Managers: When You’re Stupid Your Whole Company Suffers

By now you may have heard some of the stories circulating about some sizable companies laying-off tens, if not hundreds of workers. Now that news alone would not be so news-worthy. This sort of thing happens all the time. You might be surprised to learn that some of these corporate villains are popular brands. I won’t call them out by name, but you’d recognize one as a name that pairs nicely with a comic named Costello, one owns a famous dog food brand and another has a globally iconic rodent. What sets these stories apart from the routine is the message the businesses deliver to the soon to be unemployed. Full disclosure:  I have not seen any of the official notices sent to these people, but no matter what was written, I envision the recipients interpreted it to sound something like a villain from a B-movie: We’re gonna lay you off…. But we’re gonna lay you off slow, see? And before you’re gone, we’re gonna shove it in your face and make you train your cheaper replacement. And you’re gonna do it the way we want you to or you get a PGA-sized severance check for the amount of Jack Squat.  Oh, and another thing: For the rest of your natural life, don’t even think of bitching about this to your friends, family, the press, politicians or any other loser you associate with, because if you do, we will crush you like a bug.

The rest of this post is directed to “those guys” responsible for these boneheaded moves: 

Do you feel better? Good. Congratulations. You got rid of all those old, over priced employees and managed to crap all over their dignity by having them train their replacements.

Way to go, Einstein. Did you deliver this message with a straight face? Well, savor that tiny victory because with it comes the agony of PR defeat. While you’re raising a glass to toast your superior strategic mind, the people you so spinelessly cut loose are about to lawyer-up, possibly even as a class. You'd better hope some lawyer out there who’s smarter and meaner than yours sees to it that your scheme gets gutted like an Ozark catfish.  You’ve driven your image into the ditch…enjoy the view. And good luck attracting the best talent in the future….people will know you suck at managing. The best people have choices and you aren’t likely to make the cut, so enjoy recruiting from the adverse-selection pool. And that stone-on-metal squeal you hear? That’s your reputation being publicly ground into to fine powder.

Millennials and Management: We Need Each Other

I suppose one of the biggest reasons I am in HR is for the endless stream of entertainment value produced by employees:

A couple of weeks ago I get an email from an employee who hasn’t yet celebrated his first anniversary in the full-time world of work. He’s telling me that in our payroll system we have been treating his residence as though he’s in, I’ll call it “The Great State of A,” when he actually considers himself to be a resident of “The Great State of B.”  Now, he goes on to tell me that he’s got a problem with this, because when he files his taxes, the State taxes paid showing on his W2 went to State A and to fix this, he wants our accounting department to issue a new W2 showing that the taxes were paid to State B….a false statement. So I call him to get to the heart of his dilemma. When I tell him that books are closed on that tax year, he thinks it would work for him if we put on our letterhead stating we incorrectly paid his payroll tax to State A by mistake and it should have been State B - another falsehood. When I press him to show me when/where/how we would ever have known he was a resident of State B, he couldn’t tell me. I pointed out that outside of his offer letter (when he was still in school), all the employment forms that he completed and signed had his address in State A….in his own handwriting. His persistence on the State B residency did not waver. I need to cut through his line of crap and find out what the real issue is, so I ask him what is so important to him that his residency is in State B? His answer: His hunting licenses are cheaper when he’s a resident of State B. Now that’s entertainment! Request denied. Please go be a knucklehead outside of work hours.

Now, because of the youth and inexperience of the employee in this story, it would be so easy to pile onto the “Millennial” generation, but that’s not fair to this emerging group of talent. People can be knuckleheads at any stage of life, but for now, Millennials are getting most of the press for being a big management challenge - full of mystery and frustration because managers just don’t know how to handle them. 

The point I would stress is this: Whether we are managers, co-workers, or for this moment in history, Millennials, we need each other. For too many young people starting out, the job market is a foreign, sometimes hostile environment. They look for a position that will teach, develop and satisfy their short term aspirations while they sort out the long term. That’s not out of step with any generation I’m aware of. Meanwhile, managers are betting the future of their businesses on finding the best, high-potential hires who want to learn, grow, achieve and succeed….in that order. We need each other. Keep that in mind whenever the people in your world drift from being entertaining and start exasperating you. Place yourself in their skin and see if it changes your perspective.

I Could Never Do Your Job

The other day I was reminded of a time years ago when I was visiting my parents in St. Louis. I had just wrapped up a pretty grim trip to one of the larger offices I supported as a regional HR director and I just wanted to have a beer and grill a steak with my dad. I needed to decompress from a 3 ½ hour drive across Missouri after having laid off seven people in the same work group.  In one day.  By myself.  It doesn’t matter that I had a manager witness each meeting – I don’ t let them talk much if at all in those meetings – I trust the manager, but I don’t trust their mouths – but that’s a different topic for a later discussion. For all intents and purposes I did it by myself.  Being a witness to one of the worst days in a person’s life is no fun, but then the witness doesn’t deliver the blow: Today is your last day with the firm. I never take such assignments lightly. Each time, for every person - I try to prepare for the emotional, physical and cultural reactions. Bracing for whatever recoil may come from ending an employee’s relationship with their employer.  So as I’m sharing this story with my dad, he’s listening intently to me as I give short bios of the people I had cut loose, explaining to him the process I follow, the loose ends I try to tie-up for the people and for the firm, hoping for a soft landing for everyone. As I reach for my second can of PBR (Pop’s brand – He was hip with his beer), Pop says to me in a dead-serious tone: “Buddy (we shared the same first name, but he called me Buddy from birth), I could never do your job.”  On the surface, my dad saying that is not so unusual – you might be thinking, yeah, me too! But where my dad’s comment gets deep – and sort of darkly comedic is when you know what he did for a living: My dad was a funeral director and embalmer for 50 years. Now, I grew up around that business and I can tell you, funeral directors and especially embalmers deal with some heavy, heavy situations. But my dad really made me think with that comment. My first reaction was pretty predictable: “What the Hell, Pop? At least my people have some choices left!” More importantly, I started to understand parallels between our chosen fields. When things go bad in the people business, HR professionals are the ones managers and employees lean on (or should lean on) to maintain dignity for all and begin healing. Throughout my youth I had seen my dad fill a similar role as a funeral director. Helping people on the worst days of their life, losing a treasured relationship and helping that process along by exhibiting care, respect and dignity.

Now I can hear some of my HR counterparts out there clinching their jaws and getting creeped out, maybe even pissed that I am comparing our profession to that of an undertaker – but remember – both are noble careers that offer the opportunity for the right individual to provide a valuable, high-impact service to a marketplace in need. And both disciplines like to work with people……some are just more animated than others.

 To a lot of managers and business owners, the most dreaded deed they’ve ever done or will do is terminate an employee.  I get it….it is not fun. So would you rather be a funeral director? 

Launch Bag

I’m a man of limited talents. Can’t sing, can’t dance, but I know something about people – people in business, people in life and people in death.

The decision to start this blog came at the encouragement of my family, friends and colleagues who have been the audience to many of my stories and experiences over the years. They’ve heard about triumphs, failures, comedies, tragedies – both my own and those of others. They’ve been entertained hearing about the peculiar situations I find myself in as a Human Resources professional. And while matters of Human Resources, i.e. Employees, managers and business owners will be the centerpiece of this site, what I will share comes not just from my HR life, but experiences that go further back. You’ll read stories from the work places I’ve experienced firsthand for 40 years and counting: funeral homes, steel mills, retail, big corporations, family businesses, professional services.

Why do I find this area of life so fascinating? To get the full effect of this next declaration, please read it aloud with a chirpy, almost musical tone, heavy on the sarcasm: Because I’m a people person! I love to work with people, that’s why!!! That was great! …..now, back to your inside voice. More accurately, I’m a people junkie. We humans are amazing and entertaining when we try to play grown-up and do that whole “job” thing. Sure, I can get frustrated as much as any manager, co-worker, subordinate, counselor or whatever role I’m in at the moment. But nothing convinces me that I love what I do more than when I get to deal with a secretary who starts pre-gaming for an office party at 9:00 a.m. by stuffing feathers down her shirt and dropping them out one at a time throughout the office all day, like it’s some sort of turn-on for the rest of us. If you want to hear that entire story you’ll need to keep watching this site.

What I want to do with this site is share my experiences, opinions, ideas and observations. Whatever your walk in life – employee, new grad, manager, business owner, student, teacher, professor, I hope to bring some new ideas or inspiration to you in your work life.

Thanks in advance for your interest, your time and hopefully, your approval.