by D. Kevin Berchelmann | Aug 1, 2015 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness
Yup… a colleague of mine in corporate Human Resources told me he never, ever, goes to the EEOC’s proffered mediation sessions.
Says he has no reason to go; says he’s right, the claimant is wrong, and he can prove it. Therefore, in his mind, no reason to attend whatsoever.
What a loser…
Listen to me carefully: Go to each and every EEOC mediation offered by the EEOC, forever and ever, amen.
Look, the EEOC wants the employer there to potentially provide an economic or related reason for the plaintiff/claimant to relinquish their claim. They closely track statistics for successful mediation; though the EEOC is always (and never forget this), ALWAYS the employee’s advocate, they have vested, personal interests in resolving via mediation.
Additionally, it’s a chance to “see all the cards,” in case — just in case, mind you — there is a “smoking gun” or something similar of which you were unaware.
It happens, folks. At one time or another, we’ve all been blind-sided, BS’ed, exaggerated to, and just plain lied to. Better to find out in a non-discoverable venue like mediation, than from the EEOC when they file a “friend of the plaintiff” brief or worse, decide to support by suing in direct support.
You make better decisions with better information. Get all the information you can. You can still say “no.” You can still leave the mediation with your checkbook intact (if you want to), but go to the mediation.
While I’m at it, don’t get me started on the business case of early, inexpensive settlements. They have a viable place in the process — but that’s for a later entry.
by D. Kevin Berchelmann | Jul 19, 2015 | Brazen Leader, Executive Improvement, Human Resources, Kevin Berchelmann, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness
Leadership is authentic. You can’t fake it, folks.
So, I recently attended my niece’s wedding in San Antonio. Since we frequently travel there to spend time on the Riverwalk, I thought this a wonderful opportunity to evaluate a new hotel for future stays.
Enter The Hotel Contessa.
Lots of staff, all looking like they were in the right places. Classy decor, reasonably upscale. All-suites, and the one we had — a “King” suite — was quite nice.
For all appearances, this was the real deal.
The Hotel Contessa, however, suffered from a problem. In Texas, we have this phrase (ok, in Texas we have a lot of ‘phrases,’ but I’m just using one):
All hat and no cattle.
Looked good, had all the appearances of the “real deal;” I’ll even go as far as to say that, for the price, it wasn’t a complete disaster. They simply failed to execute. In every way, when given the opportunity to have delivery (service) match their appearance, they failed miserably. Time and time again.
Realize that there were many, many instances over the 2+ days we were there. I’m only sharing a few here for examples.
They promised my sister that the wedding party could check in PRIOR to their absurdly late 4:PM check-in time. When pressed, they stated that “someone made a mistake — we cannot promise anyone an early check-in.” This ridiculous travesty went on for 30 minutes, until finally they just gave in and gave them the rooms. That’s right… they had the rooms available for early check-in; they simply wanted my sister to know that they couldn’t promise anything!
No less than a half-dozen staffers opening the doors and welcoming people; my sister, hands full with wedding “stuff,” slips and falls on the steps. They watch, but do not move a muscle. My sister collects herself, and moves toward the door. Courteously opening the door, the nearest bellman says, “be careful, the steps can be slippery.”
Ya think??
When I checked in, I needed the front desk to break a $20 bill. The guy (Tommy) says, “I’m sorry, I can’t make change.” WHAT? “Yes,” he says, “I don’t have access to cash. Perhaps you can go over there and ask a bellman.” I needed the change FOR the bellman, and had no intention of walking anywhere to get it. I exclaimed how surely some people still actually use cash, and perhaps he should find a manager.
Manager comes over, takes my $20 bill, opens a cash drawer and makes change. Complete with “have a nice day!”
Sunday morning, we’re running late (I have a wife, remember?), so I call the operator to get a late check out. I say, “I’ll need a late check-out, say, until 12:30.” Guy says, sorry, 12:00 is best he can do. I respond, “whatever, but I’ll be here until 12:30.” He asks me to hold… a manager comes on the line, repeats my request to me, taps a few computer keys, and says, “There you are, sir. All set!”
No execution. No one, save a few poorly positioned managers, seemed capable of making even rudimentary customer service decisions.
Did I even mention the part about the newlyweds reaching their room around midnight, to discover they had twin double beds?? Don’t get me started again…
Great looking hotel, lots of dinero spent on staff, money leaking out like a drain because of the real, obvious, lack of leadership authenticity.
All hat and no cattle.
Now, no, this isn’t turning into a travel review site (I give the Contessa one of four stars); I merely wanted to demonstrate how leadership must be applied — it must be authentic — to make a difference. Otherwise, it’s just an act.
And not a very good one.
by D. Kevin Berchelmann | Jun 3, 2015 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Kevin Berchelmann, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness
Yep, no kidding…
If you are leading an in-house human resources effort today, and not currently or actively considering outsourcing much of your task-driven work today, get your resume polished up.
You’ll be needing it.
No, this isn’t merely because I’m a consultant hoping to win your outsourced business. It’s because reality is slapping us in the face: We cannot accomplish these task-driven administrative minutiae efforts as cost-effectively as we can outsource them, nor can we maintain the level of talent necessary to be really good at it.
As a friend enjoys telling me, “This ain’t rocket surgery.”
Besides, you don’t need to be doing those things anyway. Businesses need real HR talent doing things that contribute to the success of the business — documenting a beneficiary change to someone’s life insurance doesn’t fit that definition.
Get out of the trenches, and go do something important.
Before you need that resume again…
by D. Kevin Berchelmann | Mar 28, 2015 | Brazen Leader, Executive Improvement, Human Resources, Kevin Berchelmann, Organizational Effectiveness
I recently surveyed about 35 chief executives (CEO & COO), who nearly unanimously considered Talent Management, as I describe it below, as their number one priority on a go-forward basis.
Think about it: Not market share, pricing demands, or even concerns over recent burdensome legislation. Talent Management.
So, no real news there, right? After all, unless you’ve been living on Pluto (I like picking on the new “non”-planet), we’ve only read about this “talent management” thing for about 2-3 years, in every conceivable business publication.
No new news… Big deal, eh?
Actually, it is a big deal, because I’m not at all certain we actually get it yet. In other words, if — just for the sake of argument — we agree that talent management is so all-fired important, what exactly are we doing about it? Have we got the execution figured out? If we do, I haven’t seen it.
Talent Management is simple. I know I say that a lot, about a lot of things, but really… it’s simple. It takes 3 things:
1. Recruitment. This, of course, involves determining competencies and qualifications, effective sourcing, and successful hiring/employment.
2. Development. If we find an “A” player, let’s keep him or her and use them in the role they can best help the organization succeed. That may or may not be what they do today. And don’t forget about future skill development (management, leadership, executive). Important.
3. Retention. Damn… it seems like it costs a small fortune to recruit and hire solid talent today — lots of resources come to bear on a single focus. It’s a shame that we don’t continue some of that effort to purposefull retain; retention includes a modicum of motivation, which makes these employees even more productive. Effective retention, then, becomes a “two-fer;” the same efforts that effectively retain also tend to motivate good performers to higher levels of performance and productivity. A bargain at twice the price.
So, talent management is an all-hands-on-deck exercise. To be effective, we need solid human resources guidance and resource management, general management’s sincere participation, and direct involvement by the CEO and other senior-most leaders.
It’s just too important to be entrusted to anything less.
by D. Kevin Berchelmann | May 28, 2014 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Kevin Berchelmann, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness
Monster.com, the veritable cash-producing employment machine, is laying off about 15% of its workforce. Big deal, eh??
Actually, I believe there’s a teaching moment here…
That monster is laying off, in itself is little news; the part that drives me nuts:
1. Q2 sales increased 25%, almost $60M,
2. Share price is up almost 2%, and
3. Earnings are down almost 28%, caused by a 34% increase in operating costs, driven almost entirely by legal fees associated with their options-backdating investigation.
In this age of Talent Management, these layoffs will be borne almost entirely by human resources & finance staff cuts — seems “centralization” of sorts now makes more sense.
The restructuring should save $150M, less $70M in associated costs, and another $80M they’ll use for additional product upgrades and advertising. In other words, first-year wash.
Creating intentional redundancy (decentralized support staff), then changing course on that (centralized), seems no different to me than poor decision-making in any other event; they merely needed a market-palatable basis for the decision to reduce staff.
Have you ever seen a company, on the eve of layoffs, say, “This reduction will hurt bad in many ways, and make it more difficult for us to accomplish our mission…?” Only with those near-death (then who really cares anyway?)
Short-term vs. long-term focus is obviously difficult. Senior leaders could have some relief from investors if they would merely personally commit to longer-term results. Most can’t (or won’t) do that, principally due to their lack of confidence in talent. A vicious circle, of course…
Too often, we view staffing “planning” as asking managers how many people they’ll need — effectively abrogating our responsibility for effective workforce management to an unskilled manager who believes — rightfully so, for his/her world — that vacancies should be filled, and more hands make for lighter work.
And though we (self included) popularly use words like talent management and such, much of this issue is best handled through good ol’ staffing plans. The issue we have, I think, is becoming an uber-leader and activist for these plans.
For instance, a position left unfilled for 3+ months, with no subsequent business limitations, is a position that should go unfilled/canceled, or at the minimum, intensely scrutinized.
Further, I believe companies like monster — who announces these layoffs about once every other year — are hiding behind them as a subterfuge for inadequate ongoing performance management. In other words, every couple of years, they whack the deadwood that should have been managed earlier. This is far too common…
We all do that to some degree; think of the times we’ve participated in a layoff. Being the intelligent, non-union creatures we are, we use “performance” as the litmus for who stays/who goes. Remember how easy it is/was to select some — if not all — of those being laid off under that criteria. Sure, some are difficult; but many are simple to ascertain, since they’ve been under-performing unscathed for a period of time before.
That’s “our bad.”
If we manage more, we layoff less.
by D. Kevin Berchelmann | May 28, 2011 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Kevin Berchelmann, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness
According to the DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members this year, unchanged from the year before. Union membership rate has continued its steady decline, from a high of over 20 percent in 1983.
Some additional tidbits:
— There are nearly 15.7 million union members
— Over 70% of all union members are public/government employees, including civil service, fire, police, teachers, etc.
— Private industry union membership remains less than 8%.
— Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
— Men were more likely than women to be union members.
— Workers in the public sector had a union membership rate more than
four times that of private-sector employees.
The largest numbers of union members lived in California (2.4 million) and New York (2.1 million). Just over half of all union members in the U.S. lived in six states — California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey — though these states accounted for slightly less than one-third of wage and salary employment nationally.
Texas, though having the second-largest number of employees, had less than one-fourth as many union members as New York, despite having nearly 1.5 million more wage and salary employees.
So, that’s all good, right???
Though unions are certainly weakening in private industry, don’t fall asleep at the wheel just yet. The news of their death has been a little exaggerated.
For instance: “Change to Win” is a new coalition of seven unions (UNITE HERE, Teamsters, Laborers, UFCW, United Farm Workers, Carpenters, and SEIU. The “Change to Win Federation” was created in late 2005 when those unions split from the AFL-CIO over disagreements in spending — the AFL-CIO was focusing on politics and legislation, while the newly-formed Federation believes the focus should be on grass-roots, aggressive organizing, via targeted corporate campaigns.
The Change to Win plan of attack created at their recent convention in Las Vegas calls for an unprecedented organizing campaign aimed at “core industries” of the member unions. The Change to Win unions already represent workers in each of these industries, and include:
** Transportation
** Distribution
** Retail
** Construction
** Leisure and hospitality
** Health care
** Property services
** Food production and processing
The Las Vegas gathering created local multi-union teams that will work together to increase union density in each of these “core” industries on a local or regional basis.
This “Change to Win Federation” also announced multiple targeted organizing drives at the convention. According to news reports, these priority campaigns included a company-wide corporate campaign led by the UFCW against a meat packing company to compel union recognition at a pork processing plant in North Carolina. The union has twice been rejected by the employees at that plant in NLRB-conducted secret ballot elections, and thus the union is reverting this time to the corporate campaign strategy to force “top-down” organizing.
New Tactics
Given free choice on union representation, exercised via secret ballot elections, employees reject unionization almost half the time. Because of this, unions have turned to a “less-friendly” approach, called the “corporate campaign.” Here, union organizers tries to pressure company executives to submit to the union’s demands. They attempt to force recognition via a “card check” instead of the normal election.
Get a load of this: One UNITE HERE union official dismissed the democratic election process spelled out by the NLRB, saying that “there’s no reason to subject the workers to an election.” Another union official actually said, “we don’t do elections.”
Incredible. Simply incredible.
So, “they could never convince me to accept union demands,” eh?? Some tactics they use include:
* Filing charges with the NLRB, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Labor (OSHA and wage-hour complaints), and other agencies that regulate the employer’s business.
* Filing class actions and other lawsuits alleging various trumped-up violations, discrimination, etc.
* Pressuring banks and other lenders, and others within the financial community, with threats of union boycotts against those lenders.
* Picketing at the homes, clubs, private gatherings and offices of corporate executives and board members.
* Purchasing stock and attending shareholder meetings to challenge top executives and board members regarding various policies.
It can get messy. As always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Regardless of dirty tactics, unions will only work for strongholds where they believe they can effect publicly noticable change. We can immunize ourselves by simply managing. Manage your companies well, including proper oversight of policies, procedures, and practices that directly impact your employees. Remember that “details matter” to rank and file employees, and not every economic downturn or business cycle needs to be placed on their backs. It means remembering that almost 90% of your employees live paycheck-to-paycheck, so small percentages really do matter.
Pay attention and manage your business. Though I don’t subscribe to the axiom, “Companies get the unions they deserve,” I do believe that good managers can prevent unions — under any circumstances.
Stay focused…
