Just Joan

Our topic for March was “is it in the interest of SHRM chapters and councils to embrace other HR groups?” The point of this topic was to discuss whether partnerships with these groups- particularly those groups who have emerged with the explosion of new media and offer conferences and other learning opportunities-  limited the ability of SHRM state councils and local chapters to attract members and conference registrants.

The discussion yielded a resounding “yes” for collaboration.

Most of the people chatting felt that SHRM chapters and councils risk stagnation if they fail to embrace  outside groups. While some of the chatters felt that stagnation was the result of a need for new leadership, many felt that collaboration with other groups helped overcome the tunnel vision that many current SHRM leaders possess, and offered the current SHRM leaders new insights, or innovation, into HR-related areas.

When faced with a tweeted concern that having outside groups provide knowledge might keep potential members from joining their local chapter, most of the chat participants claimed that the added value from effective collaboration would prevent an exodus of current members, and attract new ones.

So in the minds of the March chatters, collaboration also yields added value.

With the case for collaboration firmly made, we asked the chatters what groups SHRM states and locals should look to when developing some kind of partnership. One of the most frequently mentioned  partnerships was the Chamber of Commerce.  Not only do Chambers have an interest and need to promote business-related programming, they also help SHRM locals and states reach businesses that have no traditional HR presence.

Beyond that, it was felt that the groups that might be effective partners for SHRM chapters was highly dependent on the specific needs and focus of the chapter.

One of the best examples of SHRM affiliate and outside collaboration was revealed by guest Craig Fisher of Talent Net Live and John Jorgenson, Conference Director at Illinois State Council (and faithful #SHRMChat moderator), who announced that Talent Net Live was kicking off the 2012 Illinois SHRM state conference with a pre-conference session on social recruiting.

I also humbly added my own chapter as an example – in April, Human Resources Association of Greater Detroit (Detroit SHRM) is partnering with the Michigan Diversity Council to present renowned diversity speaker Joe Gerstandt.

So if you belong to a SHRM affiliated state or local chapter, make sure you take any opportunity you can to suggest collaborative partnerships with other HR related groups.

SHRMChat is held on Twitter the second Tuesday of every month from 8 – 9 pm Eastern. Join us for the next chat on April 10th. Details will be announced in an upcoming blog post.

Inc. magazine posted a blog a couple of weeks ago entitled “5 Reasons You Need to Meet in Person”. Reason #3 was “make an impression”, and the author made hers with a pink, faux ostrich purse.

Now, pink is probably my least favorite color, and ostrich – faux or otherwise – is not my preferred texture in a handbag. But I always like messages that encourage people to accept and embrace their individuality. Joe Gerstandt, noted diversity and inclusion author and speaker, calls it flying your freak flag.

Embedded in that paragraph about carrying a pink purse, though, was a sad and telling sentence about the state of diversity in the HR/recruiting world today: “I was worried it was perhaps not professional enough for business.” With that sentence, the author turned her message “make an impression” into “make an impression – but only if it’s safe.”

HR and their recruiting counterparts claim to believe in diversity, but only because they try to be color or race-blind in their hiring decisions.  When it comes to  tons of other things that are marks of individuality – where you went to school, what you wear, what kind of company you keep,and what kind of jewelry you like – HR is incredibly close-minded. They want employees to think and look like them, and like everyone else in the company. That’s why people who write job seeker advice tell you to cover your tattoos and hide your flashy wedding ring, because diversity in HR is a no-no unless it is legally mandated, like race and religion.

In his latest book, Social Gravity (co-authored with Jason Lauritsen), Joe Gerstandt tells a story of working at a job fair with another recruiter when a gentleman visited their booth wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. His co-recruiter dismissed the gentleman as “clearly not management material” without knowing a thing about his talent, competency, or ability.

As Joe points out, we all make assumptions about other people that are often incorrect. HR pros and recruiters like the one in Joe’s story, though, are truly disadvantaged when they don’t fight back against that natural inclination to stereotype, and fail to embrace the worker who may look, talk, or dress just a little bit differently than everyone else. As a recruiter once said to me at a SHRM chapter meeting, “I don’t know why HR cares about all this stuff. They should only care about whether or not the person is going to help them make money. Period.”

So I continue to wear my Fit-Flop brand flip flops to business meetings, because they are the only shoes (except athletic shoes) that my problem feet can tolerate. If people talk behind my back, or if I fail to impress a potential client, so what? I just think of the song “I Am What I Am”, from the musical La Cage aux Folles, where Jerry Herman writes

So what if I love each feather and each spangle? Why not try to see things from a different angle?

Why not, HR?

Tweet Reach February

FEBRUARY RECAP

Our question for February was: ”Which programs or issues do you think are important and appropriate for a future SHRMChat?” That question was posed because it seemed clear that participants in SHRMChat wanted to be able to speak about all things SHRM, not just about social media.

But as we discussed different potential topics, it became clear that our audience preferred that the topics be focused on the state/local chapters, instead of being specifically concerned  with the intersection of national and its affiliates.

It was also suggested that we establish a committee or include more than one moderator – an idea that I was already pursuing and embrace totally. Again the topic of speakers or guests was brought up and it is clear that our participants are committed enough to SHRMChat to start inviting guests.

Finally, the age old issue of breaking the bubble was discussed, thanks to China Gorman who tweeted about “seeing the same old faces”. This discussion led to the suggestion that everyone who participates in SHRMChat should try to recruit one new participant each month. It was a great suggestion and I hope everyone tries to expand the group.

MARCH CHAT

You suggested, I listened. Going forward, we now have 3 additional SHRMChat moderators: John Jorgensen, Dave Ryan, and Nicole Och. We will be working behind the scenes to create topics and obtain speakers, etc., so be sure to reach out to one of them, or me, if you want to suggest something. Also, after this month, I will be separating the recap and upcoming chats into two different posts.

For the March chat, our topic will be “the interaction of SHRM chapters with other HR or business related groups.” Social media has brought an explosion of these groups to the web,  especially groups that provide knowledge and education, like  Tlnt.com, HRevolution, and Talent Net Live. There are also more traditional alliances of SHRM chapters and other groups, such as Chambers of Commerce. Our questions are:

1. Is it in the interest of SHRM chapters to partner with or embrace other HR related groups? Why? Why not?

2. If SHRM chapters should pursue some kind of alliance, which groups would be best and why?

Join us for SHRMChat Tuesday, March 13th at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST, where our guest will be Craig Fisher of Talent Net Live and #TalentNet chat. REMEMBER TO TRY TO BRING AT LEAST ONE NEW TWEEP!

Today's post is my 100th!

When I was in law school I had a professor who was positively gaga about policy. It was her belief that  students who understood what policy objective the courts and legislatures were trying to achieve would have a better understanding of and rememberence of any given law. It would also help those future lawyers, when confronted with facts and situations that had not been previously addressed, analyze those facts within the existing law and come to some type of reasonable conclusion (especially on her exam ).

I used that technique to a large degree myself when I was a law professor, and I found it an invaluable way to keep sight of a law and its potential impact when faced with an endless series of “but, what if  . . .?” questions from my students.

So it puzzles me a bit that there is such a fuss about the NLRB and the so-called “Facebook cases”.  After all, the Wagner Act, or NLRA, has been the law for 75 years. Not exactly a new, untried law. Under the NLRA, all workers have the right to engage in concerted activity for the purpose of mutual aid and protection, and, if you think about it, the workers of today have always had that right. The policy objective underneath that act is to protect and encourage the formation of unions, which takes a whole lot of communication between employees about their common grievances.

So why would any employment lawyer worth his or her hefty fee advise a company to write a policy that forbids them from discussing work on social media sites such as Facebook? Or draft  a policy that forbids an employee from making a “negative comment” about their employer?

The many lawyers who advised their clients to adopt such policies, or even suggested outright social media bans – and based on these cases there were plenty – forgot the policy behind the NLRA. They forgot that this law was intended to protect certain kinds of communication among employees in order to keep them safe from those activities that might lead to unionization.

Not only did the lawyers forget the policy behind the law, they were so concerned about risk avoidance and so frightened of social media that they didn’t take the time to understand that it constituted an essential shift in the way that Americans, including workers, were communicating with each other.

Maybe the lawyers who advised employers to adopt these overly broad policies just simply forgot about the existence of the NLRA and its commitment to helping workers discuss their joint concerns about wages, hours, and working conditions.

Whatever the reason for the lawyer’s failing, it was not just a situation of “the rapidly changing law”, as many want you to believe. So if you have an overly broad social media policy suggested by a lawyer, that you are now struggling to change in light of the NLRB’s recent activity, you may want to throw out the lawyer as well as the policy.

We’ve all experienced this workplace scenario: just when you’re in a super-productive groove, checking off your to-do list and impressing yourself with your productivity, a reminder pops up: you’re due in a meeting in 15 minutes. “Oh great,” you think. “This will be a complete waste of time.” By the time the meeting is over, your day is completely derailed and you’ve lost your momentum. To make matters worse, nothing was actually accomplished!

Meetings are a necessary part of business. Most of us wouldn’t dread them if we felt they were actually productive, instead of a waste of valuable time. Unfortunately, too often meetings are ineffective, where little is accomplished and participants feel frustrated.

It doesn’t have to be that way. When people have a clear expectation of a meeting’s objective and what they need to do next, they’re more likely to engage. Your meetings will be more productive, and you won’t be wasting anyone’s time. Most important, your colleagues won’t be filled with dread each time you call a meeting.

Here, we’ll highlight some simple ways to make meetings more effective, by respecting everyone’s time, creating action items and following up.

Respect Everyone’s Time

In the current business climate, most businesses are doing more with less. They’re asking employees for higher productivity, or combining the work of two people into one position. When planning meetings, it’s more important than ever to acknowledge that your co-workers could be overworked and stressed out, with very little extra time.

Since people hate wasting time, the meeting organizer’s job is to ensure it doesn’t happen. Here’s how:

• Decide who really needs to participate, and invite only those people. Provide meeting notes to others who need to be informed, but don’t need to attend.
• Prepare an agenda and stick to it. Determine the meeting objective and state it front and center. An example might be, “We’re meeting to establish a preliminary range for the sales staff’s annual salary increase.”
• Then, list the actions that need to occur in the meeting to accomplish the objective. Use verbs such as “discuss,” “review,” “brainstorm,” “schedule,” and “decide.”
• Keep the meeting as short as possible. If necessary, establish time limits for discussions and table undecided items until the next meeting.

If you’ve run an efficient meeting, you will accomplish the objective. Now, what happens when participants return to their offices and get back to work? Will Steve do that salary survey he mentioned? Was Meredith supposed to contact the management team for input? Or will everyone have forgotten what he or she agreed to do? Assigning action items prevents confusion over who does when, and when.

 Create and Assign Action Items

Before everyone leaves the room, determine what needs to happen next. By following these steps, you’ll have a clear plan of action:

• Take official notes. Encourage participants to fully engage by assigning an official note-taker or recording the meeting. It’s difficult to be both facilitator and note-taker, so recruit someone else. Assure attendees they will receive a report, including key points and decisions made by the group, along with action items.
• Decide how decisions will be implemented. Ask participants for input on how the group’s decisions will be implemented. These will be the action items.
•  Assign tasks to the group. Determine who is best equipped to handle each action item.
• Distribute notes and action items to the group. As soon as possible post-meeting, distribute a report and list of action items to each participant. Each item should have a clear expectation of what is necessary for successful completion, as well as a due date. Avoid using “ASAP,” since people are more accountable to actual calendar dates.

Assigning action items ensures that the meeting objectives are not forgotten when participants return to their offices and aforementioned to-do lists. It’s just as important to follow up and hold people accountable for their action items.

 Follow Up and Report Progress

Action items are the most important component of a meeting. They ensure something will be accomplished and keep all team members on the same wavelength. Remember, it’s essential to hold your co-workers accountable for their action items, or the due dates will come and go without any progress.

Follow up with each attendee to make sure they’re on track. Stop by to talk, send an email or make a phone call to check in, and extend due dates as necessary. Report any progress back to the entire group on a regular basis, until all action items are complete.

 To Make Meetings Effective, End with Action Items

Meetings can move projects along or stop them in their tracks – it all depends on how they are run. By following these steps, you’ll make your meetings more productive and effective, with actionable items that get things done. Instead of feeling resentful that their time is being wasted, your co-workers might even look forward to your meetings. Especially if you don’t forget the doughnuts!

Erin Palmer is a contributor to U.S. News University Directory – a leading source for higher education information online. The directory provides working professionals a reliable place to locate accredited colleges. Offerings include advanced business degrees and certificate programs in areas such as; human resources, marketing and project management.  For additional information, please visit http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com.

Yes, I am shamelessly exploiting the death of Whitney Houston to write a blog post and using her name in the headline to snag readers.

Actually this idea has been rolling around in my mind for quite a while now, but it took the untimely death of an extraordinary talent to nail it down and give it context.

The lesson? Wellness.

The best definition of “wellness” I ever heard was that is was “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  This was said by a doctor during a lecture about integrative medicine. His message was that health care should promote wellness (as defined here) and joy, not only treat disease and illness ( “sick care”, he called that).

The foundations of wellness, he explained, were simple: optimal nutrition, fitness, proper sleep, stress management, and spirituality or joy. These items are not negotiable – they are items that you must do to be well. You cannot be well if you are a stressed out, socially unhappy, tired person, no matter how well you eat or how much you exercise.

Unfortunately, in most cases, companies in the US like to talk about all of the “wellness” initiatives they are making – like giving incentives for people to quit smoking, or playing games with prizes for weight loss. The major reason they do this? It lowers their benefit costs.

But many of those same companies overwork their employees, ignore their personal needs, and dismiss their spiritual or mental well-being. You want to take off the afternoon to go to the beach with your kids? Fuggedaboutit. What do you mean you were watching a video with your family and couldn’t answer your email? Bad performance review. Worked late last night and want to miss the morning meeting? Are you effing kidding?

No matter what the coroner determines Whitney Houston’s cause of death was, she was clearly not a well person, as her public struggles show. She was also a self-employed workforce of one, and that employer paid a very high price for ignoring all the components of wellness.

Someone needs to give American companies a message that employee wellness would be promoted by paying just as much attention to an employee’s mental and social well-being as they do to their weight or smoking habits. If they are really serious about wellness – remove employee’s stress by making sure they are paid well, are valued and not abused, are encouraged to sleep well, and have the opportunity to pursue joy.

Before it’s too late.

Seeing the response to SHRMChat and the increasing involvement of interested people and chapters gives me great hope for the use of social media at the state and local chapter level, and for the increased communication between SHRM and it’s affiliates in general. Let’s keep the momentum building!

JANUARY RECAP:

Our January chatters discussed platforms and their respective goals. Here’s a general summary:

1. Linkedin is the preferred platform.  My own experience tells me that Linkedin is trusted by a larger amount of HR pros, and reaching them where they live seems to be a wise strategy for all of the chapter and council leaders. It was generally agreed that Twitter, which we all know and love as individuals, is too hard to learn for most chapters to adopt as a major communications platform. We are sure that time will change that.  There was little discussion of Facebook as a platform.

2. Not everyone is using specific strategies and/or goals in their social media efforts. Some leaders prefer to use social media in whatever way they see fit, without being tied down to a strategy/goal model. Others have very specific goals in mind when they determine effective strategies. Increase in membership numbers seems to be a common goal.

3. Fear of social media by members is an obstacle to overcome. This issue was also discussed in our first chat.  It is common experience among all of the tweeps that members are fearful of social media, and that fear creates limitations in the success of social media efforts for chapters.  ”Baby Steps” is a mantra that is continually repeated during these discussions. Unfortunately, most don’t know how big my feet are – baby steps are just plain hard for me.

FEBRUARY THEME:

As I mentioned in last month’s blog, the people who have participated in SHRMChat so far seem to be very interested in taking this chat beyond social media. Most want to talk about all things SHRM, and it’s interaction with the locals and states we work so hard to support with our volunteer efforts. With that in mind, I have only one theme and related questions for February:

Which programs or issues do you think are important and appropriate for a future SHRMChat?

For example, the SHAPE initiative has already be discussed to a degree as a way to increase social media use among chapters. What other programs should SHRMChat consider discussing in-depth? If we have a particular program or topic assigned in advance, it would be helpful to get someone from SHRM to be a guest and discuss.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR SHRMChat on Tuesday, February 14th at 8:00 pm EST/7:00 pm CST at #SHRMChat on Twitter.

If you have read this blog before, you know that I like to tell stories. At my advancing age there are so many of them, and social media connections help me remember and revisit them to see if I learned anything at the time, or can still learn now.

So when a Facebook friend posted this comment (about a picture of an alligator), it reminded me of my own time at the police academy.

When I attended the academy, candidates were required to meet certain standards in the following areas – academic, physical agility, and marksmenship. Each area had a minimum score that the candidate had to reach during a final test in order to pass and become certified. If you weren’t certified, you could not work as a police officer.

The physical agility test was a series of tasks, like running a mile in a certain time, and doing a minimum number of push-ups and sit-ups. When it was my turn, I did whatever minimum number it was to pass, and then stopped.

“Hey!” yelled one of my instructors as I was getting up after doing my minimum sit-ups. “I know you can do more!”

“Sure, ” I replied, “but what for? I’m not going to win any agility award, and I passed. I don’t see the point in doing any additional.”

Then I walked away, leaving the instructor scowling.

HR pundits and bloggers often discuss how important it is to try, and how people shouldn’t stop themselves from achieving more.  But I’m not sure if it’s necessary to always try to be on top. It may be just as important to minimize your effort in some area in order to shine brighter in another (I did win the academic award with the highest score in my academy class).

Sometimes, I think, good enough really is just that.

Do you?

The next monthly #SHRMchat – a Twitter chat to discuss using social media with state and local SHRM chapters – will be held on January 10th at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST. Here are the details:

During the November chat, I was impressed with a comment made by Steve Browne of Ohio, which I will paraphrase here:  Don’t use social media just as a bulletin board for chapter announcements. Use it to create and engage a community.

I’m still thinking about that message and wondering about the best ways to implement it. Consequently, the theme of the January chat will be PLATFORMS. Let’s discuss Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and blogs and how to use those platforms to build a community – since we all probably know how to make chapter announcements. Here are some specific questions to drive the discussion:

#1.  We all know that the different platforms have their own advantages. Can you identify one specific goal of your social media efforts (example: increase chapter membership) with one platform that works best for that goal?

#2. Which platform has the best time/return ratio? For example, do you find Facebook fast and easy with a high rate of engagement, or is it too cumbersome for the benefits it reaps?

#3. Have you been able to get others in your chapter excited about social media use? Which platform works best for individual member engagement and why?

#4. If you have found a particular chapter to be good at a specific social media site/platform, please share the URL,  account name, link etc.

Don’t forget to identify the specific question- Q1 or A1, for example – in your tweet so we can all follow along.

In February, we will move into a general discussion of how to broaden this chat beyond social media and into a discussion of SHRM chapter issues in general. Stay tuned!

A day or so before I was to depart for college, I became violently ill with what I thought was gastroenteritis, (what people commonly call stomach flu). But it cleared up almost immediately after I met my roommate and settled into my dorm room.

It was really stress, you see, from a girl who had almost never been out of her white-bread, suburban Detroit, lower-middle class community. We were poor, and even restaurant dinners and family vacations were totally foreign to me. The idea of being 90 miles away from my mother and family was sufficiently stressful to induce 2 days of vomiting.

After college I returned to the same suburban community where I grew up, beginning my first career as a police officer and maintaining some old friendships and forging  new ones among co-workers and neighbors. I stayed safely snuggled in those six square miles, leaving infrequently and never going very far when I did.

Then I met and married my husband, and he yanked me out of my safety zone to live in his world. That world was only another suburb about a 1/2 hour drive away, but to me it was like moving to another planet. I didn’t know the geography and, before cell phones and computers, immediately lost touch with many people.  I didn’t get physically sick this time, but I was irritable, argumentative, or crying for at least 3 months after moving. More stress.

So I wasn’t really sure what to expect a few weeks ago when I packed up my dogs and car and  began the biggest move of my life: 1,400 miles and almost 24 hours of driving, from Novi, Michigan to Naples, Florida – from the same 30 or so square miles I had lived my entire life to, as my friend Dave Ryan said, ” just north of Cuba.”

This time, though, I didn’t get physically sick. I haven’t screamed, cried, or other wise acted out. I’ve been tired, sure, but peaceful. Calm. Happy. This time, my friends and family have been with me the entire time:

• Driving across the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati, when I thought of Eric Weingardner, Jennifer McClure, Benjamin McCall,  and several others who live there.
• Hearing “Everyday People” by Sly and the Family Stone on Sirius/XM Sixties radio in Kentucky, which I will forever associate with Steve Browne‘s broad smile and ready hug.
• Driving by the I-71/Louisville exit and recapturing the HRevolution #1 post-lunch walk with Lisa Rosendahl.
• Thinking of Mike Krupa when the rakish young man in a Mini Cooper flashed me a bright smile as he passed in northern Tennessee.
• Watching a family walk their GSD puppy in a Georgia rest area and wondering how Deirdre Honner was.
• Driving through Atlanta and remembering everyone from HRevolution #3, especially Neil Morrison, James Papiano, Tammy Colson, and Frank Zupan.
• Hearing Jason Danieley sing “You Walk With Me” from The Full Monty, who is forever associated in my mind with Trish McFarlane.
• Having several Floridian Facebook friends reassure me that I will get used to, even welcome, having geckos skitter across the kitchen floor.

Last week I went to my first Florida HR meeting. I was inevitably asked by a tablemate what I did for a living. I explained a little about me and my social media venture.  One of the people at the table made the standard complaint about social media and “not wanting to read about what people eat for breakfast.”

I don’t mind hearing about your breakfast; I find it endearing. I want to see pictures of your kids and grandkids, too. Tell me about your good days and your bad – I’ll try to be there for both, because the gift of fellowship I get in return is worth it.

Social media changed my life, and it is the greatest gift I have ever received. Thank you.

Have a wonderful holiday season and the best New Year ever.