It is 1999, the heart of the Internet bubble. I am CEO of a software and services company. We make advanced technologies to create killer HR apps. We are growing rapidly and just got a big chunk of funding. Our business is changing fast and we need to react. Both the threats and the opportunities are people-centric, so I hire a new director of HR. Bob (obviously not his real name) comes highly recommended and had many other offers. I feel lucky to get him. I give him a couple of months to settle in. Then we have “The Conversation.”
ME: I’m really excited about you being here Bob. I think you might be able to help us get to the next stage as a company. As far as I can tell, most of our threats and opportunities involve people, as opposed to marketing, processes or technology.
BOB: I’m really excited too. I have three 401(k)s for you to look at. I think one of them may just work.
ME: Great. Listen Bob, 401(k)s are a necessary part of competing for talent. I get that. We have to a 401(k) because everyone else does. But we’re not going to win any new customers because of our 401(k). So work with the CFO and figure out which one is the most competitive for the level of cost and then pull the trigger. We need to talk about bigger things.
BOB: One of the 401(k)s is with Fidelity. They are a really well known company. Some of the employees have told me they would like Fidelity.
ME: OK, but we need to get past the 401(k) issue. We have a real talent shortage in the Valley right now. I was thinking, how about expanding our recruiting to stay-at-home mothers? Many of them in are really highly skilled and just need a start-up employer like us who can figure out how to work around their schedules. You could work with the CTO to figure out a tech platform that would route customer service calls to them. Our customers don’t care where someone sits, as long as they get great service. Most stay at home moms don’t need benefits, so we can pay them higher wages and still be ahead of the game. It gives us a skilled, dedicated, low-turnover labor pool to tap into. What do you think?
BOB: My wife stays at home. She’s a great cook. You’ll have to come over some time for her apple fritters. Great fritters.
ME: Ummm… I’d love to. But let’s stay on topic. The next thing I want to look at is getting some training for our employees. We are turning to a more service-centric model, and key areas of our organization have to migrate to a more consulting-centric skill set. A lot of them come out of the academic or non-profit area and aren’t used to consulting. We need to develop a strategy to migrate those employees over to that skill set and bring our customers along too.
BOB: We just hired three new college kids. Great kids. I think they are going to work out well.
ME: I know Bob. Let’s change the topic to information and communication. I want to figure out a way to tap into the people that are touching each facet of our company and get a dialogue going with them. A place where they can raise issues and bring stuff that affects our strategic position to light as soon as possible. Are they hearing about competitors we don’t know about, are our customers thinking about switching, what cool new technologies exist out there that we should keep our eye on? Let’s work on a knowledge repository for those conversations and a way to categorize the knowledge in such a way that it is retrievable and relevant.
BOB: I use Yahoo. That’s a great search engine.
ME: Stay with me Bob. I also want to us to start formalizing our informal networks. Let’s find everyone who we know, and who they know, and let’s start getting them information of value. You know, get them inside snippets of code, access to different people to ask questions, etc. Open kimono. The only catch is we have to be able to capture that information in a system somewhere so that rather than a pool of resumes, we have a pool of people who we know and are ready to connect with.
BOB: Like online dating? I’ve been married a long time. I don’t do that kind of stuff.
ME: No, not like online dating. (Pause) So Bob let me ask you a question: why am I bringing this stuff up to you? Why aren’t you bringing this stuff to me?
BOB: I’m an HR guy. I deal with employee master files and company parties and stuff. This is operations stuff.
ME: No, this is talent stuff. I want the COO to be thinking about ways to make our combined people and technology processes run more efficiently and effectively. I want her to make sure that product gets out the door and that our customers are happy. That’s not what I am talking to you about. I am talking about making sure that our talent and information are the best in the business.
BOB: Oh, you mean recruiting. Well I can go place an ad.
ME: Ah… well…. OK. Forget it Bob. What did you want to talk about?
BOB: I think we should go with Fidelity. It’s a good company.
ME: Fine, go with Fidelity.
This conversation actually took place. He wouldn’t get off 401(k)s, and eventually I just gave up in frustration and picked Fidelity. I don’t think he invited me over to sample his wife’s cooking. That much is made up.
Why bring this up? Because this is all about making HR a strategic asset. Every point I brought up to Bob was a way that his HR function could be used to provide competitive advantage to my company and increased returns to the investors (including employees and vendors). This is a real example of a CEO who wanted to have HR be strategic and HR putting up its defenses so that it could keep being the forms and beer function.
My fault for hiring him? Absolutely. I own it 100%. And I also agree that more often than not it is the CEO who is the problem, not the HR person. But the conversation is instructive all the same. It happens more than any of us would like to acknowledge.
Anthro-Talentism, you say you take responsibility but, really, what you want to do is make this guy look like an idiot, not you.
But, I have trouble believing that you could hire a guy with whom you can't even have a decent conversation.
So, let's back up a bit. What happened in the interviews that took place before you hired him?
If he was as block-headed as you make him out to be, how could you move ahead on him and why would others want to hire him.
He clearly seems to be a pen/ben/comp specialist and not at all a skills manager so I can't believe anyone would hire him for the latter job after half a conversation.
Posted by: Canadian Headhunter | January 16, 2006 at 09:47 AM