I question the wisdom of insisting on a process with so little apparent value!

Anyone who has been in HR for some time also knows that most supervisors in their organizations hate doing them. It’s a chore that the company says needs to be done. But they either put it off until the last minute or they set easy targets for their people to meet, or they give most of their team an average score.

The easiest ones for them to do are the superstars and the ones standing in the doorway on a banana peel waiting for someone to give them a shove.

The ones that they hate doing are the ones who they need to have on their team to get the work done. The soldiers who show up every day and never create a problem. The supervisor’s dilemma is how to keep this group motivated. They can’t always give them more money. They can’t always promise them a promotion for the good work they do.

I know, someone “upstairs” says the performance reviews need to be done, so the supervisors do them. In my experience, this process is a waste of time and accomplishes little.

I have read more than a thousand of them over the past 40 years. Most are generic junk. A bunch of words copied from the last review or feel good words so they don’t have to deal with a confrontation with the employee.
In more than a few situations those feel good reviews have given a plaintiff’s attorney a lot of reasons to smile.

Supervisor – “The guy was a poor performer. I had to let him go.”

Attorney in the discovery process – “The record shows you gave him several average or above average reviews!”

See where that conversation is going? Oh, ya. Get the check book out, employer.

More on this next time. Some ideas for you to think about.

No related posts.

I have been asked many times how to succeed in the Human Resource field. Some thoughts from my book, Surviving & Thriving in the HR World.

GETTING NOTICED

It doesn’t matter whether you are a benefits administrator, a payroll person, or a recruiter, you will not get anywhere in HR without getting noticed. To get noticed, you need a plan.

Just hoping you will get noticed and get promoted won’t do it!

The people who have the power to promote you doesn’t have time to troll around the company looking for an ideal candidate to move into that newly vacant HR management role. They don’t have time for you to go out and get some credentials such as a degree or a PHR or SPHR certification. They want someone ready to step in.

Is that you?

You want the promotion? Then you are going to have to work for it. You must plan to get it long before it ever becomes available. Does this sound cold and self-serving? No, not really. You are not going to sabotage the person in the job you want. You are just going to be prepared for the day when it—or maybe another position you didn’t even know about—becomes available.

So how do you do it? Start by learning what the boss is looking for in an HR leader:
• She is looking for someone to take some of the load off her.
• She is looking for someone who is bold enough to make things happen.
• She is looking for someone who works harder and smarter than anyone else.

Look at it this way, the boss has a full load. So she is going to look for the person who has a track record of recognizing problems and issues and coming up with a plan to deal with them. She is looking for someone who has taken the initiative to deal with problems even before she was aware of them. That’s who she’s looking for!

By the way, you don’t have to worry about a good deed going unrecognized. She will hear about it eventually.

So, where do you start? First, take a look at your company’s organization chart. Look at all the names and titles. Look at the various departments. What strikes you about them? Take a close look. What usually surrounds those names and titles?

Boxes. That’s what surrounds those names and titles. What do boxes have?

They have walls.

Those walls mean “That’s my turf, stay out!”

How many times have you seen an accounting supervisor go into engineering and address a people issue with one from the chief engineer’s team? Most likely never.

How many times have you seen an operations manager go into accounting and address a people issue with one of the CFO’s team? Most likely never.

Have you ever seen a CEO go into a department and talk to one of the employees in that department about a people issue? Most likely never.

So who can go through those walls? Who can go anywhere and talk to anyone?

You!

Human Resource is the only function (with the exception of the CEO) that has the inherent authority to go through those walls and address any issue deemed necessary. Why do I say inherent authority? That’s because the function of HR is to serve all employees from the CEO down. That means HR has to be able to access all employees. If you disagree, then tell me who else in the entire organization can do it?

The fact is there is no one else. You are it.

By the way, it’s not the CEO’s job to handle those issues. Talk to any CEO and they will tell you that’s why they hired you.

So what does this inherent authority do for you? What’s its value?

This is the vehicle you need to build your power base and get you noticed.

OK, so how do you start? Here’s what you do. The first thing you do is to start building networks. For example, instead of sending an e-mail response to a person in another department who has asked a question, you go talk to them in person. It will impress them and you get to look and listen.

I don’t care how busy you are. You do not build networks within your organization by e-mails alone. Unless they are really terrible, you will neither get noticed nor remembered by your emails.

When you get there, look around, talk and spend time there. Get to know the people in that department. Get to know them on a first name basis. Get to know the department head very well. The first time you go into a department where you are not well known, go to the department head first and say “Hi, Joe. Got some information for Mary. Thought I would stop and say hi.”

Do this every chance you get. It won’t take long before you have free access to anyone in that department.
Everywhere you go, everything you do, you have to remember you are building your power base.

These networks are vital to that power base. One day even that department head is going to come to you with a problem. Bet on it! You have to do this with every department in your organization.

Your career will never take off if you spend all your time in your office. Human Resources must have both a name and a face. Do not expect people to come to you. You have to go to them.

Here is another network you must cultivate. Make it a point to talk to the security people, the custodians and the receptionist. Get to know them on a first name basis. Always say “Hi” or “Good morning” and say their first name when you do so. Stop for a moment and comment on something. I don’t care what. Anything! Surprise the receptionist by bringing her a flower for her reception area. If she has a candy dish, bring a bag of candy occasionally. It’s likely she is filling the dish out of her own pocket.

When you go into another department, always nod or smile to whomever you meet. Never, ever, walk by someone without doing that.

Now, let’s say time has passed and you have been building your networks every single day. Then someone comes to you with a rumor or a problem or something just comes up in a conversation. Your instinct tells you to look into it, so you gather as much information as you can and then you go back to your office and think it through.

You decide that it’s an issue that needs addressing and you have developed a solution. So now you go to your boss and tell him that you have come across a potential problem. You describe it and volunteer to handle it, assuring him you will keep him in the loop.

My guess is that he is going to tell you to go ahead. Don’t feel you are tattling on someone. You are in HR and your job is to make sure people problems get dealt with.

No related posts.

If I am an employer, and I see that TEN organizations have taken a chance on this guy and ALL have lost because he left in about year, why would I want to waste the time, money and energy to hire him? I also have to wonder about the companies. Somebody keeps hiring him. The questin is why, when he works an average of 1.2 years per company.

When the question about the multiple jobs comes up, the author of the column says to ask the perspective employer, point blank, “What is it that concerns you?”. Well, gee, maybe its the fact that the guy has had 10 jobs in 12 years? With a record like that, what could he possibly say that would convince me to consider hiring him?

The applicant says “The jobs have been at bigger companies where it is hard to advance. Now I’m looking for a job with a smaller company.” Say what!?

I have to sympathize with the author. A question like that is tough to answer. Tough, in my opnion, because someone needs to tell this guy that the companies he worked for did not cause this record. He did. The problem is with him, not the employer. Until he figures that out, things are not going to change. The author of the column is not going to tell him that in print, but I’ll bet the author the best drink at Starbucks that’s what he wanted to say!

Related posts:

1. Short Term Jobs on Resumes