At a recent event my husband attended, the speaker was discussing workforce issues, and the challenge with finding – and keeping – good talent. At one point in his speech, he mentioned the issue of remote employees seemingly having multiple jobs, and as my husband puts it, the room “erupted” in a buzz of frustration and recognition. When he got home, he was eager to relay this story to me since he has heard me talk repeatedly over the past 6 to 12 months about how this has become a growing trend among the small clients that I support.

About a year ago, I began to see evidence to substantiate the idea that a “double dipping” trend might be emerging, and my suspicions have been validated numerous times both in non-work settings and while on the job.

The first time the lightbulb went off for me, I was at an appointment and began chatting with someone who likely doesn’t know what I do for a living. The individual shared with me how her boyfriend was tired of his commute, and was thinking about quitting and getting a new job. Then she casually said, ‘Well actually, two jobs.” That piqued my curiosity, so I probed a little further and said, “Oh, he is planning to get a part time job as well?” Her reply? “No, two full-time jobs.” I didn’t bother to launch into a lecture about business ethics and honesty. I do recognize how there are times when people need to work two jobs – some even full-time – in order to make ends meet, and there are secondary jobs that a person can take that won’t interfere with their “day job.” I didn’t know her boyfriend’s situation well enough to know if that was the case, so the discussion ended there.

My next encounter was with a young college student who I know quite well. Again, during casual dinner conversation this individual stated their desire after graduation to get multiple jobs (maybe even more than two) and “make a million dollars.” He followed up that comment with a laugh, but I got the sense that he wasn’t completely joking. In that particular case I did launch into my business ethics and honesty lecture, although it might have fallen on deaf ears. In both instances, the individuals assured me “Oh yeah, this is a common thing now” and sadly, it has proven to be true in my daily experience.

In my business I support very small clients. I am their outsourced HR since they are too small to support an internal HR function. Within the past year, almost every one of them has encountered an employee who has turned out to be a double dipper, and when process improvement measures were followed with no success, there was no other option than to terminate their employment. In every case, the terminated employee just didn’t seem to care.

So, what are some of the common themes I’ve seen with employees who appear to be working another job during the hours that they are supposed to be working for my client companies? I’ve compiled a list below, and while I realize that there are exceptions to this list where employees may have some of these things occur and they don’t have a second job, when they regularly happen in combination with an individual employee, you may need to start to waving a red flag.

Do any of these sound familiar? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone. So, as the employer, what can you do?

First and foremost, you should always approach an employee who is exhibiting these behaviors with tact and professionalism, giving them the benefit of the doubt. They may have good reason for the behavior, and it’s important to rule out any extenuating circumstances. If a person is experiencing a true life crisis, then you should follow proper channels to support them, and to direct them to any resources your organization provides for assistance with life’s more difficult issues.
​
Beyond that, I believe there are processes and practices that every organization should begin to implement to deter and/or weed out double dippers. Here are a few:

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and there is no magic pixie dust here, but if you put some of these measures in place right from the start, you are likely to deter some of the would-be culprits from taking a job with your organization in the first place. And lastly, if one slips through the cracks despite all your best efforts, don't be afraid to cut your losses and say goodbye. Like my grandma used to say, “It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch.”

​2020 is turning out to be the year that none of us expected, and few of us were prepared to tackle. Almost overnight, our professional workforce went from a thriving, fast-paced machine to a grinding halt. Now that the smoke is starting to clear and we have a few months of this under our belt, many companies have a whole new perspective on what an HR professional does. Of course there are the tactical aspects of HR that have to be handled, but on top of that: 

We are the counselor taking the late night calls from our employee who is at the end of his/her rope trying to work full-time in isolation and perhaps be the homeschool teacher at the same time.
We are the strategic advisor bombarded daily with changing information on new laws and regulations that we must communicate to our leadership so that we can figure out how best to sustain the workforce until we come out the other side.
We are the benefits advisor scouring our existing benefit offerings and seeking to establish new programs or re-educate the workforce on benefits that are suddenly critical options (i.e. telemedicine visits and Employee Assistance Programs). 
We are the motivator striving to maintain a collaborative workforce in a world connected by technology alone.
We are the technical consultant feverishly researching new HR technologies to help us interview, onboard, manage and motivate employees in a virtual work environment.
We are the student attending countless webinars and training sessions on how best to create a plan for the “new normal” once the doors of our businesses re-open.
And we are the facilitator fostering discussions between our diverse employee populations to help break down walls and uncover hidden biases.
​
It’s not that we didn’t do all of these things before the COVID-19 era, but we managed them in a much more limited capacity. For the forward thinking companies who had already implemented modern HR technologies, enhanced their non-traditional benefits and programs, and developed crisis communication strategies this has been a moment to shine, but for others it has been an exhausting game of catch-up. So, where do we go from here? Consider this HR timeline that shows a high-level evolution of the HR profession since the 1950s. We’ve come a long way. 

​As we embark on the next decade, there will be a radical shift, and it’s possible that this is the moment many HR professionals have been waiting for. It’s our chance to really dig in and work with leadership to create change, and we will suddenly have a listening ear where there may not have been one in the past. At our core, we care about people and values. We want to see employees thriving and we want to build corporate cultures that draw people in instead of pushing them out. We want to build programs that are efficient and effective, with all employees in mind. And most of all, want to look back ten years from now and know that we have made a difference in someone’s professional experience. After all, hindsight is 2020 isn’t it?
 

We’ve all heard this phrase – the sarcastic jab at someone who is self-promoting in a position of authority they probably didn’t earn. Most of the time it’s in good fun, or in a humorous context, but like my dad always said, “there’s always a bit of truth in humor.” 

So, when it comes to the workplace, who exactly is the boss and how did they end up in that position? In a recent article in Forbes Magazine titled “How Bad Bosses Compel Good Employees To Leave,” Terina Allen provides a laundry list of bad management behaviors that I’m sure we’ve all encountered at one time or another during our careers. The article is littered with phrases such as “they take credit for success and blame others for mistakes” or “they lack cultural competence” and “they neglect to solicit input and cause employees to disengage.” You get the picture. So, why is bad management such an epidemic in the workplace? In some cases, it may just be that the boss really just isn't cut out for the job, but what if the real issue is that the “boss” is someone who ended up in the role unexpectedly and had little or no training on how to be good at it? We have to consider that maybe the fault is not entirely theirs. 

For small companies, this is a particularly common problem. Small organizations that experience fast and sometimes chaotic growth often scramble to keep up with creating internal structure, and in doing so they randomly choose “the nice guy” or “the really hard worker” and decide that they should be the one to lead the team. Don’t get me wrong – nice and hard-working are great attributes, but they do not guarantee success in a management role. First and foremost, the company should determine if the person even wants to be a manager. (You’d be surprised how often people are not asked that question.) If the answer is yes, the next step is to ensure they understand exactly what being a manager means within the organization. That means you, the employer, ​have to be able to articulate and outline what it means. Getting to “yes” is just the start. 

New managers need to learn how to communicate, educate, facilitate and motivate the people they manage. To be successful, they need guidance, training, support and encouragement from the company. Here a few questions to consider. Think about whether your managers could answer these if asked.

• How is being a manager different from being an individual contributor?
• What are the laws surrounding hiring and employment practices?
• What are you allowed to ask / prohibited from asking during an interview?
• What are the company’s specific employment policies from hiring through termination?
• How important is recognition and feedback when leading a team?
• How are your direct reports motivated?
• How much time should be spent “managing” versus “contributing”?

If you can't say for certain that your managers could answer each of these questions, you could be at risk. Leaving them to figure it out on their own can be demotivating for them, frustrating for the people they manage, and downright dangerous for your business.

When you give employees the support and education they need to develop good management skills from the get-go, you are empowering them to be successful. It’s an investment, but it’s worth it. Equipping your new managers doesn’t have to be burden of time and finances. The most important thing you can do is show your commitment to their success from the start by investing in incremental training (both on-the-job and external) and ensuring they are given regular opportunities to build on their skill set. Education leads to confidence, which fosters better leadership, which in turn promotes healthier employee / manager relationships. That will boost your bottom line.

Ready to get started? Check out our Training & Development page or reach out directly to [email protected] to see how we can help your company on the road to managerial success.  

It’s 2017. You’re probably reading this post on your smartphone while flipping back and forth between your social media apps. If you’re not using HR software to automate your small business processes by now, maybe it’s time to reconsider.

For years, I worked in a small business tracking HR stats and metrics on an Excel spreadsheet. Why? At the time, most HR systems were geared towards mid-sized to large organizations and simply were not cost effective for small businesses. Today, there are an abundance of options. In fact, I would venture to say the market is “saturated” with small business HR software that can automate just about everything. So, small business owners no longer have the “not cost effective” excuse to hide behind. On the contrary, it is simply not cost effective to go without HR software when you count up the number of hours spent on manual tracking and data entry (and fixing data entry errors).

Although I am an HR professional, I also consider myself to be an HR technology nerd. I have a knack for digging in and exhausting system features, and if there is a bug to be found I’m usually your girl. So, in the course of running my consulting business, I’ve demoed and tested dozens of HR software systems (i.e. HRIS, performance management, ATS, benefits administration, etc.). I have also been retained by clients to help them research, demo and test systems, and subsequently provide implementation and customization support after they have selected their “right fit”.

So what exactly does "right fit" mean? At their core, HR software systems do the same things. Most can be manipulated to fit your work processes, but they all have differentiators that make them special. Choosing the right system(s) is a bit like choosing who to date. First, you have to decide what qualities (i.e. features) you are looking for in a software “mate.” Then, you have to decide which of those is most important to you (the non-negotiable must-haves). Once you have narrowed that down, you know where to start.

I’ve found that many traditional HR systems were born from payroll products - the costly big guys who most people have heard of (and many small companies still use). They have tried adding HRIS, performance, benefits, training and ATS modules on to their payroll solutions, but they often come with a hefty price tag, marginal to poor customer support, and/or half-baked "custom" features. So, whether or not your small company is willing to change payroll providers plays an important role in selecting the right HR system. If you are willing to change, then there are some very cost-effective end-to-end solutions that do a fantastic job of automating processes all the way from recruiting to employee exit. If you are happy with your payroll provider and don't want to change, then there are core HR systems with partner or add-on modules that can integrate with existing payroll, resulting in custom end-to-end solutions. (The biggest challenge with the latter approach is when the various systems can’t be accessed via single sign-on, and you end up with a bunch of logins and different looking interfaces, which can be frustrating for you and the employees.) Either approach can work, but integration and automation are the keys.

One of my favorite clients to date has given me free reign to automate their end-to-end processes through the use of HR software. When a new employee joins their organization, the entire system of on-boarding (i.e. tedious paperwork), entering them into payroll, and enrolling them in benefits (i.e. more tedious paperwork) takes about 10 - 20 minutes for HR, and 20 – 30 minutes for the employee. No paper forms, no emailing attachments, and a pretty impressive first impression for the new hire. And, since the employees enter almost all of the information themselves, the margin for error is extremely low. The software also manages (among other things) self-service changes, online employee files, performance reviews, tracking training and assets, and processing exits. The cost? For each employee, the total monthly amount is roughly equivalent to what it might cost to buy them a few cups of coffee.

For small companies who don't have the luxury of employing a dedicated HR professional, HR automation is essential. If you are interested in exploring HR software for your small business, there's no better time than now. We can help, and your bottom line will thank you.

Although I have done a lot of recruiting in my career, until I became a consultant I have always recruited as an employee within a company, so I’ve been able to represent the company as “one of their own.” As a consultant, I now only do recruiting on a limited basis, either for existing clients or people / companies that I know. There is a process of learning the company when you are on the outside – you must “build the story” in order to accurately represent the opportunity to a potential candidate. Having recruited on both sides of the fence, there are a few things I have learned that are critical in successful recruiting across the board.

Know how to represent the opportunity
We’ve all been job seekers at one time or another, and I think I can probably speak for most when I say that the experience of understanding the job opportunity first comes from the recruiter. Recruiting is sales – we are selling the opportunity to the buyer and they want to know they are getting a good “product” and later on, a good deal. If we haven’t been given all the tools we need to develop our sales pitch, the candidate won’t buy it.

Be quick to respond
Whether a candidate is actively or passively seeking a job, they want to know where they stand with regard to your opportunity. You may have the sales pitch down and get them excited during the first conversation, but if you can’t follow through in a few days about what is happening in the process they will quickly lose interest.

Engage the people making the hiring decision
The interview team must be engaged in the process. They are running the next leg of the sprint – taking the baton and keeping the adrenaline going for the candidate. They must understand and buy in to the importance of keeping things moving.

Don’t postpone interviews
The candidate must be a priority. Everyone has legitimate reasons from time to time for why scheduled meetings must be postponed, but when you reschedule an interview, the candidate is more than likely going to wonder what the “real” reason might be. Postpone twice, and those other companies courting them are going to become a lot more attractive.

Follow up
Post interview is your greatest opportunity to close the deal if the candidate is someone you would really like to hire. This will require a lot of action, from following up with the interview team to determining a potential offer, and making sure that all happens quickly. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you are the only company they like. Great candidates will likely have multiple offers from good companies, and sometimes the first company to the finish line is the winner.

When it comes right down to it, recruiters can’t guarantee a successful outcome unless everyone is engaged in the process. Candidates want you to court them, keep them engaged, and tell them truth. Everyone dealing with the candidate needs to be on the same page. They want to know what the company is really like, whether they will fit in, if the pay is in line with what they are making / asking for, and what they are really going to be doing if they accept the position. No job opportunity is perfectly represented, but the closer you can get to laying out all the facts, the better chance you have at making the hire. 

There’s some healthy debate going on right now about the value of HR, what we should call it, and whether companies really need it at all. In his article titled “Why We No Longer Need HR Departments,” Bernard Marr has suggested that HR is dead, and companies should do away with it altogether. Josh Bersin on the other hand, in his article titled “Why We Do Need the HR Department” states “human resources professionals solve some of the most important problems in business today” (an opinion with which I tend to agree).  Interestingly, while both authors are coming at it from different angles, after reading their articles I was surprised to see that they are actually saying many of the same things. 

Marr suggests that we should do away with the HR department, and reinvest in the “people function” which focuses on attracting, retaining and developing people; Bersin agrees that while the HR name might be antiquated, research shows that we need strategic HR professionals to hire and develop leaders within the organization. Ultimately, there is agreement that companies need people who are focused on creatively tackling the challenges of finding good candidates who are a fit for the organization from both a skills and a cultural perspective, engaging those people early on, finding ways to motivate them, and making sure that they are growing in their careers all while contributing to a strong bottom line.

Think about highly successful companies. What do they have that can’t be “bought?” They have employees who are ambassadors for the company because they believe in it. Those employees promote the company brand and culture without being told to do so, and they recruit their talented friends to join in and be a part of it. You can track metrics and do predictive analysis all day (and there is certainly a place for that), but ultimately successful businesses are about engaged people. Just one bad employee – particularly if it is a leader in a small company – can quickly turn the tide and blow all of your well-designed metrics.

For many years, I worked as the sole “HR person” in a technology company. If you want to find a group of people who are skeptical and difficult to win over when it comes to buying in to HR, just put yourself in a room full of software engineers.  Personally, I’ve never written a line of code, never run a daily scrum meeting during a sprint, and have never been responsible for identifying, troubleshooting, and debugging system errors. But I have successfully hired, managed, motivated, rewarded and retained technical people who found me to be a credible advocate for them, as well as a strong proponent of the business. Why? Because I chose never to hide behind my HR title. To be taken seriously, people in HR or any other function within a company need to understand the business from end-to-end. This doesn’t mean each person needs to be an expert in every function – it just means that we need to take the time to understand the other functions and how they relate to the business as a whole. As HR people, this affords us the opportunity to create programs and initiatives that are both relevant and effective.

Regardless of what we choose to call them, companies will always need creative thinkers who can design and facilitate effective programs that attract, retain, motivate and develop people. I once heard someone say in another context that people tend to spend too much time arguing about the “minors” instead of agreeing on the “majors” and working towards progress, and I couldn’t agree more. So go ahead, call me HR. As long as you believe I’m doing work that moves the business forward I can take it. I’ve been called worse.    

In an era of job uncertainty, conducting an employee engagement survey can be a silver bullet for your business. Employers of any size will benefit from surveying employees, but they can be particularly useful for small companies who may find themselves at that growth point where they have moved beyond the ability to know (in theory) what concerns their employees, and what they care about.

I am in the process of reading “Start Something That Matters,” a book by Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes. I am a fan of the shoes – between my daughters and I we have six pair – but I am also a fan of the cause, and Blake’s story.  As I have been ramping up my business, I have been soul searching and trying to figure out how I can use it to do something that would serve a greater purpose than just providing an excellent service for my clients and generating income for my family. I believe that we have a God-given responsibility to help those in need, and there are countless opportunities for us to do so, both as individuals and as business owners. The important thing in any scenario is to find a cause that you are passionate about, and incorporate that into the core of your business. If it really means something to you, then finding ways to further the cause will come naturally. There are so many great quotes that I have earmarked in Blake’s book – quotes that have inspired me as I decide how I will use my business to help others. Here is one of my favorites: 

We all have a story. For small business owners, it is likely some part of your story that provided the motivation for you to take the risk and go out on your own. When you reach a point in your business where things are easier and you are enjoying success, giving back can mean helping others who are just stepping into the shoes that you wore when you first started. What good is success if you can’t use it to help others to be successful as well? So as you build your business, figure out how you can use it to build other people up at the same time. You will create more than just a company – you will leave a legacy.    

When looking to contract with an outside company, it’s important to do your homework. You shouldn’t just evaluate the product or service they are offering, but also evaluate the company itself. Just like you try to run a good business that attracts great employees and retains them, your vendors and service providers should be doing the same. Essentially, the quality and continuity of service you receive is directly related to their employees, and their turnover is very likely to affect you.

I can recall working with a software vendor and having three different project managers in less than a 12-month period. Very frustrating. I had to re-explain my company, and our scenario, over and over. So, what are some additional things to consider when choosing to contract with an outside company? 

• Turnover: Check on LinkedIn for current and former employees. What sort of tenure do they have?
• Testimonials: Do they have any publicly posted feedback? Are they willing to refer you to current clients?
• Recruiting – are they attractive? Go online and check out how it would look if you were a prospective job seeker. Would you want to work there?
• Community Buzz: Has the company won awards? Do they participate in the local community? What sort of hits do you get when you google them?

There are certainly big companies that are very well run and could meet your needs, so this is in no way a dismissal of them, but I am a big proponent of supporting small businesses when choosing vendors and service providers. Not only are you supporting the business community to which you belong (if you are a small business), but you may not need all of the features and add-ons that come along with big company products and services. If you do your homework and choose the right small company, you are likely to have a mutually beneficial relationship, and a lot more flexibility in getting the attention and customization that you want.