Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Talent Management and Development

We provide full service talent management and talent development consulting services. Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research.

  • 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?

  • 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

  • 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

  • The Conundrum of Incentive Pay

    The Conundrum of Incentive Pay

    I know of two people who have left their job in the last year because they felt like they were slighted when it came to how their company handled incentive pay.  Both of them- one working for a global behemoth of a company and one working for a family start-up- were promised things when it came to incentive compensation and then the rules were changed on them in the middle of the game, thus slighting them in pay they felt they were entitled to.

    And I can think of one company owner who is a friend that has tried and tried to come up with an incentive plan for her business development people that works, only to come out with frustrating results in that the intent didn’t drive the desired outcome.  In some cases, it drove the exact opposite.

    Incentive compensation is tough.  It’s why many companies avoid it all together. But I can’t give up on the fact that tying at least part of pay to outcomes and results that contribute to a company’s bottom-line, and the hard workers pocket all at once, aren’t a good thing.

    Here are some things that stand in order to do incentive pay well:

    1. Align any incentive plan with your company values that drive everyday behaviors. This should dictate that an incentive to perform is not an incentive to cheat. Be like Southwest Airlines, not Wells Fargo.
    2. Combine incentives programs with overall social recognition that includes monetary and non-monetary rewards for a job well done. As a Globoforce blog post states:

    In 2012, Aberdeen surveyed more than 300 sales organizations to understand how best-in-class organizations motivate their sales staff. Recognition for a ‘job well done’ scored higher than any other non-cash incentives, including competitions, learning & development, and team-based financial compensation. Further, Aberdeen found that best-in-class companies are more likely to indicate that internal recognition for positive performance results is a vital motivator for sales success.

                            And this-

    “Just remember that your sales people are human, too, and crave recognition and appreciation beyond the basic comp plan.”

    1. DWYSYWD- Do what you say you will do. This means if you say you are going to pay x amount out for doing or achieving y, then do it.  If you screwed up and didn’t figure out beforehand how this affects your bottom-line, its your fault not your employees’.  Of course, this should be tempered with stating that incentive compensation structures are not indefinite in nature, because markets and situations change.  However, when you communicate a plan to your employees you should let them know when this structure “expires” so to speak or is subject to review and changes (most likely on an annual basis) to be clear on expectations of payouts.

    Like this post?  You may also like:

    Corporate Recruitment Incentive Programs from Fistful of Talent

    Meaningless Core Values – A Dangerous Liability

  • HR Santa Clauses focus on the Employee Experience

    HR Santa Clauses focus on the Employee Experience

    Whether you like it or not, the Christmas season really starts the second Halloween is over.  I walked into Target a few minutes after it opened on November 1st (like at 8:01 a.m. because we were out of dog food and the dog was hungry) and it had been transformed into a Christmas shopping wonderland. Where has Thanksgiving gone?

    With Christmas marketing screaming at all of us to buy a lot of stuff most of which we don’t need, I’m beginning to think about how to make Christmas meaningful for my almost six and two and a half year old without turning them into materialistic hoarders.

    In thinking about this, I’m drawn to a concept that I’ve been hearing a lot about in HR circles and that is the importance of the employee experience. Many people in human resources and talent management are seeking to shift the conversation about employee engagement to one that is centered on employee experience.

    At work, this means focusing on meaningful, positive and memorable experiences for employees. Whether it is the company picnicor how the employee logs on to his or her 401K portal to view their assets, it should be an experience. It can be seen from the experience generated when someone requests time off to how that person’s immediate supervisor interacts with them.  As these examples illustrate, the focus on experience encompasses the mundane HR relevant tasks (and let’s face it, sometimes those “experiences” are the most frustrating, which can decrease satisfaction in a hurry) to the key leadership decisions and behaviors that drive an organization to be considered a best place to work.

    Whereas I’m somewhat thinking the whole focus experience instead of engagement is really just a different word to describe the same thing, I’m beginning to see through the value in a focusing on experience in order to make Christmas meaningful for my children. Maybe experience is what drives the engagement.  And focusing on those interactions or experiences is the means, which leads to the end- aka- engagement.

    So, this year, as my husband and I prep to make Christmas magical without turning our kids into entitled brats, we plan to have a gift for each of them under the tree that then ties to a more important experience for them.  And a personalized experience at that.  For example, my son loves Legos, so his gift and experience is shaping up to look like a new Lego set with a “gift certificate” to Lego world in Atlanta for us to experience as a family.  My guess is he will remember the trip to Lego world far longer than he will remember the set of blocks given to him under the tree. Just like his time at Lego camp, which uses Legos to focus kids in STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering and Math- learning at school once a week will shape him more than the actual physical toy and will help him to more fully enjoy and engage in school and learning.

    And maybe focusing on experiences will help us all put some thanksgiving back in the holiday season by avoiding the time spent shopping for stuff.  And just maybe, some thanksgiving can be restored in your organization by a higher level of employee engagement through focusing on the employee experience.

    What one HR process do you need to view from the lens of the experience it creates for employees?  Does the way you do it now lead to a more or less engaged staff?

    Like this post? You may also like: The HR Metric You’re Not Measuring (But Should Be)