People @ Work

Mad Men @ Work

I'm a little late to the game, but I have recently fallen in love with the AMC series, Mad Men. There are many different reasons for that, one of which is seeing how the characters behave in work situations. Although I'm sure that many of behaviors are exaggerated for dramatic purposes, the whole show is an example of how much things have changed in the workplace.

Some of the more blatant behaviors are the smoking and drinking at work. I don't just mean a 3 martini lunch (although they do that, too). I'm talking about the bar that is a staple in every executive's office. Throughout the day you see the guys discuss, celebrate and stress out with a cocktail in hand. Not only that, but the liquor is supplied by the company! Certainly there are/were differences between types of work places. I have to believe that the amount of alcohol in an ad agency office would be very different than the amount in a government office, for instance. The constant smoking is also notable, but that is true in and out of the office.

The sexual harassment in the offices of Sterling Cooper is unbelievable. The women in the office are clearly servants and are treated horribly. They are objectified and dismissed at every turn. My favorite story line is one where Peggy Olsen (played by Elissabeth Moss, Zoey Bartlet from the West Wing) is the first woman in the office to break out of the secretary pool and into copy writing. She fights the sexist perceptions and behaviors with a subtle strength. For instance when the agency wins a new client, all of the execs decide to take the new client out to celebrate. They choose to go to a strip club and they don't think about how that excludes Peggy. In fact, they don't even consider that she may want to join them at all. Peggy decides to go despite the lack of an invitation, much to the surprise of her co-workers. Unfortunately, the client sees that as an opportunity to belittle Peggy by making her sit in his lap. Peggy reluctantly goes along with it, clearly out of her element.

I think that it would be a hoot to watch each episode in a room full of HR folks to hear everyone say OMG! in unison and to talk about what it might have been like to actually work in that kind of environment. Like I said, I'm sure there is much exaggeration in the show, but it does make for an interesting watch!

When nobody's looking...

"Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking." ~ J.C. Watts

One of my all time favorite quotes and the basic premise of Judy McLeish's post over at The Employee Factor called Watch Someone Drive Before You Hire Them!

I agree with Judy that I see people on the road quite frequently whom I would never hire because of their inability to handle stress in a civil manor, their rude behavior and their lack of concern for fellow human beings. Although we can't observe candidates on the road (usually), we can get brief glimpses of them in other situations.

One thing I do on a regular basis is ask our receptionists about candidates. How a candidate treats a receptionist can tell you how they treat people in general, and specifically, how they treat people they may see as unimportant, beneath them, or generally un-influential. Please note that I do not see receptionist this way. On the contrary, I think that they are HUGELY important to how a company is perceived and to vital day to day operations which is precisely why I ask for their help in screening candidates.

• Did they engage with the receptionist as a human being or as a cog in the wheel?
• Did they say please and thank you when they were offered a beverage?
• Did they clean up after themselves, or did they leave the coffee cup in the lobby assuming that "someone" would clean it up for them?
• Did they attempt to engage in conversation while waiting, or did they ignore the person at the front desk?
• Did they thank the receptionist for his/her help before they left?

A couple of times the candidate's behavior towards the receptionist was so bad that I didn't even take into consideration what went on in the interview. It was THAT bad. I would much rather find that kind of stuff out BEFORE I hire someone, rather than afterwards.

"Back door" references can give you some of that same information. If you are luck enough to be able to talk to someone that has worked with the candidate, but isn't one of their stated references, you can get some great insight into someones work habits, style and character.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to observe peoples' behavior when they think that nobody is looking?

LinkedIn adds corporate data

As you may have seen, last Friday LinkedIn added a new feature to its site. There are now profiles on the businesses that LinkedIn users work for, aggregated by all of the users who have identified themselves as employees of those companies.

Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal highlighted this new feature in a recent blog post. Ben briefly discusses the fact that some of the data that is shared may not be comfortable for the companies because they don't have any control over the information. Data such as recent promotions and new hires as well as already public information like revenue and location are featured on each company's profile page.

As an HR person who loves to use LinkedIn to find people as well as to stay connected with people I already know, I find myself both loving this new information as well as understanding the discomfort it creates. I quickly realized that there are several people who still have the company I work for listed as their current employer, although they have been gone for several years. This disrupts not only the accuracy of who is linked to the organization, but also skews the data on demographics. In the end, is that a big deal? Maybe not. It creates and interesting situation, however. Do you contact those folks and ask them to update their profiles? Is it worth the time and hassle?

In the end, I love disruptive technologies and think that the challenges they offer us make us better. I'm curious, though, how other companies are seeing this. What other challenges might this and other changes like it present and how do we work WITH the disruptions instead of fight AGAINST them?


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Video Recruiting

Recently, a colleague of mine alerted me to an interesting way of recruiting. Union Square Ventures has had success with this method before and is trying it again. What they are doing is posting the job as a blog entry on the corporate blog and asking applicants to apply by leaving a comment on the post with a link to their web presence.

While this seems like a cool new way to attract candidates who are using Web 2.0 technologies, How does it play in the legal world where being able to see the candidate's gender, ethnicity, age and/or visible disabilities before they even get to present their credentials? Will we ever get comfortable with this kind of approach? I think that it will be quite a while before the HR world embraces this new "application process." However, I love what it does from a branding perspective and would hate to miss out on some interesting opportunities for fear of being "uncomfortable."

I'm sorry!

How likely are you to say you are sorry? At work? At home? In general?

A co-worker of mine shared this article with me yesterday. In For higher pay, learn to say you're sorry, the author (Anne Fisher, FORTUNE) discusses a survey done by Zogby International (hired by The Pearl Outlet) to find out about why and how people say they are sorry. An unexpected result of the study presented itself. Turns out, your willingness to say you are sorry may be related to how much money you make.

"People earning over $100,000 a year are almost twice as likely to apologize after an argument or mistake as those earning $25,000 or less, the survey found."

One of the conclusions drawn is that high earners tend to be more secure and therefore not feel that they are giving anything up by saying they are sorry. Another theory is that people who make more money are more apt to believe in the old adage that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Regardless of what the possible cause/effect correlation is, as the article goes on to point out, well-timed apologies can be very effective. Have you ever been in a situation where someone's apology completely took the wind out of a conflict situation? There's nothing like a heartfelt 'Wow, I'm really sorry" to make you take a deep breath and focus on the situation rather than the blame. By getting blame (even if it is just perceived) off of the table, it allows those involved in the situation to shift their efforts towards working the issue.

Even if the blame does not belong squarely on one person's shoulders, a well-timed and honest "Gosh, I'm so sorry that I didn't do my part. What can I do to help make it right?" can go a long way in building trust and respect between people. In fact, the willingness to take the fall for something, the ability to say "the buck stops here" is a tried and true indicator of great leadership.

Will saying you are sorry for everything get you a raise? Probably not. At least not immediately or directly. However, genuine apologies will go a long way in building trust and strengthening relationships.

Another new beginning

I've been thinking about doing this for about a year now. Writing a blog that focuses on HR related issues and work/life in general has been on my to do list for long enough. I'm checking it off today. Done.

At least the start of it (and the naming of it, which proved to be VERY difficult) is done. My first post, done.

Now comes the hard part. The real work. And the real joy!

As a disclaimer, I'm not an expert. I'm not highly educated in management, business, or human behavior. I do have an English degree for what that's worth. And I have 14 years of work experience, at least 10 of which have been in a management capacity.

But that's the boring stuff. It's on my resume.

Currently I head up an HR department of 2 at a company of about 30 people. I know, a lot of you are saying "Two HR people for 30 employees? That's crazy." Yes, in many situations it would be crazy. In my case, it is less about where we are now and more about where we are going. We should be about double that by the end of 2008 and then we could be about double that again by the end of 2009. 

So I am staffed for the future, not the present. I am fortunate enough to be able to do that.

As far as where exactly I work, it isn't a big secret I'm trying to keep. I'm sure you could figure it out with some research. But I want my blogging to be focused on the work, not the name of the organization, so for now I'm not going to just come out with it. If it ever becomes relevant to what I'm blogging about, I'll certainly fess up, but for now I don't think it is central to what I want to write about.

My vision for this blog is to be able to write about whatever floats my boat on any particular day that is interesting and somewhat relevant to the working world. I may post about current events (as they relate to HR), human behavior, time management, career issues, work/life balance, ethics, etc.

I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I think I will!