Paying Attention Matters – Go Figure

Recently I heard a story on NPR about a firm who specialized in helping companies watch workers to improve productivity. (I’m sorry – today I tried to find the story so I could include a link, but I couldn’t.) The story said that when this company installed cameras to watch workers do their jobs, the workers made fewer mistakes. In another instance, productivity went up. They talked about posting performance metrics on the wall of the work area and performance went up. You’d think they had discovered the Holy Grail.

What they discovered is that when you pay attention to workers, their performance improves. When you measure worker’s performance – and give them regular feedback – their performance improves.  What I think they discovered was the “Hawthorne Effect” first identified in 1950 by Henry Landsberger when looking a data from a study at the Hawthorne Works conducted in the 1920’s and 30’s.

I won’t regale you with the details. The gist of the story is that the researchers segregated a group of workers and kept varying their working conditions to see what the impact would be on productivity. They raised the light level, lowered the light level, fed them breakfast, etc. In virtually all cases, no matter what the researchers changed, the workers still outperformed their peers in a control group. The conclusion: while changes in the work environment can improve productivity, the amount of improvement is overshadowed by the improvement that comes from paying attention and giving the workers feedback.

As a general rule, people like to know what’s going on and how they are doing. They like to know you care. John Maxwell says “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” You’ll get a bigger increase in productivity from taking the time to say “good morning” and “how are you” to your employee’s each day than you will from most of the latest management fads.

As a young Industrial Engineer I often heard “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” I believe this to be true. I also have seen many times that simply finding a basic measurement of work and posting it in the work area will improve productivity. You don’t necessarily need to set a goal. You don’t need to create some formal competition between workers. Just show them how they are doing, and they’ll do it better.

So, my advice today is to engage with your employees; give them feedback; help them measure their productivity and quality; thank them for their efforts; and then sit back and watch the productivity gains roll in.

Attendance vs. PTO

Recently several managers have complained “Suzie has terrible attendance, but since she’s using paid time off I can’t do anything about it, right?” To an HR person this is like fingernails on a chalk board. This question has the same feeling as the joke “The bank says I’m overdrawn but that can’t be true – I still have checks.”

Attendance and paid time off are two entirely different things. Just because the organization gives me several weeks of vacation and sick time, doesn’t mean I can take them whenever I want and no one can say anything about it. Attendance is important. As managers, we schedule and plan based on full attendance. We assume that everyone will be at work on every scheduled work day. Vacation should be scheduled in advance, so we can plan for it and make sure we have appropriate staffing. Sick days happen, but typically they should be few, and scattered.

So when an employee misses work on a weekly basis, but they have vacation time or sick time available, is that okay? No it is not okay. Unless I’ve scheduled and planned for that, or if they a valid FMLA in place, missing work on a weekly basis is not acceptable.

Some companies have elaborate systems to track attendance and to define acceptable attendance. There are point systems where every absence earns a set number of points every period of time without an absence removes points. In those systems, when an employee reaches a certain point level they receive some disciplinary action and at some fixed higher level they get terminated. The problem is that sometimes you wind up terminating some good people who had a “bad patch” and you wind up keeping people who have horrid attendance but have learned to work the system to stay just below the termination point.

The other issue companies grapple with is days versus incidents. If I’m out sick for 3 days, do I count that as 3 days, or as 1 instance? What’s worse – an employee who misses 1 day a week for 3 weeks, or an employee who gets the flu and misses 3 consecutive days? If you’re counting days they get treated the same. If you count incidents, one employee has one and the other has three. But on the other hand, if you only pay attention to incidents, then if that same employee gets the flu three times, while that’s only 3 incidents, they’ve missed 9 days of work. Is that okay?

I have yet to see a good system that works well in every situation. What I have found is that managers need to 1) create a culture where attendance is expected and 2) hold employees accountable for meeting those expectations. Be consistent. Poor attendance is not just a problem for marginal performers. If a great employee has poor attendance, deal with it just like you would with a marginal performer.

In one blog post I can’t solve all the evils of poor attendance, but I can say this – don’t let poor attendance bring down an entire department. Don’t fail to deal with an attendance problem just because an employee has paid time off available. Clearly set the expectations and then hold employees accountable to meet those expectations. The rest will take care of itself.

Busy?

I’m behind.  Right now my “To Do” pile is substantially bigger than my “Done” pile. It’s not that we’re not getting things done. We’re doing good things, and we’re doing them well. We just happen to find more things to do faster than we can get them all done.

At a former client’s office I had two people use the analogy, “We move fast here – sometimes it’s like trying to change your shoes in the middle of the race.”  Interesting analogy isn’t it.  This company is in a deadline driven manufacturing business with lots of customers that expect timely delivery of quality product.  Clearly there is a need for managers to have a sense of urgency in the way they operate, but do they need to go so fast they don’t have time to change their shoes?

I’ve worked in some time-sensitive businesses.  Most recently it was magazine publishing where the material had to be at press by a set day each month, no questions asked.  Yet, the question was asked – a lot – and many times deadlines were pushed back.  When that happens, the people at the next step in the process have to rush their work, often making errors or simply having to work harder or faster than they should.  Usually little good comes from rushing.

What I observed was that while all magazines had the same monthly deadlines, some were chronically late with panic ensuing on a monthly basis, while others were consistently on time or even a bit early.  While one Editor was frantically trying to get his book put to bed, another was mid-way through the development of next month’s issue.

There were probably lots of reasons for this.  Maybe one Editor was more organized or had a more experienced staff.  Maybe one didn’t plan well or frequently had unforeseen problems.  But one thing I observed was that to varying degrees, those that were chronically scrambling liked it that way.  They were “I perform better under pressure” people.  They like the excitement of the scramble – the challenge of expediting – the thrill of sliding in under the wire.

So back to my client – I posed a question to the CEO asking if the attitude “we move fast here” was a source of organizational pride or frustration.  From his perspective was the “rush” nature of the business really because the company needed to meet many deadlines, or was it a somewhat “manufactured” value?  For an answer I got a contemplative look and “Hmmm, good question.”

I’ll contend that some organizations culturally like the excitement that comes from moving fast.  They like to react and see themselves as flexible and nimble.  While I’m all about a company being nimble and responsive to customer needs, I’m concerned that those who intentionally live in the fast lane might be putting undue stress on the organization.  Aren’t there parts of the business that would perform better if not always rushing?  Might we not get better “rush” performance if we didn’t have to do it all time?  Are we risking burning out good people because they never get to catch their breath?

There’s no right answer here.  Every organization has its unique issues, but it’s worth thinking about.  If your company is starting to get holes in the bottom of your shoes, maybe a little more planning and contemplative time might improve the overall performance.  Remember, it was the tortoise that won the race.

Why I don’t Like Anonymity

We’ve been talking lately about introducing a confidential employee hotline – a phone number where employees can confidentially report theft, fraud, harassment, whatever.  It’s a good idea. Lots of companies have them. Some have the calls answered internally while others use an outside firm.  But this post really isn’t about the hotline it’s about the question – should employees be able to report something anonymously?

Anonymity bugs me.  I get confidentiality.  I understand why someone would want to report something confidentially – like they saw their boss sexually harassing a coworker and they don’t want their boss to know it was them that made the report.  If we have such a hotline we have to be 100% committed to confidentiality and protecting the person who makes a report from any form of retaliation or retribution.  Protecting confidentiality is a given, but anonymity?

To me, anonymity is like throwing a grenade over the wall and running.  You don’t know where it came from, you don’t really know why it was thrown, and sometime you’re not even sure who it was aimed at.  Part of implementing a successful hotline is that there has to be consequences for intentionally reporting false information, but if the caller in anonymous, who can be held accountable?

Let’s imagine someone calls in and reports that a cashier is stealing from the register by under-ringing and then pocketing the difference.  Without a name I don’t if the claim is credible, but in the best interests of the business I have to check it out.  So, we watch the cashier more closely – in person and via cameras.  I probably have to tell some others who can help me watch and audit. Now several people have reason to believe this cashier is stealing. Even if we don’t find anything, we spend time looking and we’re always suspicious of her.  It could have a detrimental effect on her career.

What if we were later to find out that this cashier and another were fighting over an ex-boyfriend. Then we learn that the anonymous call was placed by the other cashier, just to get the first one in trouble – or maybe to keep us from watching the other one who was stealing.  ARRUGH!  If I had known up front who made the report I could have tested the reliability of the information and maybe saved some time, found the real thief, and dealt with a bad employee.

In a long-ago post I talked about the challenge of 360 evaluations and anonymity.  The theory is if no one knows who says what, then I can speak the truth because it can’t come back on me.  That’s true, but it’s also true that if no one knows who says what, then they won’t know if I lie – either for or against the one being rated.  And if I’m lying, what good is the 360?

I believe that society and business both work better if people are free to speak the truth (sometimes confidentially) without fear of reprisal but no one is allowed to speak anonymously.  If you don’t feel strongly enough about what you’re saying to put your name behind it, then don’t say it.  But understand; this has to go hand-in-hand with 100% protection of those who speak the truth that others might not want to hear.

There’s one more reason I don’t like anonymity.  I think I misspelled it every time I typed it.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Thank you all for your support in 2011 and I’m looking forward to more blogging in 2012!

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Stopping the Hamster Wheel

Recently I’ve been working with two employees who are struggling to meet performance expectations. Both are nice, sincere people who want to do their best, who are trying and who I’d love to see succeed.  But, their day-to-day activities remind me of hamster on a wheel – running and running without getting anywhere.  I call this the Hamster Syndrome.

How does this happen?  How does a perfectly acceptable employee get so bogged down in simply doing that they stop growing and improving?  How does one get so lost in the forest that they can’t even see the trees – much less find their way out?

I’m not a psychiatrist, but I think I’ve seen two traits that can contribute significantly to the Hamster Syndrome – a fear of change and insecurity.  For many people – if not most of us – change is not something we embrace, but most of us learn to deal with it.  Some, however, run from change.  Maybe they have a higher level of insecurity that causes a fear of failure.  Trying to change might cause failure – failure would cause a lowering of confidence – lower confidence makes one even less interested in trying something new – and the cycle continues slowly spiraling downward.  These people will keep their noses down and work really hard to do what they know how to do, when what they really need to do is learn something new.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Hamster Syndrome is that the employee feels so consumed with accomplishing their daily activity that they can’t make the time to find ways to improve – but the reality is that often with a few simple changes the amount of work they currently accomplish can be done in much less time.  Getting off the wheel can improve their productivity dramatically, raising their self-esteem and significantly reducing the risk of failure.

If you are a manager with an employee on the wheel, your first job is to get the wheel of its mounting so it can’t turn.  Take some work off of the employee so they have time to learn a new task.  Then patiently help them find the improved processes that improve their productivity.  Be encouraging, but also hold them accountable to change and grow.  Remember, people typically change for only two reasons – either the pain of their current situation is too great to bear or the benefits of the change are overwhelmingly good.  People won’t change if there is no cost to staying the same or no benefit to changing.  It’s your job as a manager to help them understand both the consequences of not changing and the rewards from changing.

If you’re an employee on the wheel, the first step towards success is recognizing your situation.  Self-awareness is key and you have to be willing to admit that you are responsible for much of your problem.  With that new awareness identify tasks that you can stop doing or can get temporarily assigned to someone else.  Then work hard to learn new skills and change things enough so that you can see some success and change the direction of the spiral to up.

The Hamster Syndrome is real – it’s turning – it’s squeaking – and it’s time to get off.

You Can’t Please Everybody

We just finished an Open Enrollment for Life Insurance.  It was my first Open Enrollment at Park and all-in-all I thought it went well.  Over 92% of eligible employees completed the enrollment process, around 50% of employees purchased supplemental life insurance, and, most importantly, we did it all online.  Employees logged into our new HR System, they updated their personal information, entered their beneficiaries, and enrolled in the insurance.  I am very pleased with our HR team, the software, the employees – everything really.

I received dozens of compliments from employees about how easy the process was and how employees appreciated the online access.  But what sticks with me more than that are a few negative comments.  Some people felt the process was not simple.  They don’t like the HR System. They had difficulty getting registered. Maybe at the heart of it, they just don’t like change – and there was a lot of it in this process.

One of the challenges was communications.  We are located in 40+ locations coast to coast.  We didn’t want to hold traditional open enrollment meetings because the logistics outweighed the relative simplicity of the benefits (it’s just life insurance) so we relied on the printed word.  We sent a long announcement/instruction email to all employees. Over the two weeks of Open Enrollment we sent three reminder emails to all employees and two more just to those who had not completed the process.  We held three open Q&A sessions to help people both in person and via telephone. (BTW – less than 30 employees attended any one of these sessions.)  Finally, we answered every phone call and email and even went to employee’s offices to assist them with the process.  I’m not sure how much more we could have done.

One thing I learned – and I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised – was that people don’t read.  We probably rejected almost 20% of submissions because employees didn’t read the directions.  Spouse Life and Child life were both limited by the amount of insurance employees purchased for themselves, but lots of employees signed up for these benefits without regard to the rules.  There were several other questions that I answered 5-10 times per day whose answer was clearly included in the emails and/or instructions.

So what are my takeaways?  First – over communicate using multiple media.  Second – give people enough time, but not too much (two weeks was perfect for this type of enrollment).  Third – use technology whenever you can; within one day of completing this enrollment I had all of the information gathered and ready to create payroll deductions and send to the vendor. Last, but not least, don’t let a few negative comments rain on your parade.  You can’t please everybody, so make most of the people happy and learn from the rest.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Becoming an HR Pirate

My faithful readers know that lately I’ve been anything but a faithful blogger.  The frequency of my posts has dropped from twice a week to about once a month.  I apologize for the lack of productivity but I have an excuse. I’ve been in training to become an HR Pirate.

Now when you think of pirates you probably conjure up images of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; or maybe you fondly remember Jim Hawkins’ run-ins with Long John Silver in Treasure Island.   Either way you probably are thinking of greedy, blood thirsty men who’ll happily run you through with their cutlass or see you walk the plank.  Maybe not exactly an appropriate aspiration for a long-term HR guy …

But wait a minute.  Pirates are people to.  Unlike the pirates of today, these guys had a code of honor, right?  The spared the women and children didn’t they?  And didn’t they give their victims a chance to defend themselves?  And the maps – they left maps of where to find their treasure – that was nice wasn’t it?

Okay, I’m having trouble finding redeeming qualities of why one would want to turn in their SPHR certification just to wear a tri-cornered had and shout “ahoy ye squabs!” Actually, I’m becoming a different kind of pirate.

This summer my career took another interesting turn and I joined Park University as Director of Human Resources.  Park is an enigma. On one hand, its’ a small liberal arts college on the bluffs of the Missouri River just outside Kansas City.  Park’s been around for over 125 years and has traditional ivy covered buildings and a beautiful campus.  But Park is also one of the largest online colleges in the US plus we offer programs on about 40 military bases from coast-to-coast.  In Parkville we have about 1,500 students but all-in there are over 20,000 all over the county.  And Park’s mascot – the Pirate.

Not only am I learning new things and trying to use my experience to ensure that Park remains a great place to work – but I’m also trying to transition this blog.  In the not too distant future I expect to have a new look and probably a new URL.  I’ll still post about a range of HR and leadership issues but those posts will probably be a bit more focused on the world of higher education and maybe specifically at what’s happening at Park.

So, be patient with me.  I’ll keep you informed and I look forward to continuing to share my views on Human Resources and leadership.  Plus, I’ll get to wear this cool eye patch.  Ahoy, mates!

Do It Right – The First Time

I’ve been doing a lot of auditing lately.  Comparing what is to what should be and then making adjustments. Unfortunately there have been lots of adjustments.  While tedious and frustrating, it’s been a learning process.

The first rule of payroll is: pay people correctly and on time.  If you do that, the rest is pretty easy.  With benefits, the rule is similar: make sure employees are enrolled in the plans they signed up for, and then charge them appropriately.  The other stuff like paying the vendors and making sure you have the right plans, all takes a back seat to the first rule.

The challenge often comes during Open Enrollment.  Lots of employees sign up for lots of things.  Sometimes they don’t understand what they’re doing. Sometimes they change their mind.  Sometimes they make mistakes. It can be a confusing time.  How do you then make sure to follow rule 1 and get everyone enrolled in the plans they asked for and then charge them appropriately?

I’m reminded of the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, the quality control guru who passed away in 1993.  Among other profound things, Deming preached that you can’t “inspect in” quality.  No matter how good you are at auditing and checking and verifying what you’ve done – you’ll miss things.  Plus, your cost of all those audits and checks becomes enormous.  Instead, you have to build quality into the process. 

So, it’s that easy, huh?  Just build the quality into the process.  But we’re dealing with people here, not machines.  And these are often people who aren’t paying a lot of attention.  Sure, they want the benefits, but they also want to get back to work and to do things they understand.  They don’t want to spend hours signing up for health insurance.  So how can you “build quality” into that kind of system?  Here are a few hints (warning: some may be easier said than done).

Provide employees with an easy way to see what they are currently enrolled in as they make their new elections.  That way, if they already have health, dental and vision coverage, they are less likely to forget to enroll in vision this time. If they know how much supplemental life they have, then they have a reference point to choose again.

Over communicate.  If you feel like you’ve already and said something five times, say if five times more. Provide lots of opportunities to ask questions.  Use multiple communication vehicles – some people like to listen while others like to read.  Cover all of the bases.

Give people enough time to make an informed decision, but not too much time.  People don’t like to feel rushed, but if they don’t have a deadline they’ll never get it done.

And finally – don’t count on only building quality into the system.  You’ll still need to check, verify and audit. As soon as your open enrollment closes run reports of what employees signed up for and compare that to what they had before.  When in doubt – ask.  You’re much better off spending “too much” time getting that first billing  cycle correct than finding out 6 months later that someone who completed an enrollment form never actually was enrolled in the benefit.

My moral of the day – pay attention to the process up front – build quality into your open enrollment system – and then audit and verify your results before you move on to other activities.  Doing it right the first time will pay dividends all year long.

Compensation 101

In many ways compensation systems are complicated. You need some form of job evaluation system.  You need market research.  You need a way to communicate the plan.  You need processes to keep the system current.  But above all that, you need strategy, and in that strategy you need to make two decisions.  Now that can’t be that hard, can it?

In the textbook “Compensation” by George Milkovich and Jerry Newman the authors introduce a Pay Model that I’ve been using for over 20 years.  The core of the model is that there are two primary tenants of compensation – internal equity and external competitiveness.  Everything revolves around these two issues, particularly compensation strategy.

The most important (at least in my view) is internal equity.  The basics here are that employees must have faith and trust that their pay adequately reflects their value to the organization compared to the value of others.  Value is established by looking at the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that are required to perform any given job at a sufficient level.  If an employee looks around the organization and sees other people contributing less – or having lower levels of KSAs – but being paid more, then that employee will sense the inequity and will be dissatisfied, will disengage and ultimately will leave the organization.

External competitiveness means that an organization pays for those knowledge, skills and abilities at rate that can be compared to what other organizations pay for those same SKAs.  Organizations get to make a strategic decision about how well they will pay relative to market.  Some choose to pay above market rates believing they can attract and retain the best workers.  Others plan to play at market rates so that they can remain cost competitive. Finally, others will choose to pay below market, and offset that lower pay rate with higher levels of benefits, job security, or other factors.

In general, an organization may choose to not be externally competitive, but they cannot choose to be internally inequitable.  A lack of internal equity, over time, will kill an organization due to distention and disengagement and the resulting loss of talent. Also, no compensation system can be effective if it is focused only on one of these tenants.

A brief work about “equity” – you’ll note that I did not use the word “fairness”.  Fair/fairness is a concept common to young children. They instinctively know what is fair and what isn’t.  I once attended a workshop led by Peter Schutz, the first American to be the CEO of Porsche, and he said something that I’ve never forgotten – “Fair is a word that describes a place with rides and a side-show and it doesn’t have anything to do with business.”  Fairness is not the same as equitable.  When a compensation system is fair, everyone gets paid the same amount.  When that system is equitable, everyone gets paid based on their contributions to the organization.  Strive for internal equity.

So, before you get busy trying to develop broad bands and calculate comparatios, sit back and determine your compensation strategy.  And in that strategy, make sure that you’ve set your stake in the ground about both Internal Equity and External Competiveness.  With those two decisions behind you, the rest follow.