Fistful of Talent

10 Minutes That Mattered in the Founding of SuccessFactors...

Forbes has been running a piece on "10 Minutes that Mattered", where they ask CEOs and other influencers in the business world to recall a situation that taught them a lot about life and shaped who they are in the business world. 

Every once in a while, you have the big moments in life.  You know the ones - maybe your grandfather imparted some wisdom to you or a mentor taught you a lesson.

Or maybe you just jacked some kids in the face

More from a profile as a part of the series at Forbes:

"Lars Dalgaard didn't pull his punches when it came to coming up with his company's catch phrase. For the $112 million (sales) Successfactors ( SFSF - news - people ), it's "No assholes." Dalgaard's referring to the kiss-ups and back-stabbers inside many organizations who get ahead not on merit but on political elbowing. Successfactors' software aims to reward the truly good by measuring performance. As it turns out, Dalgaard adopted this philosophy young in life.

"I was the only foreigner in an English school when I was 13 years old. That experience taught me just how low a tolerance level there is for anyone who's different. They teased me because of my accent. They would call me "bacon" because--and this I can now find funny--England imports the most bacon in the world from Denmark.

Now, I'm normally an anti-violence kind of guy. But I eventually had to punch a couple of kids in the face. It really wasn't my nature. I learned you fight back when you need to. Don't let someone walk all over you. You're a happy dolphin most of the time; then, when someone attacks, you're a shark.

Oh, I give people a chance. Never judge a book by its cover. But fight for your own place."

LOL.  Now, I can understand the story and I get that part.  Playing devil's advocate, if you need to fight for your own place in an organization, doesn't that mean you might be seen as a a****** by those around you?

Has there ever been an environment more full of contradictions than the American workplace?

On Declined Job Offers & Why Sometimes, I Really Believe Recruiting is Like Dating...

I am not sure when it last happened to me... but the other week, I had a candidate turn down a job offer. In this economy? I know. And it was a great, fair offer. The feeling of rejection? Slightly piercing. Okay, deeply piercing. I mean... it's been a while since I've had anyone reject me for anything... a date, a job. It just isn't something I'm used to! Ha! I kid! Being rejected though... it reminded me of an ongoing disagreement I've had with my best friend on his dating strategy and the parallel lessons for recruiting.

My BFF? He's a good looking guy. He's handsome, charming and sweet. He has a good job, no particular oddities or freakish tendencies and he's a ton of fun. I love him to death and think he's a great package - I even dated him myself at one point. If I had to liken him to an employer, because after all there's a point in all of this, he'd be one of those great places to work and have a kicking employment brand. People are drawn to him and he doesn't have to do much recruiting. But in some ways, he has a bit of a retention problem as at 34, he's still single. His turnover rate? Well, let's not go there because that would make ME just another statistic. There's voluntary and involuntary turnover though. He's ready to meet "the one" though. So what gives?

My theory is that it's his approach to dating. He casts the net wide, pulls 'em in, and because he's a great catch, he always has lots of options. The kicker though? He juggles multiple gals at once because his theory is that he should have backup options. If one gal doesn't work out, he wants to have alternatives who are lined up and ready for him. So on any given night when we are out on the town, I can watch my BFF working his phone and flirting with any or all of the dames. And it's entertaining, trust me. (Except for those fateful nights where they all show up at the same place in which case I have to run some major interference. Oi vey...)

My issue with his approach? He's too unfocused. I have long nagged him that each and every one of the gals he "talks to" can sense that he's not entirely present. There's just no way he can really give a gal the attention she deserves and probably wants out of him because he's spread too thin. He's not fully engaged - with any of them. If he really wanted to court someone? I have always argued that he should focus a bit more and give his attention to one girl a time. A gal can tell after all when her suitor is distracted so give her complete, undivided attention and then if she's not the one, move on. Yet my BFF thinks that it's opportunity lost. He doesn't want to be left standing in the cold alone if the object of his attention doesn't pan out. He wants a pipeline of gals.

But back to my declined job offer... We were all in love with the candidate and thought she was the one. We pulled out all the stops - the equivalent of red roses, love poems, wining and dining and all. I was singularly focused on her and getting her in the door... but then she said no thanks and I felt like I had been dumped and left out in the cold. And I can't help but to sit here and wonder if maybe my BFF is on to something.

Editor's Note- Jessica Lee is a Sr. Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR, and wondering how she can avoid using the job boards to fill the next spot in her organization...

Beer Bust - The Sobering Side of Employee Entitlement...

I worked for a tech company in the 90's...and it was awesome.  We had a bunch of really bright, creative and fun people running around in shorts and flip flops making things happen.  We even had a vending machine that dispersed free cokes (regional note:  In Texas we refer to all soft drinks as "cokes", even those living in Pepsi and Dr. Pepper sections of the state.  If you say "pop" we know you're not from around these parts.)

Then, a horrible event happened - - the late 90's!  Along with the tech bust came massive expense reductions, which included no more free cokes.

You would have thought we'd just asked people to wear suits, closed-toe shoes and take a 50% pay cut given the outrage - - but nope, we'd simply asked them to take their caffeine habits down a notch or pay for their drinks.  AND, we only charged 25 cents!!!

It seems the same sense of entitlement is rearing its ugly head once again.  But this time, one company is messing with their employee's BEER.  Here's the low-down regarding the horror going on at New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, CO.

"There are downsides (to employee ownership).  Some workers get sucked into an entitlement mentality, Jordan says, citing a staffer who asked to borrow a company car to go on vaction. (The employee was politely told no.)

The recession has led New Belgium to cut back on some benefits.  Annual raises have shrunk from between 7% and 8% to 4%, and limits have been imposed on expensable lunches.  And until recently workers were allowed to take a full case of beer home each week.  That last cutback was hard to take.

It was a bit of an adjustment, says Orgolini.  It's hard to change what people have gotten used to."

Seriously?  You work for an awesome company that gives employees an ownership stake and a free custom bike after a year of employment.  After five years, you can go on an all-expense-paid trip to Belgium.  And even with the downturn, you STILL get to take home two free six-packs of beer a week!!!

I get that it is tough to change what people come to expect, but don't you wonder if the CEO of New Belgium wants to smack anyone that gives her grief over going from 24 to 12 beers?!!  I know that I was not overly sympathetic to our employee's indignation over having to pay 25 cents for their cokes.

You've got to admire a company that lives its values and has perks that represent the foundation of the organization.  I kind of hope anyone that has given them grief over the loss of free beer is handed their bicycle helmet and sent peddling!

Editors Note- Kathy Rapp is the Managing Director of hrQ in Texas, where she helps progressive companies find groovy HR Talent to drive business results.  Prior to joining hrQ, Kathy booked more than 15 years of progressive human resources leadership experience working for such companies as Morgan Stanley and First Data Corporation.  A connoisseur of the intersection between pop culture and business, Kathy believes many talent issues can be addressed via the succession planning lessons experienced by Van Halen (David Lee/Sammy and sadly, Gary Cherone).

See My Workplace at DAXKO.... A Great Place to Work....

In case you missed it, my company (DAXKO) was named one of 7 great places to work by Fortune Small Business.  I've been at DAXKO 11 weeks, so I'm responsible for none of the good stuff.  Still, hope to be a part of adding to it in the future, and the good stuff represented in the article was part of the reason I decided to make a career change and join the DAXKO team.

One programming note - if you read the Fortune article, it focused on all the fun stuff that looks great on the company brochure to candidates.  We work pretty hard as a company as well, but stuff related to that didn't make the cut.  Next time, Fortune?

News video clip about the article here...

Can You Have a "Best In Class" Culture with 82% Turnover?

If you don't follow me over at the HR Capitalist, that's OK.  I can always buy time at FOT from the powers that be to tempt you to read my stuff here.  Here's a story I've been tracking for awhile at the HRC, and it always seems to come back up every 3-4 months.  There's some fresh meat at the end for the carnivores in the crowd.

The topic is the performance management company SuccessFactors, who has always made the decision to push their culture as a "we eat the dog food" type of selling point.  Makes sense - they manage performance and push employees via their culture statement and internal performance management processes - why wouldn't they be your choice to buy performance management solutions from?

Last week, I ran this letter to the editor at Workforce where an apparent former employee took SuccessFactors and CEO Lars Dalgaard to task for the culture at SuccessFactors.

Take a look at the letter linked - it's a nasty one.  If you've been in the people business long enough, you know that you can't please everyone all the time. 

With that in mind, here was the question I ran last week at the HRC - Is it better to:

A. Openly promote the culture you seek (I'm talking external promotion) and risk the violent reaction of those former employees who feel like you never lived up to your promises/claims, or

B. Be more reserved in your promotion both internally and externally, with the risk of lowering the chances that all your employees clearly understand what you desire your culture to be about.

While SuccessFactors has clearly chosen Option A, what's interesting to me is that almost every other performance management solution provider takes the Option B route.  They're just much more conservative than SuccessFactors, which is not to say that they don't have great cultures and good stuff going on.

Instead, what it may mean is they've seen too much ex-employee reaction to the marketing of the SuccessFactors culture.  Here's a comment from over at the Capitalist from reader "DC", who was kind enough to go out to GlassDoor and see what ex-employees are saying about SuccessFactors.  Here's what DC reported back:

Interesting follow up post Kris. I noticed on your previous post on this subject that one of you commenters wondered if SuccessFactors had similar complaints logged on glassdoor.com. That was the first time I had ever heard of glassdoor, so I checked it out. For a company that claims to have a no jerks rule embedded in their code, Successfactors employees seem to paint a different picture. I’m sure most companies have some disgruntled employees, however even current employees of this company seem to say that the exception to the no jerks rule is the CEO. I don’t know the guy, but the comments about him and the way he runs the business are certainly at odds with their company’s creed. Look at some of this stuff – the one that stood out the most was the first one below from a former HR person at the company.

“I used to have to give this "company pitch" enthusiastically and didn't know whether to break out laughing or cry at my deceit. Someone at the company had better honestly address the extremely high and disturbing turn over at SFSF. During 2007, the turnover was 82%.”

“Management's behavior gives you the sense they feel you should feel blessed to work there, which makes employees feel like disposable commodities. CEO is not afraid to publicly blast or insult people on email, etc.”

“Bad behavior eventually catches up with people & companies. Look at Wall Street. Lars Dalgaard lacks integrity. Stop promoting the (No Jerk ) rule. If you are going to promote something of value then walk the walk instead of spewing out sound bites of Self-Righteousness.”

“In my time there, I never had a performance review done on me (yes that is the main product they sell), didn't get to participate in the 360 career development surveys for my management team (despite all of the "bible thumping" from the CEO over this) and was precluded from having career development discussions by my manager and his manager.”

“The CEO is volatile, the "no a-hole" rule is not followed, there is intense favoritism, the politics are rampant, the morale is very low, and there are constant fire drills (initiated by Lars) to accomplish things which are in direct conflict with what Lars says are the goals of the company.”

“I don't believe that Lars Dalgaard even takes the "No AH" rule (No Jerk Rule) seriously so why should the employees.”

“Ironically, for a company that provides solutions for HCM, it does not do a good job of Performance Management of its employees.”

Wow.  Thanks for the research DC.  I'll leave it here for today - If the 82% turnover figure is right, I'd abandon the external promotion until I got some things fixed, either on the selection or culture (i.e. retention) front.

What say you?

Working the Words "Nice 'Stache" Into Your Video Employment Brand...

I'm slowly getting drawn by the need, no the pull, of ramping up our employment brand via video.  But what draws me to the medium isn't the opportunity to pull all of our employees together for the old company son; it's the opportunity to be a little snarky/tongue in cheek and give candidates a "wink," via video, that it's going to be OK to have some fun at our company.

Case in point - these Vitamin Water videos that were shot with spokesperson, Steve Nash.  I've read that these were not shot as commercials, but rather as employment brand videos to have a little fun with employees, and market the accessibility of Nash as part of the Vitamin Water team.  Take a look at these videos and I'll see you after the jump (email subscribers, click through, you don't want to miss these videos of Nash razzing Vitamin Water employees):

steve nash “the spokesman” – the office from Bill Connely on Vimeo.

steve nash “the spokesman” – training from Bill Connely on Vimeo.

steve nash “the spokesman” – photo shoot from Bill Connely on Vimeo.

The first one's the best from an employment branding standpoint.  I'm thinking about grabbing Al from accounting and making him the "spokesperson" for DAXKO.  I can see us doing something with the second one, maybe following one of our inactive developers around to see how he trains during the week (video games, run to Taco Bell in the afternoon, etc.).  The last one has a Zoolander feel, so you'd need the right employee for that one.

The possibilities are endless.  What am I (and you) waiting for?   All things being equal, would you rather go to work for Serious Inc., or would you rather work for a company that openly makes fun of itself?

Nice 'Stache...

What To Do With a Workhorse Who Never Shows Up.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a hiring manager.  He wants to interview a current contractor on his team for a full-time role.  However, he is having some reservations. 

Mainly...this guy has trouble showing up for work.  When he does come in, it's usually around noon or so.  He's missed meetings, missed 1:1s, and is often hard to find.  Hearing this, my immediate thought is, "Why are we even talking about this guy and, more importantly, why is he still contracting on your team?"

The reason this guy is still around is that, when he is working, he's a freakin' machine!  He may not be at his desk, but he's putting in the hours.  Much like me in college, he's often online at midnight or 2 in the morning.  He's still putting in 50+ hours per week.  And, the work he cranks out is great.  He's found and fixed problems that could be major. He's stepped up to work on new challenges facing the team and had great success.  In general, he's impressed a lot of people with his raw talent and abilities.

But, then...he misses an important AM meeting, and everyone goes, "Gawwww!" 

So, what to do? 

We don't work in an environment that expects you to be chained to your desk from 9-5.  We encourage people to set their schedules and just do a great job.  Telecommuting is made very,very easy for us so that, on a fine sunny day when we would rather work outside than in our office, we can.  Or...we can just work from home and start our weekend a bit early, as long as the job is done.

Still...even with our work-life balance and telecommuting capabilities, we're still expected to be team players.  We're still expected to be with our teams when it's important.  Results are often driven by these team efforts. 

I think, if one decides to go forward in a situation like this, two things are important. 

--First, from an HR point of view, it's important for me to outline what our culture expects from our employees.  Sure, we make it easy to work from home.  But responsibilities don't lie only in your production.  Senior people are expected to serve as mentors to more junior people.  We want to grow the talent on our team, and that will be a real challenge if you're always working remotely. 

--Second, it's really important that the hiring manager sets expectations around what defines success in a particular position.  Practices that can be tolerated by a work-horse contractor cannot become practices of a full time employee, of which much more is expected.  Success in this role is defined, not just as being a kick arse programmer, but also in being a rock star teammate who helps the team become better as a whole.  

If we decide to move forward, are we essentially condoning his behavior?  By knowing beforehand what we're getting and hiring him anyway, are we telling him that we'll continue to look past his absence?  Maybe.  But, an important factor about making the switch from contractor to FTE is that your overall performance affects your bottom line.  Raises, bonuses, stock and promotions are all dependent on your total contribution.  If we're condoning it by hiring him, he'll see a big rebuke come review time. 

Editor's Note - Jason Pankow is a Senior Recruiter for Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE and Xbox Software groups.  Jason supports the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, bringing in technical, as well as creative, talent to Redmond.  Look him up on Xbox Live, where he'll ring you up for a triple-double as Steve Nash on NBA 2K8 or kick it old-school via a 7-digit score on Galaga...  

Why Enterprise Rent-A-Car is Smarter Than Your Company in Talent....

I'm going to describe a service encounter I have frequently when I travel, followed in parentheses by what I experience with the competition:

At the company I'm referencing, the service reps at the counter:

-Smile when I enter (competition - sporadic smiles, with variability to grumpy).

-Are great at stage banter - the art of making small talk while they serve you - meaning you get an emotional connection that's hard to get elsewhere (competition - rare stage banter, most of the reps are just trying to get the transaction done).

-Are conversational while they try to upsell me, meaning it feels like a conversation - I don't even mind telling them "no" (competition - sells via a pre-packaged script that they've memorized, which is quoted as they sound like a robot).

-Seem genuinely interested in what I do for a living, what I'm in town for, where I'm from.  I've learned it's because most of the reps at this company have strong career ambitions of their own, and they've learned to ask questions and network (competition - rarely am I asked what I'm doing in town).  They're naturally curious...

Which service encounter would you rather have?  The answer is obvious.  The company referenced is Enterprise-Rent-A-Car.

The secret sauce for Enterprise?  As reported by Fay Hansen in Workforce Recruiting, Enterprise will employ 1,800 interns this summer, most of them rising juniors and seniors. By the time the interns head back to school in September, most of the rising seniors will have received a formal job offer from the company, and by the end of the fall semester, most will have accepted.

Here's what the article doesn't tell you.  While Enterprise fills their talent pipeline almost exclusively with young college grads, the strategy isn't about age.

The strategy instead is about opportunity and competition.  All the college grads take the job with Enterprise for one big reason - career opportunity.  Enterprise actively sells the career dream of being promoted and rising through the ranks.  They've got thousands of stories related to kids starting with them out of college, then becoming branch, district and regional managers.  It's one of the best cultural plays you'll find in the area of career opportunity.

Of course, with 80% of their positions in retail-based customer service, they're perfectly positioned for the model but give them props - the strategy leads to a culture where I'll actively choose Enterprise as a customer, because I know when I go in that I'll get the responsiveness that I outlined above.

Enterprise rocks.  I'm not getting paid for this post.  Try them if you never have and experience what I outlined above, then ask yourself, "Did that feel different"?

I'm betting it will....

Editor's Note: By day, Kris Dunn is the VP of People at DAXKO, a cool software firm dedicated to providing solutions to the best membership-driven organizations in America. At night, he morphs into a blogger at The HR Capitalist and the Founder and Executive Editor of Fistful of Talent. That makes him a career VP of HR, a blogger, a dad and a hoops junkie, the order of which changes based on his mood. Tweet him @kris_dunn...

Neil Diamond and Will Ferrell Love Them Some Casual Dress Code Policy...

It's Wednesday and I work at a software company.  Is there any doubt I'm in jeans?  If you're in a button-up and wrinkled khakis, don't hate me because I'm casual...

Just do what Neil Diamond and Will Ferrell would do and change your dress code policies - to ALL CASUAL, ALL THE TIME....

Here's a clip to inspire you (readers and email subscribers - click on the title of the post to get the video)...

Is Ferrell hilarious or what? I wish I would have had this clip when we moved to the policy of wearing jeans anytime you want.  I guess there's still time to make it part of the employment brand...

My Word Isn't Good Enough? Verbal Job Offers...

I was chatting with a recruiter friend the other day about job offers. It's probably one of my favorite parts of my job. But we've started noticing a somewhat disturbing trend...

Let me set the stage. My pal picks up the phone to make an offer to a candidate. They talk through the details, the candidate was excited as can be so they talked about a possible start date... and then she says she'd give her notice after she received the offer in writing. My recruiter pal says sure, and that she'd send her an email outlining what they had discussed and once they had a start date finalized, she'd put the offer letter together and have the powers that be sign the official letter.

The candidate said great, but she wanted to know when she would receive a signed offer letter. It seemed she wasn't willing to give her notice until she had something in her hands with an actual signature. She wanted real ink.

Am I the only one who thinks this is sad? She was given the offer verbally, she received a follow up via email outlining the terms discussed... but that wasn't enough. And mind you, this was a corporate recruiter extending the offer directly. There was no middle man there.

I've seen this a handful of times, too. And I'm not sure I "get it" completely. To check my gut, I sent a tweet out about it and the responses floored me - both via tweet and separately by email. Recruiters and HR pros saying they understood candidates responding in this way... it seemed there were a handful of folks who have had to rescind offers in the past, or that once offers had been made, they have had positions fall through, budgets disappear, or the requirements of a position changed... and job seekers who came back also saying they felt the same way about needing something in writing, with an actual signature, because they didn't trust verbal offers, probably were the recipients of offers made by the very same recruiters who responded to me... sigh.

Is anyone else confused by this?

First, I understand that given the state of the economy and the uncertainty all around us, sure. It isn't unreasonable for a candidate to want an offer in writing. Leaving a job for another job... it could be understandably a little risky. But I struggle because I just don't understand why the relationships that I've built with candidates, my word, and a confirmation via email isn't enough? Isn't that a lot to give? I mean, come on! When you put all three together, why would you ever think that I'd go back on my word?

But, maybe, more importantly... why have so many job seekers been jerked around when it comes to employment offers that they have to be so overly cautious? I mean for those of you making offers out there, what the heck are you guys doing?

If you're a recruiter, sure, make the excuse that something happened behind the scenes that you weren't aware of and surfaced at the last moment, after you made the offer to a candidate. Maybe it was a budget issue, a contract issue, an issue with your hiring manager. Make all the excuses you'd like. For me? The reality is simply that you weren't communicating enough, weren't in touch enough with the business, or your internal communication or approval channels suck. You should never make an offer that you can't keep and that you don't think will be accepted. Be in touch with the business. Do your homework. Make sure everyone is fully aware, in the know, in the loop, and ready for the offer to be accepted... otherwise?

You're doin' it wrong. And you're embarrassing me because candidates now have doubt about my word and whether I'll come through... and that just ain't right.

Editor's Note- Jessica Lee is a Senior Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR and wondering how she can avoid using the job boards to fill the next spot in her organization...