Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Personal Development

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for stories and best practices for personal wellness and wellbeing, skills improvement, and  more.

  • 3 Steps to Keep a Bad Employee from Suing You

    3 Steps to Keep a Bad Employee from Suing You

    As the mom of three boys who are full of mischief, I often hear the phrase “I didn’t know” or “you never told me.” And usually it’s in response to something that I had addressed with them at least once. Sometimes I wish I could approach disciplinary issues in parenting the same way I approach disciplinary issues in my career, with a formal sit down discussion and written documentation.

    One of my favorite aspects of Human Resources is employee relations. I love the opportunity to speak with managers about the performance management process and the importance of documentation.

    Having kept organizations from litigation and winning tough unemployment hearings, here is a three pronged approach to avoiding a lawsuit because of disciplinary issues:

    1. Have a Disciplinary Process or Structure in Place. Having a disciplinary process that is well thought out and is executed in a fair and consistent manner is half the battle.
    2. If your organization doesn’t have the documentation to back up those actions, you still risk losing that battle. Keep these tips in mind for documentation:
    • The documentation can’t just be good, it has to be great.
    • Less isn’t more. I think my all-time favorite was the manager who wrote under expectations on the documentation form “Do your job right the first time.” Needless to say, we had a conversation about how to set expectations and goals, and the importance of documentation.
    • Be detailed in explaining the performance issue or policy violation, be clear in your expectations, and be specific in the goals that the employee must meet moving forward.
    • Make sure the employee understands what the consequences are if they fail to meet those goals.
    • Plan to follow up. The conversation can’t just end there. If you see they’re making some progress, but not enough, recalibrate with them. Praise them for the progress they’ve made, but then tell them how they can bridge the gap to complete success. And document it!
    1. Your disciplinary process needs to be a partnership between HR and your leadership team. Collaborate on how you will address the performance issue with the employee.  HR should emphasize that its job is not to tell managers what to do, but to help guide decisions and to help ensure that the organization is applying its policies effectively, fairly, and consistently.

    As a manager, draft your documentation and have HR review it before you present it to the employee, because sometimes you really shouldn’t write what you think! You’d be surprised at some of the things I’ve seen on written documentation. Remember that the employee receives a copy and it could be used for future unemployment or litigation purposes, so keep it professional. Have HR or another member of the leadership team sit in as a witness on the counseling. Never put yourself in a he said, she said situation.

    A Performance Improvement Plan or a termination for performance (gross misconduct aside) should never be the first conversation had with an employee. If it is, then your organization is not executing your disciplinary process effectively, fairly, or consistently or does not have an effective disciplinary process in place. And if that is the case, you’re opening yourself up for potential litigation and HR will have a hard time helping your organization justify its actions.

    The time spent following a structured disciplinary procedure and ensuring documentation is in order is minimal compared to the potential costs incurred by organizations that fail to do so.

    What’s your best advice for avoiding a lawsuit?

  • Mommas Maintaining Grit?

    Mommas Maintaining Grit?

    Throw-up had literally been everywhere.  All week.  As had it’s counterpart that also comes along with what would later be diagnosed as rotavirus in my son.

    I had multiple meetings scheduled both with current and desired clients.  I had blocked off time to prepare for the next week that involved three different training sessions.   Each required the preparation and roll out of new material. I just couldn’t wing these.

    And because of said throw-up coming often at night, I hadn’t slept.  Neither had my husband, and he had multiple priorities at work to attend to as well.

    I canceled all but a couple of meetings.  Some were rescheduled, some were covered by someone else on my team, and the ones I made were possible because my husband and I swapped out or my in-laws were available for a couple of hours to help.

    In between his (my son’s, not my husband’s) trips to the bathroom, I laid with him, laptop in hand and tried to crank out the work that needed to get done, while rubbing his head.  By figuring the logistics out on that, I have officially deemed myself as the master of multi-tasking.

    But I really didn’t feel like a master at anything. I felt pulled in multiple directions.  When my in-laws called as I was finishing up a meeting and said “He wants you,” I dropped everything and went to pick him up.  When we got home, the throwing up that I thought had stopped had returned.  He had just wanted to puke in the comfort of his own home.  I set the computer down and took a nap with him.  And then later, we made a trip to the emergency room for fluids because his blood work showed that dehydration had thrown everything out of whack.

    During this time research, that I had seen before, showed up again on my radar.   Taken from a Business Insider article, titled “Parents of Successful Kids have these 12 Things in Common”.  Number eight reads: “The moms work outside the home”:

    According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

    The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money —23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

    The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

    ‘Role modeling is a way of signaling what’s appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe,’ the study’s lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

    ‘There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother,’ she told Working Knowledge.

    Hmm, I thought.  He had definitely seen his daddy role model that it’s not just mommy’s job to clean up the throw up.   But as I looked at the same article, number seven on the list was “the (parents) are less stressed.” Was there some methodology and importance to the order of this list? Does being less stressed trump me working outside the home when it comes to my children’s success in life?  If multiple priorities raise my stress level, should I choose just one- my kids?  Will this lead them to success? Or is success what matters?  These research findings point to nothing related to happiness and joy.

    As I contemplate this idea a few weeks later, I’m solely focused on work, because I’m alone in a hotel room.  And when I’m alone, I catch up on reading while I work out in in hotel fitness rooms.   While reading Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, (I had about zero grit in reading this book considering I started reading it in 2016) I quickly scan through the author’s quiz on grit- which is a measure of passion and perseverance- and, as the author shows through research, more important that talent in success. I realize by this quiz, I’m short on some grit.

    The author says just after the scoring for the quiz. “Keep in mind that your score is a reflection of how you see yourself right now. How gritty you are at this point in your life might be different from how gritty you were when you were younger. And if you take the Grit Scale later again, you might get a different score.”

    Yeah, I thought. I’ll take this quiz in about 16 years when both my kids are off at college because I’ve made them so “successful” because I’ve worked “outside the home” while simultaneously raising them, doing my best to keep them alive while basically being able to focus on nothing with passion and perseverance because something like the rotavirus is always lurking.

    But passion and perseverance does come in raising children.  And it does come in work- even if there are bouts of intensity in hotel rooms-  followed by periods of idleness because of other demands.

    One author, who wrote on the same research findings about what parents of successful children do says, “There is no such thing as a complete list.”  He points to grit saying,  “like virtually every other trendy article on this subject, they recommend teaching ‘grit,’ defined as the ‘tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals.’ While that’s virtuous in a vacuum, I think we’re going to find as a society that the way we teach grit omits something serious: the ability to maintain motivation while simultaneously, continuously reevaluating your goals.”

    Sometimes goals are as short term as making it through a nap with your kid without throw-up ending up on either one of you.  And sometimes it’s about getting an article done about such a topic.

    But overall, as we approach mother’s day as a time to celebrate all the mom’s in this world, motherhood is a lesson in grit, whether you work outside the home or not.

    Give yourself some credit moms (and I’ll try to do the same for myself), realizing that there is a time and season for everything, and it is up to you to choose what is best for you and your family right now.   Grit or not, don’t let anyone tell you that it is not okay to shift focus for the sake of what is important when it is important.   That will teach your kids to be successful because they have been taught through your “modeling” to know what is important and adjust accordingly.

     

  • The Candidate Experience Influences The Brand

    The Candidate Experience Influences The Brand

    Branding is an important marketing topic. Some organizations invest heavily in a brand strategy that reaches many audiences, including the job seeker. A great brand attracts job candidates to an organization. As a marketer and HR professional, I have a unique perspective on this topic.  The marketer side understands the importance of brand equity and the HR side values the role it plays in talent acquisition.  Some organizations fail to make this connection. Other organizations offer poor candidate experiences, which cast a negative image. As a result, it harms the brand while turning away potential talent.

    Over the years, I have heard candidates’ horror stories of bad encounters, which diminish the job seekers value of an organization.  A few of these experiences were so negative that it impacted the candidate’s use of the products and services. Most job seekers desire an organization that aligns with their values and where a connection can be made to the culture. The candidate experience is an extension of the brand strategy. It expands beyond the talent acquisition strategy.  Recruiters are often the first human contact a job seeker has with the brand. Having a marketing orientation is vital to recruiting, since they are brand representatives.

    A negative candidate experience has a lasting impact. Talent acquisition influences brand equity.  Designing a marketing-focused talent strategy can create positive candidate experiences. Collaboration between marketing and talent acquisition is beneficial in driving the strategy.  Every encounter is exposure to the brand, so make it exceptional.

     

     

    About the author: Steve Graham serves as Vice President for Marketing, HR Business Partner, and college instructor. He holds graduate degrees in management and higher education. As a life-long learner, he has additional graduate and professional education in executive & professional coaching, health care administration, and strategic human resource management.

    He is a certified HR professional with The Society for Human Resource Management, certified coach with the International Coach Federation, and a Global Career Development Facilitator. His professional memberships include: The Society for Human Resource Management, the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration, Association for Talent Development, and International Coach Federation. LinkedIn.com/in/hstevegraham

  • Diversity and Inclusion in My Eyes and in the Eyes of My Children

    Diversity and Inclusion in My Eyes and in the Eyes of My Children

    Ask any HR professional and they will tell you that “diversity and inclusion” as we like to call it is trending in our world.   In fact, Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends Report points to this rule of work by emphasizing that,

    “Leading organizations now see diversity and inclusion as a comprehensive strategy woven into every aspect of the talent life cycle to enhance employee engagement, improve brand, and drive performance. The era of diversity as a ‘check the box’ initiative owned by HR is over.”

    The issue is so big, its no longer just HR’s job.

    But as business professionals, we can read and hear about diversity and inclusion and the best practices out there until we are blue the face.   And we can talk about it ad nauseam seeking ways to implement tactics to eliminate bias and select and retain diverse talent pools.  In fact, I spent no less than 30 minutes yesterday on the phone with a client examining the idiosyncrasies that relate to diversity and inclusion in formulating strong hiring processes and practices, and the purpose of our call was on their employee handbook!

    But, as distant past and not-so-distant-past personal experiences remind me, you’ve got to look inward and be honest to tackle the topic effectively.

    My first personal observation comes from giving a presentation over five years ago on “Recruiting and Retaining the Best”.  In the presentation, I displayed a slide with a picture of pretty and sweet country singer side by side with a tough rapper.   The country singer happened to be a white female, the rapper happened to be a black male.   I displayed the slide to point to the fact that you need to know your work culture and then select people who fit in with your culture.

    I didn’t mean to imply that one of the singers was better than the other, just that one might be best for one environment, and one might be better for another. But apparently to my audience, I conveyed that you needed to screen the black rapper with the tattoos out. Hire the pretty white girl I must have implied, because that same day I got a call from the person putting on the workshop who told me that a person in the audience (who happened to be a black male) was offended.

    Given that the person who called me happened to be a black female and actually knows me, she assured me that she told him I in no way was a bigot and did not mean to imply anything racially motivated.  I thanked her, but obviously the offense I caused still sticks with me five years later.  Can I ever get diversity and inclusion right as a practitioner if, potentially, I have unconscious biases that play out in my speaking especially when someone else saw it as conscious and deliberate?

    Fast forward to last weekend.  We are all in the car as a family and the topic comes up as to why our almost three year old has so many princess dolls.  (I’ll blame it on grandparents, as I do her endless collection of purses as well.) Our six year old then chimes in naming the princesses she has.  “She’s got Elsa and Belle and Ariel and Cinderella” then he stops for a second and says, “Mom, why doesn’t Paige have any darker princesses?”

    What is a mom to say?  I think I responded with something along the lines of,  “A darker princess would be nice to get, racking my brain trying to come up with a “darker” one.   I said, “How about the one from The Princess and the Frog?”  I didn’t even know the “darker” one’s name.  Before my kids could respond, they were on to talking about something else.

    But I was still stuck on my obvious need to do some reflection on my worldview and how I tout myself as an open-minded and inclusive person. Who am I to give anyone advice on how to create a diverse and inclusive workplace? Our toy shelf isn’t even diverse.

    In fact, culturally our stores aren’t diverse and our movies aren’t diverse.  There seems to be only one “darker” princess present in a slew of mostly white blonds, just like the pretty country singer in my presentation slide. No wonder we struggle with diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

    But as I walk through Target a few days later, I tell my son to go pick out a birthday present for his sister. He runs towards the toy section excited to take a detour from the bottled water and toilet paper we were there to buy.

    I catch up with him, thinking this is going to take forever, but yet he comes straight back to meet me, and without a word, drops her present in the cart. The Princess and the Frog Princess, Tiana, is what he has chosen for his sister’s third birthday present.

    output

    These personal examples point to only one area of diversity, and that is of race. There are so many more areas of diversity I could discuss, in both specific and generic terms. I echo Deliotte’s report stating that, “Diversity is defined in a broader context, including contexts of ‘diversity of thought’, also addressing people with autism and other cognitive differences.” Too often we boil diversity and inclusion down to something far narrower than it should be.

    And I could also wrap up this post with a list of ways to try to overcome unconscious bias or how to create a diversity and inclusion program at your place of work (and mine).

    But maybe the first step in thinking about diversity and inclusion is to look in the mirror and be self-aware. We need to be honest about how the environments we have grown up in and quite possibly still work in, shape us to think and decide in ways that we may not even be aware of.  And then and only then, once we are honest with ourselves and vocalize that honesty to others are we are aware enough to change our course.

    I need my six year old to remind and help me learn that diversity and inclusion starts quite simply with being aware of when we’re off the mark and buying the right doll (or hiring/promoting the right person) to begin to fix it.

    You may also like:

    You can hire for fit AND diversity: How the most innovative companies hire

  • Chocolate Anyone? Symbols to Remind You to Be Grateful and Spread Gratefulness

    Chocolate Anyone? Symbols to Remind You to Be Grateful and Spread Gratefulness

    “I’ll be right back,” the lady said to her colleague. “I’ve got to finish giving my chocolate bars away.”

    The colleague nods.  I’m sitting next to him at a conference breakfast, and I look at him with must have been a look like, “What? Chocolate bars? At breakfast?”

    He smiles, and says, “You’ll have to ask her about them.” I could tell he was indirectly saying, it’s her story to tell, not mine. Yes, ask her about the chocolate I will.

    I see her hand a chocolate bar to a server and give him a hug.

    She finally comes and sits back down and smiles. I, of course say, “So you have to tell me about the chocolate bars.”

    I’ve never seen anyone light up so much as she tells me about how her habit with  chocolate bars comes from her very first client that manufactures them.  Nancy, I learn is her name, and she explained to me that she had come out of a bad job situation in HR management.  She said she had been battling breast cancer and her employer was absolutely awful in helping her through this, so she quit.

    She interviewed for a position at the chocolate manufacturer, to which the hiring manager told her she was overqualified for the role and that she needed to start her own business in HR compensation consulting.

    “I’ll hire your company then to work with us on some compensation issues we are having,” he told her. And he gave her a chocolate bar as she left.

    The chocolate giving lady then went on to say that this was the beginning of a new life for her.   She did start that business, and five years later, everywhere she goes she gives out chocolate bars to people to show gratitude and to challenge people to reach for their dreams.

    She told me, “I didn’t even realize this was my dream until he challenged me to do this.” Grinning again she said, “Now it is only right for me to pass this along.”

    So today, I challenge you to take a lesson from Nancy and figure out what your own chocolate bar is.  Then, figure out a way to not to only share it with others, but more importantly, share it to constantly remind yourself of what and who you have to be thankful for and to pass that on.

     

    Like this post, you may also like:

    Love Lives Here a new book out by Maria Goff. Maria and her husband, Bob, who wrote Love Does, give out real keys to their own home as their chocolate bars.  This is a way to show that love resides in their home and is therefore something to be shared.

    Count Your Problems and Be Thankful

    Leaders Start With Gratitude