How Long Would I Last at Your Company with Pink Hair?

I use to know a girl back in grade school who would dye her hair with Kool-Aid.  She usually wouldn't make it into our homeroom as the principal was already contacting her father to come pick her up.  It seems a bit extreme to be sending her home, but these were the rules.  The interesting thing was that "we kids" didn't really care and honestly neither did the teacher.  However, they thought this "radical" hair color would disrupt the class.

In Australia, news agencies were reporting on how women in some of the top law firms were being scrutinized on how they dress and even being offered training on how to dress conservatively (article).  Looking at it from an HR perspective, I find it difficult to draw a line on "proper dress codes".  I honestly thought (me with my pink hair) who cares what you wear and what you do!  It doesn't change the intellectual person you are or anything else about you.  However in speaking with many colleagues and friends, I found that how you look does still play a huge factor in how people think you'll perform your job.  This goes along the lines of the "first impression rule," and honestly I hope Generation Y will bring the death of this.  This "rule" has caused us to automatically perceive people a certain way and once the impression has been conceived, it's difficult to get rid of it.  If you took the time to know the person, you would probably have another perception than what you first thought.  Unfortunately, we simply just don't have the time nowadays and this is why the rule still lives on.

If I was to walk into one of these law firms with pink hair, I would probably last maybe five minutes (would someone be calling my mother/father?).  However, when I walk into the Art Council, they think it's awesome and trendy.  The reason why I dyed my hair pink was because I thought I would never have the opportunity to do it again.  It's interesting to note that the people who know me have a perception on how I work, but I've also noticed the new people I've met have a similar perception of me.  It honestly showed me that once people got to know me, they understood my work ethics and ambitions.  I often wondered if everyone dressed or "styled" anyway they liked... How it would change business?  Would we stop looking at what people wear and start listening more to what they say?  Would we realize that we had the wrong idea about someone and just because they're a bit overweight didn't mean they were lazy?  It's hard to tell how it would shift our perceptions.  However, I know from this experience in going "'Grease' beauty school drop-out pink" that I think looks are entirely overrated, and I should stop myself from judging someone right away and listen to what they really have to say.

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"What Do YOU Guys Really Do?" : The Perceived 'Lazy' HR Department

Sitting in disbelief in a discussion with my HR Director, I could not believe the words that had come out of his mouth.  The Australian term of 'gobsmacked' (astonishment) fit my feeling as he told me that the Executive Director of our division was asking what we really do everyday.  Looking up at our white board of HRIS implementation deadlines, L&D (Learning and Development) schedules for the next two months, and our hefty recruitment statuses of positions going up and shortlisted, I just could not BELIEVE someone would be asking what we REALLY do especially an Executive.  He had responded to her in that if she had no idea what we did, then there was certainly a problem....!

I think for anyone it's difficult to here that type of questioning when you spend your days running around managing 'fires' and finding ways to improve your section and even your company.  In all honesty, the Executive is to blame for not understanding what HR does in her division, but also we (HR) are to blame for not pushing and advertising ourselves more in the organization.  We spend so much time in process and streamlining HRIS efficiencies that it goes unnoticed.  Human Resources in general can be perceived by many employees as filling many roles.  Throughout the years, HR has never had a set criteria of what we specifically do and sometimes that makes us look ambiguous.  For example, some firms have training budgets out of HR and placed within a division since the division will know more about who needs certain types of training.  Some firms keep this within HR to handle and liaison with managers in setting up trainings.  Another option is having the training budget split in half where HR takes the company-wide training and the division takes individual training.  Can you see why employees sometimes question what we do?

'Branding' the HR Department

We realized that one of the biggest things we needed to focus on was marketing and branding ourselves to change the perception of what we really do.  In all honesty, this should be an essential skill HR professionals should have as HR departments are sometimes perceived by many Executive boards as a money sink and the first place to go to for 'emergency cash'.  We were implementing and developing a lot of great tools in our section and we needed to make sure that we spent time advertising them to ALL employees.

We also decided that once we become more settled, we might develop an HR web page on the Intranet.  Many companies have HR newsletters that may work quite well, but for this organization it would hardly be read.  This is why developing a general 'HR News' section on a web page may be more beneficial as employees that are interested can see whats going on and being developed by us.  We also want to engage them and ask them for feedback and suggestions on how we can improve.  This will help 'talk up' our department from hopefully "What does HR really do?" to "HR really does  lot in our company."      

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Posted in: HR General

Unhappiness in the Air: Changing a Workforce to Become More Positive

It's amazing to see how one negative attitude will literally spread like wild fire across various groups, departments or even throughout the entire organization whereby altering employee's moods and perceptions.  Employee's that once looking at a glass half-full, have now developed a self-defeating prophecy of never succeeding.  We also see this all the time in ourselves as we leave conversations that have energized us and ready to change things, or have just make us negative and tired.

I was reading an article from CNN which was based off a TED talk by Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, who is known for his scientific study of happiness and the positive results it can bring to an organization.  He talks about all the advantages of having a happy workforce as it increases ideas, sales, creativity and even reducing turnover.  I think one of the most interesting points he talks about is our mindset of if we work hard, success will follow and then we'll be happy.  However, he states that once we are successful, our brains changes the goal to something more difficult, and in the end we are still in the step two of trying to succeed.  He states if we work in the reverse order as our brains do, we should be looking to raise someone's happiness now and give them a 'Happiness Advantage' which them makes them perform better and achieve greater results.

In HR, we can start stimulating this idea of positive thinking by coaching managers in how they handle situations and employees in general.  You can usually see how the department is ran and the mood most people are in is partly because of their managers.  If the manager runs around complaining about workloads, not really listening to their employees, and looks stressed out all the time, you can absolutely see this mood and perception picked up by their subordinates.  Having the manager doing a little each day such as praising employees will help start changing negativity within a department.  However, even an administration employee's negative attitude can be detrimental to a team's success, so some focus and training needs to be on how employee's interpret their work and listening to their gripes.  In HR, we can start this trend of positive thinking by looking at how we handle our work and team whereby giving other departments a real life example of how it can be developed within their teams in turn hopefully producing positive results.

 Here is the TED Talk given by Shawn Achor:

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Posted in: Unhappiness in employees

'Are You Telling Me I'm......Wrong?'

It's something that everyone has difficulties hearing sometimes especially when you are immovable on a topic.  I guess it's that sense of realization that people in the world do have different opinions then you (the spotlight effect), and it might completely change your paradigm in a new light.  I think more importantly it's not just the topic that might cause conflicting viewpoints, but how the verbal and nonverbal cues are shown in the conflict.    Many cultures handle conflict in various ways and it's good to know how a society deals with it or if they even deal with it at all.

As an American, I find it difficult sometimes to watch conflict from people in other countries between co-workers where it looks unresolvable.  Usually American are known to be the bluntest of the cultures.  Knowing and speaking Canadians, I would also have to put them under here as well.  We say what's on our minds and will try to shape criticism constructively (though this may not happen all the time).  Honestly, I would rather know that I am doing something wrong, and correct it, than keep doing the wrong thing.  However, it's always important in how it's said because if it's extremely abrupt (ie. screaming) than I wouldn't take it as seriously as someone that had spoken rationally.

I found that living in South Korea was the hardest for me since conflict is completely swept under the rug.  Like many Asian countries, 'saving face' is important in society and you never want to cause a disagreement (though healthy) that may turn out to have someone change their viewpoint.  This is not to say you cannot bring up a conflicting point, but doing so to a manager or higher up was frowned upon.  They see this as disrespectful especially to an elder.  I had seen many corporate interactions where individuals could be growing more in their knowledge and skills, but were never challenged in what they know or do.  My Chinese friend recently had told me a story on how their was no performance improvement plans (PIPs) or negative discussions in her Chinese company.  They had no policies on these things and everyone was just awarded with they same performance scores.  People that were doing poorly in the company were simply kept and more people were hired on to cover their performance gaps. 

I think Australia has the most interesting way of how conflict is played out.  Australians have a tendency to also avoid conflict altogether.  One Australian told me that it's just not in their culture to hurt someones feelings.  I have been recently in on some meeting where you can completely see a 'halo effect' taking place.  Everyone around the room only thinks of the positives, and their 'growth'  points are so watered-down that you can almost call them 'semi-positive points'.  If you are confronting an employee with constructive criticism it may not be received though your verbal and nonverbal actions may be non-confrontational.  However, when it's regarding the union and an employer it becomes really interesting and constructive conflict begins to play out (even a tit-for-tat methodology).  I had spoken to FWA (Fair Work Australia - their labor laws on employment) and one of their arbitrators had mentioned to me it's because of the history that conflict is recognized and debated between unions and  employers.  As a HR professional, you really need to make sure that the employee and manager (or effected parties) knows their are conflicting viewpoints.  It could take several times of bringing it up and getting feedback from them if they are going to change something or even think differently about it.  I think this is why FWA had told me (and mentioned all throughout their website and other websites) that you cannot use 'redundancy' to hide from someone's poor performance.  They have found many employers just do not want to deal with conflict (specifically mentioning conflict) and just put it towards redundancy.  Unfortunately, I have personally seen employers try to do this and have had to talk them out of it (note-  I don't speak on behalf of FWA). 

As always with any culture, these are just generalizations.  You cannot label a whole entire culture under one umbrella and say everyone follows the things I mentioned above.  However, in my experience living and working with these individuals in their countries, I found much of what I have stated.  I think if you come into a situation knowing full well that it could happen, it will relieve some of the stress that you may place upon yourself.

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Posted in: Countries and conflict

The Main Difference Between U.S. HR and Other Countries

When people ask me what's the main difference in how HR operates in a country like Australia compared to the U.S., it has to be they do not get to experience the 'fun' of dealing with Open Enrollment (OE).  If you are unfamiliar with OE, it happens once a year where insurance carriers re-negotiate with the employer on rates and coverage levels, and employees choose what type of coverage they want (medical, dental, vision, life insurance), who will be on their plan (family) and how much coverage they will have for the year.

Having worked with OE's and being licensed as an underwriter to work with these plans, you really find out the true cost in having health insurance for an employee population.  Usually an employer will send out their employee data to a couple insurance carriers for quotes.  It becomes really interesting in the negotiations with carriers as questions and comments come up like: 

How many women in a certain age range (the possibility of them becoming pregnant)?

How many trips to the hospital and what was it for?

You employee population is more 'mature' and will have a higher percentage of using their coverage.

Your employe population is more obese and has a higher risk of having health problems.

This is when you find out what employee(s) is causing the increased rates especially if they are chronically using the plan.  I have heard of employers walking the line of claiming 'under-peformance' to have these individuals let go so the plan can be re-negotiated (perhaps even a couple months later) with a lower cost. 
Some individuals that have employer plans do not even want to use their coverage or even go to the hospital because of the out-of-pocket expenses on top of what they pay each month to have the coverage.  This can be seen in a study conducted by the OECD in 2011 where the U.S. was paying the most accross the board though the prevention and treatment given wasn't the greatest out of the OECD countries.

Is universal healthcare the answer?


For HR professionals, it can be a time saver to develop other HR processes (ie. succession planning, learning, mentoring) especially if you work for a small employer who can't afford to outsource and relies on HR to solely go through all the paper-based OE submission and handling carrier/agent negotiations. 

In the general scheme of universal health insurance there has been many issues in other countries of how to fund the plan and keep it well funded with an aging population.  Many of these plans rely on public tax dollars which will begin to dry up as more of the population retires.  Consequently, there HR professionals may be dealing with OE sooner than they think.

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Posted in: HR Health Coverage,Universal Health Plans

When Human Resources Become 'Anti-Human'

As HR has become more strategic in the approach to justify costs (thanks a lot Finance!), you will find that we have streamlined as much as possible where dealing with people face-to-face can be non-existent.  You literally do not have to get up from your desk anymore.  You could just interact through e-mail, and since you know everyone's employee ID number, you can just work out their development plans, payroll and anything else through HRIS software. 

Unlike any other business profession, I would have to say this is complete career suicide for HR professionals.

Sure, everything is a lot easier now than back in the days of the 'personnel department'.  However, many HR departments I have consulted with or have been employed in have some HR professionals that are completely against human interaction and frankly do not wish to consult with employees.  If you are going to be in HR, you should talk to people and do so face-to-face at times.  This is not to say to do it all the time and completely abandon online communication, but it's just the perception that if an employee never sees HR around, then what are they really doing for them?  Could they ever go to them with a problem?  What are they working on anyways?  Where do they even work?  Who's in HR?  Do we even have an HR?

If you start receiving questions like these, you can start assuming executives might be thinking the same thing.  You then might be finding out that your job is outsourced to somewhere else where they are acting the same way your or your department was and doing it far cheaper.  In preventing this, HR professionals could do a round on the company floors once a week, or taking a couple questions they receive and seeing the employee at their desks to answer them.  This will show other employees your around and visible making it known that 'yes' there is an HR department and you are working in it.

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Posted in: 'anti-human' HR

The Reasons Employee's Leave: It's Not Money

Managers look at employees walking out the door and may question if the exit reasons given were really true.  Most employees won't admit directly to a manager the real reason they're leaving especially if the manager is performing the exit interview.  Some reasons might be from needing a recommendation later down the line and not burning any bridges, or they may feel that a dramatic exit isn't the way they want to be remembered (last impression).  It's interesting to know that many employee's don't leave because of their pay even in bad economies (The U.S. Bureau Labor & Statistics cites underemployment as number one, AOL).  According to a U.S. Gallup poll conducted in 2008, the top reason employees leave is because of their managers.

Though money will always be some type of motivator, companies need to find out the true reason individuals are leaving. In many companies I have been to it seems like there is always some speculation of why people are walking out the door, but no one knows for sure.  One way to start finding answers is to have exiting employees complete an online survey.  This will allow them to think and construct responses without someone staring down at them and questioning them.  However, you wouldn't be able to catch a misunderstanding or perception that they should of never held because surveys cannot ask specific follow-up questions pertaining to everything and anything.

I would have to say the best course of action is to have a blend of both.  One for record keeping and tracking metrics with the online survey, but the other conducted by HR to determine what really is going on in the department.  That way HR can tackle the real issues of employees leaving instead of developing ideas and strategies around false perceptions.

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Posted in: Employee Exit