Just Joan

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” – Jospeh Heller, Catch 22.

 

I’m beginning to think the gods really are after me. About a week and a half ago I explained a little about some physical limitations that were keeping me away from my keyboard. Since then, things like 6 days of no internet connectivity and sick dogs have conspired to keep me even further away. It is because of those issues that I am forced to cancel #SHRMChat, which should have been held tonight (May 14th). I plan on being back full force on June 11th at 8pm Eastern to discuss the annual SHRM conference. Forgive me now and join me then.

(Friends, you may have noticed that I have not been doing much blogging lately. I have been suffering from a as-yet-undiagnosed illness that makes me very lethargic and unable to think clearly. I actually tried to make a phone call with the television remote last week. This has been compounded by a subluxated hip. That means that I took a nasty fall in my usual ungraceful way and twisted my left hip about 90 degrees. It hurts like hell. So while I am dealing with these issues, writing three to five hundred sensible and understandable words at one time is just too tough. Until I can get back on track, I will post some older blogs you may have missed. Thanks for your patience.)

(This was first posted by me in January 2010; I have updated it a little.)

Most of these things have irked me for a long time. But when I jumped (or maybe belly-flopped) into social media in 2009, I found these myths or misunderstandings were more pervasive and common than I expected, particularly among bloggers. And I still see them all the time. Grrrrrr.

MYTH #1: It’s spelled copywrite.

Okay, a misspelling is not a myth, but it bugs me.  Looking up the proper spelling would take about 15 seconds.

The reason it is called (and spelled) copyright is because the law gives the creator of certain “works of authorship” the exclusive right to reproduce (“copy”) that content.  It is not about writing, per se, because even though certain writings are protected creative content, so are such diverse creations as musical works, dramatic works, pantomimes, graphic works, and architectural works.

MYTH #2: You can’t copy my idea.

The foremost purpose of copyright law is to encourage individual effort as a way to advance public knowledge and culture.  By limiting copyright protection to the author’s method of expressing an idea, and not to the idea itself, others can create and disseminate more work and information.  If I have a great new idea for HR practice, and I blog about it, that idea is not protected and others may use it, even if they took the idea from my blog.  The only thing copyright law protects is the particular words I used to express the idea.  Some ideas are protected by other laws, such as patent law or trademark law, but the requirements for protection under those laws are very different and usually very stringent.

MYTH #3: I wrote that title and you can’t use it.

Names, titles, slogans, and short phrases are not copyrightable. Ever.  This is true even if it is unique or novel.

MYTH #4: I can copy your work because I don’t make money with my copy. 

This is probably a simplification of the “fair use” defense, but it is dangerous and inaccurate.  Under the fair use defense, the purpose and use of the infringing work, and whether that use is “commercial in nature”, is only one of four factors that a court might look at to determine whether there is actionable infringement.  Not making money with the copy is not definitive.   I don’t have the right to copy someone else’s blog and paste it here, no matter how much money I make – or don’t make – from it.

Determining if a copy is an infringement or is fairly used is actually very difficult.  There is purposefully no specific number of words, lines, or percentages.  Each complaint is determined on a case-by-case basis.  The best way to avoid any complaint from a copyright holder is to always get permission.  Acknowledging the source of your copy does not legally replace permission.

MYTH #5: I can copy your work because it does not say or show ©.

Under current law, neither notice (©) or registration is required for a copyright to attach to a given work.  A copyright is attached to original expression the moment it is fixed in a tangible form.  But registration of your copyright, while not required for your rights to attach, is desirable for a number of reasons.

If you are looking for more information, the U.S. Copyright Office has an excellent website with a great FAQ section.  It will even tell you how to protect your Elvis sighting.  I will be happy to answer other questions in the comments.

In case you are asking yourself if I made a mistake about including a preview of the April chat, the answer is, “Are you kidding?”  :-)  The April SHRMChat will be hosted by the HR Official Dave Ryan, and he will have the preview and questions on his blog here.

So what happened in March, with our topic of  “What role does and should SHRM and its state and local affiliates occupy in the HR profession?”

 Here is the summary, broken down by each specific question asked:

     1. SHRM national wants to be a professional society and not a membership association. Which is it to your affiliate?

This question prompted my favorite tweet of the night: “If SHRM wants to be a professional society, it needs to push value and not tote bags.” Thanks to John Jorgenson for that response, which sums up the basic attitude of the participants: SHRM’s idea is a good one, but its actions don’t match its message, making most chatters highly skeptical of SHRM’s ability to change the perception of them as a society.

     2. What are the benefits, if any, of a “professional society”? Are they different for a mere membership association?

Most chatters felt that the primary benefit of being a professional society is a large emphasis on professional development of the HR industry as a whole, and not just on the individual development of its members. But while the chat participants were somewhat in agreement that a professional society is more desirable, there was a scattershot discussion of how to achieve that goal with absolutely no consensus of opinion.

     3. Should SHRM and your chapter embrace the middle, or stretch the boundaries of the HR profession as a whole?

Stretching the boundaries of the profession was desired by most SHRMChat people, but there was a sizable minority of people (including me) who had some doubts about the effectiveness of this type of strategy. One of the themes of the dissenters, which ran through the entire evening discussion but was prevalent in this question, was that the size of the chapter has a lot of impact on the ability to embrace some of these forward strategies, with smaller locals at a distinct disadvantage.

     4. How can one association meet the needs of the CHRO and the HR administrator?  Should they?

The majority of the chatters were optimistic that all levels of the HR profession could be reached with one professional society, BUT – and it was a large but, echoing the discussion of the first question, there has to be a very different approach by SHRM than is currently the norm. Several suggestions were put forth, including

“Know your audience and create content specifically for it”

“Have roundtables or other alternatives to address different levels of practitioners”

“Focus on professional development versus a program at a monthly meeting.”

Thanks again to our guests Steve Browne and Donna Rogers for their insight from the SHRM Regional Leadership Conference!

Tune into our next SHRMChat on Tuesday, April 9th at 8 pm Eastern/7 pm Central.

Actor Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris

I’ll admit it – I’m a maddict. “Maddict” is the term that some sarcastic journalists have given to the die-hard, take no prisoners fans of the TV show Mad Men. “Like bordering on Trekkie.”

One of the many – and there ARE many – reasons I love this show is that it makes me think a lot about women in the workforce and their struggles. Some people dismiss those struggles as historical issues, because the show takes place in the 1960’s. But to believe that things are so different now is to deny that women still fight to overcome traditional attitudes about their abilities and suitability for the upper echelons of business.

Last season (“The Other Woman”, Season 5), one of the female characters was asked to sleep with a potential client in order to help her advertising firm land a lucrative account for Jaguar.  The character, Joan Holloway Harris, is the Director of Agency Operations at the ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a title given to her for a lot of extra work, but with no additional pay, recognition, or reduction of her secretarial duties.

So despite her initial protestations that she was being asked to prostitute herself, Joan ultimately agreed to sleep with the client in exchange for a 5% voting partnership in the agency. She agreed because her marriage was crumbling, she had a young child to support, and she had been unsuccessful in her efforts to break free of the female chains that bound her to a continually subservient position at work, even though she had repeatedly demonstrated her business smarts and talent.

Initially, I was shocked. I didn’t believe the character Joan (one of my two favorites on the whole show) would have made that decision, and I was terribly judgmental about her sleeping with the ultimate boss – the client. In fact, Joan had already slept with one of the partners (Roger Sterling, father of her baby) with absolutely no positive impact on her career.

“Where’s her self-esteem?” I cried. “How could she possibly do this to herself?”

But the more I thought about her situation – it aired in May 2012 so I have been thinking a long time – I thought “who am I to judge this woman?”

This was not a case of sexual harassment, where negative employment consequences were going to rain down on her if she didn’t consent, presenting her with a false choice. Her career was already suffering because simply she was a female. Joan chose to use the best advantage she had to further a stalled career. She chose to do with her own body what she thought was best for her.

This was not a case of rape, like the recent Steubenville case where a teenaged girl did not have enough physical and mental capacity to consent, or make a choice.

If I believe that a woman has the right to make a choice NOT to use her sexuality and to maintain control over her own body, then I must – MUST – believe that she has the right to do the opposite. If I believe in the right of a woman to control her own body and have an abortion, then I must give her the right to control her body to sleep with her boss if she wants to, for whatever her reasons. I will feel sad for our working women that are still confronted with the sexism that makes these choices necessary, but I will no longer judge the woman for doing what she thinks it takes.

Her body, her choice.

It’s not a lot different than landing a job because your partner is in a position to influence the person doing the hiring. I went to work for my husband’s company, so I guess I got a job because I slept with the boss.

I was a good hire for my employer and good at my job – so who should care?

Not you.

In February, SHRMChat happened to fall on the evening of the State of the Union address, so we teamed up with SHRM’s Governmental Advocacy Team, who was already holding its own #GATChat around that topic. We were fortunate to have Chantral Bibral from SHRM as our guest, and we posted these three questions:

1. Are you currently engaged in advocacy activities on behalf of the HR profession? If not, why? If yes, what do you find most gratifying about your engagement in public policy?
2. What challenges or road blocks do you face in your advocacy efforts? How can SHRM help your group become successful advocates on behalf of the HR profession?
3. What HR public policy issues are most important to you and why?

I am not going to separate the discussion for each question, because the summary of the evening’s chat is simple: SHRM members – at least those represented by chatters who attended – don’t care about advocacy. The answer to question #1 was a definitive “no” – chapters/councils are not engaged because there is not enough time and interest in this area to do anything meaningful. In fact, the word apathy could be used to describe our entire February chat, as well as the attitude toward the topic by those brave few who participated.  I think this topic might be revisited in the future if things change a bit.

I would like to thank Chantral again for being our guest, though. It has been hard for SHRM to embrace unfiltered and uncontrolled social media from outsiders, but they were there and willing in February.

March 2013 Preview

In February, SHRM holds a Regional Leadership Summit for State Council Directors, so while their memories are fresh, I have asked Steve Browne, Ohio State Council Director, and Donna Rogers, SHRM Membership Advisory Comittee (MAC), to be our guests on SHRMChat to discuss issues that may have been brought forward during this summit. Based on that, our March topic will be “What role does and should SHRM and its state and local affiliates occupy in the HR profession?”

These are the questions:

1. SHRM national wants to be a professional society and not a membership association. Which is it to your affiliate?
2. What are the benefits, if any, of a “professional society”? Are they different for a mere membership association?
3. Should SHRM and your chapter embrace the middle, or stretch the boundaries of the HR profession as a whole?
4. How can one association meet the needs of the CHRO and the HR administrator?  Should they?

Join the #SHRMChat discussion on Twitter – Tuesday, March 12th at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST.

Don’t forget to add a name or three to the “Crowdsourcing SHRM Speakers List here before then!

I gave this jar to my partner as a gift once, because he was responsible for customer complaints.

Back in my uniformed police officer days, I once responded to a call at a home our department had visited many, many times. The calls were always of the neighbor/family/kid trouble kind, and the woman who called was often unreasonable and irrational.

I was walking up the driveway alone, because our department was a small one, and working in a double car – two officers – was rare. As I approached the house, the occupant came out her front door and onto the porch. She pointed her finger at me and yelled, “NO! I want a real cop here!”

I stopped and said, “Ma’am. I am a real police officer. If you don’t want ME here, then I presume you don’t need the services of the police.” She continued yelling that she wanted someone “real”, so I returned to my patrol car. I radioed into the dispatcher that the caller didn’t want my services. Then I left.

You may be able to guess what happened next. The woman had apparently called the station and spoken with a supervisor, and another police officer – a male – was sent to take the call instead.

I was livid.

I thought – and think to this day – that she should have been told that a competent, sworn police officer was available to handle her complaint, that she didn’t have the right to choose on the basis of sex, and that no other officer should have been dispatched.

I was recently reminded of this incident after reading about a Flint, MI hospital that allegedly granted a new father’s request that his baby not be looked after by any African-American nurses, one nurse in particular. There is some dispute about whether the father’s request was actually granted, but one statement from the hospital CEO said, “We regret that our policies were not well enough understood and followed . . .” I don’t think this statement leaves much doubt that the nurse in question was somehow prevented from doing her job for this white baby.

HR writers and thinkers – including me – implore HR to have a larger sense of the business that employs them, including an increased awareness of and attendance to the customers that fund them and their departments. But cases like mine, and the hospital in Flint, should serve as a cautionary tale to be sensible about what the customer is asking the employees to do. HR managers should train their employees to managers to ask one simple question:

 Is the customer’s request reasonable and non-discriminatory to the employee?

If the answer is NO, tell the customer to take a hike.

(Do you have any stories of unreasonable or crazy customer service requests? Share them in the comments.)

I adopted this dog from the Humane Society Naples (HSN) yesterday.

Some of you may be saying, “BFD. Happens all the time.” But hear me out before you exit, because my particular story has a moral dilemma that could use your input.

You see, in order to adopt Macie, who I had been fostering for the past 6 weeks, I had to clear 2 hurdles.

One problem is that HSN doesn’t generally allow fosters to keep and adopt their charges, because they are in danger of losing the volunteer’s services. If you know anything about animal shelter and adoption, you know that foster homes are in short supply and big demand by shelters and rescue groups everywhere. So the rule or policy is a benefit (easy, less-costly adoption) versus risk (losing volunteers) issue.

With the first problem, I felt that the shelter could make their own benefit-risk assessment and do what they felt was best. And they knew that, as a foster, I wasn’t going to leave them.

The second hurdle was, in my mind, the BIG ONE. Collier County, the political jurisdiction where I officially live, has the same 3- dog-per-household limitation that almost every urban area in the USA has. I already have 3 dogs, and we’re not talking internal policy here, we’re talking LAW.

There are good reasons why these dog limitation laws exists.  Barking, wandering, odor, hoarding, and other signs of improperly cared for dogs is a nuisance to others, and the more dogs one has the bigger the nuisance can be. But regardless of the merits of the law, we don’t let individuals decide whether a law is worthy of enforcement.  As a former police officer, I strongly believe that is the way it should be. I can imagine the damage that might ensue if we let each driver decide if it was necessary to stop at a red light, or if an employer could decide whether overtime was justified after a 40-hour work week.

Think about your internal HR policies, too. One of the things you know is that they must be consistently enforced, or they will have no legal teeth when you really need them to. If you decide that employee A,B, and C should  follow the policy, but employee X and Y don’t have to, you have lost your credibility, and makes it hard to enforce that policy  at all.

In other words, sometimes a risk-benefit analysis just doesn’t cut it.

So what do I do when I want to adopt a 4^th dog who fits into my household, is quiet and well-behaved, and will not overrun my 1 and 1/3 acre, totally fenced in property? Do I break the law? And does the shelter overlook that law when they know that the animal – and they – would benefit?

Based on the first sentence of this post, you know what happened.

But was I – and were they – right?

I would really like to hear your thoughts about this.  Individual consideration or uphold the law/policy/rule? And who will bail me out if the Collier County Sheriffs Office reads this? Comments appreciated.

JANUARY 2013 RECAP

Last month participants were asked to “think outside the lines.”  We wanted to know if chapters/councils attempted to promote programs and conferences outside of their specific geographical area, and if there were benefits or disadvantages to doing so. We asked

• Q1. Does your state or local promote your conference or program to those who live outside of your boundaries? Why or why not?

Most of the participants did not actively promote their programs outside of their geographical area, although many relied on social media and word of mouth to do so in an informal way. Some felt that there were geographical disadvantages to doing this in their specific state and other chatters stated that they were met with some resistance from other councils when they asked to promote their conference. It was suggested that if some locals made an attempt to hold joint meetings, state councils and SHRM national might be able to interact with more chapters.

• Q2. Do you have specific strategies to suggest for promoting your conference to other states without creating internal jealousies or competition concerns?

The chat participants were a little stumped by this question, not seeing why outside promotion of their programs and conferences would cause others to be concerned with competition.

• Q3. Have you ever attended a conference outside of your state (not including SHRM national conferences)? Why?

Most of the chat participants, social media devotees that they are, had attended conferences outside of their state. They were quick to point out, though, that most people were limited in time, resources, and geography, limiting the likelihood of multiple-conference attendance.

• Q4. What are the benefits or disadvantages of attending other conferences?

Cost, travel time, and missed work were mentioned repeatedly as disadvantages of attending conferences or programs outside of traditional boundaries. The most frequently mentioned advantages were networking and the building of personal relationships. I was surprised that the potential diversity of program offerings was not mentioned in this discussion, although I personally believe in that as a major advantage.

• Q5. Based on tonight’s discussion, will you do ONE thing you will do to promote your program outside of the state or to change your attendance plans to include another state? Name it.

Most of the chatters agreed that there was sufficient advantage for them to invest in the concept to some degree. One chatter mentioned running announcements in neighboring states via LinkedIn. Another made a commitment to attend another state conference, and yet another participant vowed to promote their future state conference to neighboring states. Everyone agreed that social media can help chapters and councils think outside of their geographic lines.

FEBRUARY 2013 PREVIEW – Government Advocacy

SHRM National recognizes that it is at necessity for the human resources professional to be concerned about public policy. To that end, they have an Advocacy Team (the “A-Team”) to help create a relationship and dialog with legislators to help them understand relevant issues. But advocacy isn’t just a national issue – it means involving people at the state and local level, too. So we’ll discuss that issue this month, with special guest Chatrane Birbal, who is SHRM’s Senior Member Advocacy Specialist. Our suggested questions are:

1. Are you currently engaged in advocacy activities on behalf of the HR profession? If not, why? If yes, what do you find most gratifying about your engagement in public policy?
2. What challenges or road blocks do you face in your advocacy efforts? How can SHRM help your group become successful advocates on behalf of the HR profession?
3. What HR public policy issues are most important to you and why?

I am only posting a few questions this month because after the 1st half-hour, I am going to add the hash-tag #GATChat to our discussion, which is the official chat hosted by the SHRM Advocacy Team during  the State of the Union address. We hope that our participants will stay for at least a while and join in the #GATChat.

Join the #SHRMChat discussion on Twitter – Tuesday, February 12th at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST.

Don’t forget to add a name or three to the “Crowdsourcing SHRM Speakers List here before then!

Somehow I missed the first Tim Sackett day.

Maybe it was because last year at this time I was coping with a recent move from Michigan to Florida. Maybe it was because January 23^rd is the day before my birthday and I’m always feeling too sorry for myself and my fading years to give a shit about anyone else.

But I am here for the second Tim Sackett day. I am here to honor a HR practitioner who does great work but isn’t likely to end up on an arbitrary influencer list.

I’m here because I know and love Paul Hebert.

I met Paul in early November 2009, at the very first HRevolution in Louisville. Paul led what we came to call the “baby blogger” session – the session for people who were beginning HR bloggers or thinking about blogging, or who didn’t blog but who didn’t have anywhere else to go. With kindness, thoughtfulness, and the smartest sense of humor I have ever seen, Paul taught that group of wide-eyed, blogger innocents that it was okay to try, to fail, and to try again. There are several of us from that class who started blogging about HR and related issues after that class – and are still doing so today.

Since then, Paul has been a help to me anytime I have asked him for it – and even if I didn’t.  He showed up at my Twitter #SHRMChat last October when we were discussing maximizing membership, just to be supportive and because he knows everything about incentivizing your people there is to know.

Now he  is inspiring me in a different way.

Paul has cancer, you see. Cancer scares the shit out of me, because three of my siblings have already died from cancer, and my mother had it, too, although her heart quit before the cancer killed her.  To me the big C is more of a matter of when, and not if.

But Paul is facing his cancer with his customary wicked humor and smart style. He started a blog called Peestrong – bladder cancer, so the title of the blog perfectly reflects his smarts – where he details his journey through this debilitating illness. I find myself reading his entries over and over, hoping that I can face my eventual cancer with the same type of thought and graceful wit he has shown me.

Yes, Paul is a force in the online, #trenchHR world that deserves recognition and credit. To me, though, he is much, much more.

Check him out – I know you won’t be sorry.

• http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulhebert
• http://twitter.com/IncentIntel
• http://www.i2i-align.com/incentive-intelligence/
• http://fistfuloftalent.com/author/paulhebert

In my house, the longest ingredient label is on canned dog food.

I am one of those people who block your way in the grocery store aisle while I carefully read the ingredient label on almost everything I take off the shelf.

I do it because I am pretending to be conscience about my health, and part of that awareness,  I’ve been told, is to avoid certain ingredients and additives that are going to kill me quickly.

I have realized lately that this is just so much bullshit, really, because truly healthy eating doesn’t require reading any labels. Not one. Because where is the healthiest food in the grocery store?

It’s in the produce section – where there are no ingredient labels on a bunch of spinach or carrots. Or in the fresh meat, poultry, or seafood section,because a piece of fish doesn’t need any label.  A loaf of bread has a relatively large list of ingredients, but a bag of flour describes just one, like  ”unbleached white” or “whole wheat”.

The more over-engineered and over-processed a food item is, the longer the list of ingredients. The longer that list is, the more likely it is that you shouldn’t be eating the food if you are interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The same could be said of that staple of HR practice: the job description.

Read a standard job description from your basic company. It’s full of ingredients, most of which aren’t any more healthy or understandable than “sodium acid pyrophosphate” or “acesulfame potassium”.  It says things like “able to compile and analyze performance data that support decision-making for resource allocation and subsequent campaigns“. Or how about “able to develop a strategic decision-making, prioritization, and governance process“?

Ack.

Those phrases came from an actual job description – found on the web – for a marketing director. I like this one better, for a similar job, but from a different company: Be an all-around marketing goddess (or god).

Simple. Understandable. Healthy.

Health experts will tell you to avoid eating foods that have more than 5 ingredients in their nutrition label. I have a feeling that most HR pros will argue to the death that there is no way they can limit their job description to 5 qualities or functions. Fair enough.  But if you are an HR pro, look at your job descriptions and ask yourself this:

Can I briefly and succinctly explain what this description/qualification is and why it is essential to this job?

If you can’t, get rid of it. If you can, reduce the qualification/description to less than 10 easy to understand words.

Your job description, and your company, will be healthier.