be carefully analyzed to insure that you are not eliminating good candidates solely on the existence of a criminal record. Consider this as an example.

In order to keep the privacy of the parties in tact in will not name the parties, but there is a case in this country of an individual who had sexual relations with his girlfriend who was 15 when he was 17. He has been labeled as a Sexual Predator and a convicted felon. Would you look at his application for employment and immediately rule him out? Also on the news this morning was the case of a man released from prison on a murder charge, which DNA proved he never committed 20 years after the fact? Would you rule him out for possible employment?

Do not take the tone of this post incorrectly. I firmly believe that there is a proper time and place for criminal background checks. In another life, while working for an international security agency I completed background checks for a national media organization. If you are dealing with a position that entails access to huge sums of money, do them. If you are dealing with issues that affect national security, do them. If you are going to be working with the vulnerable parts of our society (children and elderly) do them. But if you dealing with a rank and file employee be darn sure that you can justify their use.

This brings us to the question at hand. Target has said they are going to remove the questions pertaining to criminal records from their employment application. In a post on ThinkProgress.org (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/29/2851711/target-employment-offenders/) Target stated that starting at the beginning of next year, Target will wait until making a provisional job offer before inquiring about a prospective employee’s criminal record, giving candidates the chance to make their case before an employer passes judgment. The company’s decision comes just a few months after Minnesota — where Target is headquartered — approved a “Ban the Box” statute.

“The Box” can be one of the main barriers of re-entry for people with a criminal past. When an employer sees that box checked, it can be an automatic disqualifier. And the practice is so widespread that it can really hurt the chances for employment for ex-offenders. Surveys show that between 60 and 75 percent of people with a criminal past can’t find a job for up to a year after they’ve been released.

Employment discrimination along these lines can also contribute to higher recidivism rates; when former inmates can’t find a job, they might feel that illegal activities — say drug dealing or theft — are their only inroad toward having money to live.

Does your organization use blanket criminal question son the application? Does a positive response automatically generate a denial of employment? Can you justify that policy? Would love to hear from you on your thoughts.