Human Resource Gardening

I have a single rose bush in my front yard. It had a twin that, due to my water 'em and forget 'em style of gardening, did not fare well. The rose bush that is left is doing wonderfully and greets me with a bounty of beautiful white roses. What did I do that enabled the remaining rose bush to grow and produce? Well, I read that rose bushes must be "dead-headed" (not my choice of term but that was the term used). This means that you should cut the area where a rose has blossomed and died - in this way the rose bush will produce even more blossoms in an effort to be a successful progenitor. Sounds harsh but it worked. What does this have to do with human resources? 

Well, to get to my point I want you to do a quick mental exercise. Think of all the members of your staff and assign a ranking to each staff member where 1 defines the lowest level of performance and 10 the best. I'm guessing you may have a small number of people below a five who you may be in the process of documenting. I believe I'd also be right in assuming you have a few star performers near or at the ten mark. Now, how many people did you assign a middle-of-the-road number to? If your organization is like many, that particular number may be more than you realized. In fact, it may even comprise the majority of your staff. 

Now, I want you to ask yourself what you do to push these middle performers up? What do you do, after you've worked through coaching and counseling, find that it just did not work with a particular person, to "weed" them out?

Check out The Dirty Little Secret of Successful Companies from Jay Goltz, a writer for the New York Times small business blog. Although the piece is written by a small company owner, Goltz, its message applies to companies of all sizes. This point, for example, provides a compelling case for working with your middle ranking staff:

"How can you spot the sixes? You know who they are. You might even like them. They can seem capable, but they can also be unreliable. They make too many mistakes, they aren’t good with people, they are sloppy, they have trouble separating their personal time from work time, they aren’t honest, they don’t accept responsibility, they waste time and they can be disrespectful of co-workers. Here’s the real test: What would your visceral response be if they quit? Relief? I think that says it all."

Bears, Porcupines and Those In-Between

Maintaining relationships takes skill whatever the circumstance. The ability to get along with others is no less important in your professional life than it is in your personal life. Considering the fact that the majority of your time is spent with your co-workers it simply makes sense that the cultivation of strong interpersonal skills be addressed.

• Be a good listener. It's hard to gain a clear understanding of the point someone else is making if you are already forming your response to what they are saying the moment they open their mouth.
• Stick to non-controversial topics. Although it may make for some interesting conversation, topics such as religion and politics are best restricted to personal forums. The workplace is not the place to get into a heated argument about which political platforms are best for the country.
• Respect individual differences and diversity. We all come into the workplace with our own set of past experiences and personality traits. Just as there are traits of others you may find difficult to work with, there may be qualities you exhibit that are equaling difficult for others. Look, instead, to the value that varying backgrounds brings to the organization. You are in it together, you have to make it work.
• Manage your reputation (e.g. r-e-s-p-e-c-t yourself). Always keep in mind that the actions you take and the words you use paint a picture of who you are. Don't let everyday annoyances escalate into a reaction that you will regret.

This video from video-sharing site Daily Motion will provide you with a few more tips, specifically on how to manage a difficult co-worker.

HR's Female Domination

In the U.S. it's at 71%, Canada 75%, and the United Kingdom 79%. What is "it"? The percentage of human resource professional roles filled by women. You could label this The Feminization of HR as Julie Cook Ramirez does in her recent article for web site Human Resource Executive Online. It wasn't always this way - the figure has roughly doubled in the last thirty years. Should this come as a surprise? Many experts say no. It seems more a natural progression of sorts. Looking back at the thirty year period past, many of the women who filled clerical and supportive roles within human resources and related areas were plodding through the ranks. These women were already in the pipeline (and knowledgeable) and so were promoted. This is the simple explanation. 

A more complex explanation dips into what qualities and skills women bring to the human resource table versus their male counterparts. The article sites these, very translatable, skills:

• emotional intelligence
• the ability to multitask effectively
• an innate capacity as a teacher
• a nurturing nature

This certainly is not to imply that males are lacking in any of the above skills - what the above list points to, though, is that females tend to have more developed skills in these areas. One could also make an argument that overuse of these same skills can make a terrible human resource manager - and you would be correct. It could also be pointed out that many female human resource professionals have gone in a completely different direction and exhibit terrible employee relations skills in a misguided attempt to be seen as "not like a woman". 

In the end sex should not be a determining factor when it comes to filling a human resource position. What should matter is what skills the individual brings and how well they fit into your organization's unique culture.

A Pinteresting Resume

Okay, so you've updated your profile on LinkedIn, networked with your contacts on Facebook and tweeted about your greatest accomplishments in the hopes that a prospective employer will notice you. There may be another social media resource you haven't though to use, though - Pinterest. In case you've not read any business or lifestyle news stories in the past week you may have missed the latest social media darling. Pinterest describes its web site as an "online pinboard" where users can place pictures and videos they find interesting that relate to a particular topic or theme. According to a Vault blog article, job seekers have begun using Pinterest to tell the world in a creative way about their interest in securing a job. Below is an example of one user's resume (posted by a helpful(?) spouse) that compares his body of work to human evolution:

Unfortunately, Pinterest has yet to catch up with the expanding use of its site and currently does not have a separate category for resumes. This, of course, makes it difficult for job seekers to be discovered. In addition, the theme of the site makes a good fit only for those seeking a position in areas where creativity is one of the foremost skills required. Perhaps a good argument can be made, however, that all positions could benefit from at least a little show of creativity. What would your creative Pinterest resume look like? For my fellow human resource managers: Would this peak your interest and lead you to further explore an applicant with a Pinterest resume as a calling card?

I'm Too Productive to be Infected

Whether tis nobler to suffer the coughs and runny noses of productivity, or to take arms against a sea of germs - that is the question. Classical literature aside, sick employees in the workplace is nothing to sneeze at. Although a large number of companies have paid time off policies which include paid sick leave, a "2010 study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that nearly 40 percent of workers whose companies gave them paid sick days still reported going to work with a contagious illness such  as the flu" as stated by Rex W. Huppke in his I Just Work Here column for the Sun Sentinel. 

To make matters worse, 80 percent of food service and hotel workers are not covered by policies allowing paid sick leave - so, that means you can safely assume a great many of them are heading to work with the sniffles on any given day. Well, the question of why the second group of employees goes to work while sick is easy - they need the pay. Why, though, does the first group - employees with paid sick leave - arrive at the workplace carrying their germy baggage? The answer is stigma. The stigma attached to calling in sick. The fear of being labeled an unproductive, disloyal employee who is not a team player and, worse, is a "goof-off". 

The flip side is the organization's concern: a dip in productivity (assuming from employees who just wanted an unscheduled day off). Some organizations have implemented formal incentive programs to both reduce call outs and reward employees with compensation for unused leave. Such programs often act to protect productivity by stipulating consequences for employees who use all their sick leave, according to the 2010 SHRM study Examining Paid Leave in the Workplace. 

Let's go back to the employees who are actually sick and who feel compelled to share their rueful state with fellow employees? Perhaps that can be addressed by the organization as well  - through company culture rather than formal policy. As Huppke states: "A worker should never feel like he has to drag his weary body into the office just to be marked present for the day. And a manager should be able to trust the workers he or she oversees and believe that when they call in sick, they're truly sick, or have a sick child to tend to".