Why HR?

So, all you HR types out there, why did you get into HR?

Lately it feels like all the HR people I've met more or less fell onto it from other positions. Not that many of them are like me, who deliberately signed up for a career in human resources. I guess I'm wondering, is this common? I got into HR because I have always liked working with people, dislike sales and wasn't good enough with kids to see teaching as a viable option (though I did, at one point, get accepted into the Secondary Education B.Ed program at the University of Calgary, then decided not to go), so HR seemed like a natural fit. I've always enjoyed training as well, and conflict resolution. In short, it seemed like a natural fit. I enjoy recruiting a lot, since it's all about people, and problem solving. In fact, the only part of HR practice I'm not big on is termination.

Why did you get into HR?

NKE Study

Well folks, I certainly am finding life a little on the full side these days. There's a little over a month to go before the NKE exam, and I am studying like a mad thing. It's a very intimidating exam- 70% is a pass, and the fail rate is 60%, which is somewhat nervous-making. So we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I go to work, come home, and study. My Kobo is loaded with PDF documents on labour law and HR Best Practices so I can read on the train during my commute, and my desk is breeding documents from the looks of things.

For those of you not in Canada, or otherwise unaware, the NKE is the National Knowledge Exam, and it is step one in the process of achieving CHRP, or Certified Human Resources Professional, status. In order to write the NKE you must now have a Bachelor's degree, and, as of January 2013, 3 years experience in your field. After you successfully pass the NKE, you may call yourself a CHRP Candidate, and you have five years to write the NPPA, or National Professional Practice Assessment. Once you pass the NPPA, you are a CHRP, and you have to recertify every three years with a certain number of CE credits.

In short, it's a big deal. I'm very excited, and very nervous, and very, very busy, so you probably won't hear a whole lot from me until afterwards.

CHRP Status

Well, folks, I am officially registered to write the first CHRP exam, the NKE, or National Knowledge exam, on May 5th. That means I'm well into study mode, so blog postings may be even less frequent than they are right now. Trying to fit in blogging, studying, and a 40+ hour workweek along with a job search is frankly kind of exhausting. Still, I'm looking forward to writing the exam, and hopefully being able to call myself a CHRP candidate.

I know that feelings as to the value of this designation are somewhat mixed. Personally, I favour a licensing designation that requires CE to remain current, because it cuts down on those people who have never learned anything new since they left school however many decades ago, and I think a national designation for HR professionals is a good thing. I also think the changes to the program (such as requiring the completion of a bachelor's degree, and, as of 2013, three years' experience in the field) should help increase the standards and make the CHRP designation more valuable.

So, I'm studying, and both looking forward to and dreading the exam. Any of you Calgary people, I will see you there!!

The Importance of References

Any prepared job hunter will walk into an interview with extra copies of his or her resume, a notebook, and references. References are a critical part of the job searching process, and they're equally important on both sides. Any prepared interviewer will ask you for references, and make sure to call and see what your references say about you.

Of course, one presumes that even the least prepared job hunter has someone in mind for a reference who will say something nice about him or her. Recruiters and employers fully expect that you, as the interviewee, are not going to be dumb enough to give a reference for someone who will only have bad things to say. There's also a number of companies whose policies are limited to confirming dates of employment and nothing else, so the value to a reference is not always that great, but it's still a critical step to check. Because, in my experience at least, most people do have more to say than that, and oftentimes you can learn more about the personality of the interviewee when he or she is not on his or her very best interview behaviour.

As a job hunter, make sure you pick your references carefully. A supervisor is always ideal, provided he or she can tell someone what makes you wonderful. Just make sure you ask in advance, and try to feel out what he or she might have to say about you and your work.

I've seen a lot of employers skip the reference check altogether. Sure, they'll ask for a copy of your references, but then it never goes any further than that, and a hiring decision is made before references are called at all. In my opinion, this is a mistake. Just because you presume someone's references are preselected to show their best side (and they probably are) doesn't mean that you won't learn anything valuable from the call. Oftentimes, if this step is skipped, it is because there is a rush to fill the position and the candidate seems perfectly qualified, or because the hiring manager or recruiter is under a time crunch and has other priorities. Nevertheless, the reference check is an important step in the hiring process, and most of the time, it really doesn't take very long, and it might just change your hiring decision.

Do you check references? Why or why not?

The Power of Positive Feedback

Many of us know that positive feedback is important, and that a manager who gives out as much positive feedback as negative ( or 2:1) is going to get better motivated, happier people out of the deal. But how many of us actually do it?

I had a manager at one point who constantly felt under-appreciated and ill-used by her boss, the regional manager. He played managers off each other, by talking up the accomplishments of one to the other, and never said anything positive about you to your face. My manager was certainly able to recognize that he was doing a terrible job of increasing job satisfaction, engagement, and motivation, and felt his was a poor management style. Which it was, however, she failed to see that his lack of positive feedback was the same as hers to her staff.

During one conversation about the regional manager, where she was complaining about his lack of appreciation, we discussed the importance of positive feedback in the workplace and I asked her gently when the last time was that she had said something positive about any of her staff's work to that staff member? She was quite appalled to realize that, while she did say positive things, it was almost never to the employee directly. She'd say good things about someone, but very rarely to their faces.

If you want to be a better manager, make a point of saying positive things about your employees, and make sure the positives outweigh the negatives. Then make sure your positivity goes directly to the employee in question. It'll take conscious effort, because we are all much more used to negativity at work, but it'll pay off in terms of employee job satisfaction if they feel appreciated for what they do.

Culture in the Workplace

What's your workplace culture? How would you define cultural fit with your organization? Do you even know?

Most of us don't. "Cultural fit" is one of those things that we're assured is very important in finding the right job, but when you get right down to the nitty-gritty, what does that even mean?

I've always found the concept of a workplace culture to be a little bit nebulous, and I come from a background in Anthropology, where "culture" applies to just about everything. The problem isn't the validity of the concept of workplace culture, but rather on the definition and identification of it.

Within the context of hiring/job hunting, we all try to assess cultural fit on both sides. But how do you go about doing that? It's especially difficult as the person doing the hiring, because while you might have a solid idea of what your workplace culture is, how do you assess fit reliably based on an interview and a resume? Since chances are your interviewee is trying his or her very best to convince you that he or she would be a perfect fit, regardless of the truth, because sometimes, you just gotta find a job even if the fit isn't ideal. As the jobseeker, though, it is difficult to read between the lines and figure out what the culture is really like- and frankly, if you've been unemployed for six months, you're not gonna care all that much what the culture is like. You just want a job.

Every organization out there seems to have values and a mission statement these days, so that's one way for the jobseeker to try and see something about the culture. The problem is, it's always difficult to tell from the outside how closely the organization adheres to their values and what that means. If you have a connection with someone within the organization, ask him or her about the culture and see where that gets you.

Personally, I feel as if we often overstate the importance of culture. Don't get me wrong, workplace culture and fit is very important for the overall level of engagement, I just feel as if cultural fit is one of the favourite buzzwords of the moment. At least in my limited experience, you will never find a perfect fit and there will always be things you don't like about your current workplace environment. I would rather have a job that is interesting and engaging and doing things I want to do in a culture that isn't a perfect fit for me than one in the perfect company that is boring and unsatisfying. Of course, it all depends what it is about the culture that isn't a good fit for you, but we are speaking in generalizations here. Or maybe I just say that because I haven't worked for an organization that had a truly terrible cultural fit for me.

Thoughts?

Absenteeism and Attendance Management

Does your organization have a formal Attendance Management policy?

Mine doesn't, but they are a good idea. Does your organization have an absenteeism issue? If so, then an Attendance Management policy is an even better idea.

Absenteeism is a major problem in a lot of organizations. Low morale increases productivity costs in many ways, and unscheduled absenteeism is one of those ways, but it there is often a hidden cost to reduced absenteeism.

The goal of a progressive attendance management program is not to eliminate unscheduled absenteeism. For one thing, people still get sick, and there are a lot of costs to having sick people come to work despite their illness. The other problem is that people tend to come to work while sick in situations where their morale is low, because they feel there is a higher risk to staying home than there is misery in being at work while ill. Don't be that workplace that makes it a badge of honour to have never taken a sick day in five years. The sniffles may not be that contagious, but the damage to productivity that can be done by something especially nasty going through the office makes it not worth it, let alone the damage due to people feeling resentment because they feel they cannot stay home when they are ill.

One of the best ways to handle involuntary absenteeism, which is to say, absences that are not the fault of the employee, such as illness, family emergency, etc. is to introduce as much flexibility into working hours as possible given the demands of the job. Make it understood that being sick is permissible, but have an Attendance Management policy in place to handle the abuses of the system. Make allowances for the differences between sick days, personal days, family emergencies, etc. and have it all be clearly laid out and transparent for the staff.

Of course, if there are morale issues anyway, then absenteeism is not your only problem.

What do you think?