It’s January 1. That time of the year when magazine covers shout “Six Weeks to a New You!”  The time when we all decide that we are going to join the gym, lose 25 pounds, quit smoking, start using the $2500 exercise machine we bought last year, be nice to our mother-in-law, pay off our debts, go back to school and achieve world peace.

By Valentine’s Day, what has happened?  For most of us, we haven’t begun to lose our holiday weight, much less the rest of it;  the gym is a distant memory; we stocked up on a couple cartons of cigarettes while traveling down I-95; we haven’t contacted any schools; and we’re still avoiding the in-laws. The only resolution we can successfully claim credit for is “use the exercise machine.” Yes, we’re using it: it conveniently stores racks of freshly laundered items.

That’s most of us, I believe. Then there are a small percentage of people who use New Year’s as an opportunity to assess their lives, who decide on a few meaningful goals or intentions and faithfully attend to them throughout the year.

What’s the difference? As someone who has no other qualifications other than I can say that over the years, I have formed resolutions I kept and ones I didn’t, as well as un-resolutions and New Years intentions–or none of the above, in certain years–these are my thoughts:

• When we don’t meet goals or keep resolutions, we don’t feel great about ourselves. So pick your goals and resolutions with care.
• Don’t use the new year as an excuse to try to co-opt yourself into doing something you know in your heart you don’t want to do. You’ll just fail and feel bad.
• Know yourself. For example, I enjoy going to the gym occasionally. I don’t enjoy going often enough to justify a membership. A New Year’s resolution to sign up at the gym would end in self-recrimination whenever I passed Bally’s without stopping or whenever I click on my bank statement to see another $60 disappear down the drain. I need an alternate way to meet my fitness objectives.
• Less is more. Who can keep track of 15 resolutions? Ok, maybe you can, and my friend Alicia Arenas apparently had 30 last year.  She can handle that, but I can’t.
• Make it broad. Yes, this goes against all conventional wisdom about SMART goals (specific, measurable, etc.)  Sometimes when I’ve had broad intentions, such as to live life more simply, I’ve been more successful than when I’ve come up with narrowly scripted results.
• Pick things related to your dreams and passions, not things you *should* do, or outcomes you *should* want.
• Wait til February to decide. Take January to consider what you want the rest of your year to be, instead of rushing in and committing to resolutions on January 1.

So, with all that said, will I have New Year’s Resolutions, un-resolutions, or intentions this year? I have two intentions or themes.

Take stock: After years of denial, I am forced to acknowledge that I am well into my mid-life, usually described as the years from 35-50. My intention is to spend the coming months soul-searching and reflecting on what I want this stage in my life to mean, as well as starting to consider and build a deeper foundation for the last third of my life.

Intentional friendships. The other day my husband and I breakfasted with  Rev. Jim, the minister who married us. I watched in amazement as my husband morphed into someone else. In the presence of his mentor, he became the best and highest version of himself. This little incident was a beautiful little reminder of the importance of surrounding ourselves with high quality people who help us meet our goals, people who cause us to be our best selves. I love all my friends and don’t plan to discard any, but I do plan to spend more time with certain especially gifted/enlightened friends and mentors.

How about you? What can you commit to this year?

photo by E. Bartholomew

I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been getting ready for the holidays, plus I got caught up in watching previous seasons of The Office.

When the show first came out, I saw snippets of a few episodes but couldn’t bring myself to watch more, mortified by Michael Scott’s continuous stream of clueless and exuberantly inappropriate antics. In the beginning, it was too close for comfort to be funny, I guess. When I thought about the realities of being an HR person in Michael Scott’s outfit, I cringed, I just couldn’t watch it.  It was too nightmarish. After all, real HR is hard enough…

But recently my teenage son started watching Office  reruns on Netflix, and before you know it, I was hooked despite myself. I seem to have a morbid fascination to witness each gaffe, each office faux pas. So, since I’m addicted, some quick thoughts about The Office.

• Teenagers love it. Whenever I mention the series to friends, I hear the refrain,  “My kids love that show!!”   Why? Why do kids like The Office? Outrageous pranks, the “that’s what she said” jokes and bathroom humor aside, it’s an OFFICE, for crying out loud. They sell paper (yawn).  Why are kids even interested?  I hope they don’t think work is really like this?
• Despite being totally inept in expressing his concerns, Michael Scott is quite well-meaning and genuinely cares about all (*but one of) his employees.
• *Michael hates the HR person, Toby, the antithesis to all his fun and high-jinks. He treats him with unabashed scorn and incivility. If you work in HR, what do you think of Toby? Is he a sympathetic character? Or do you just feel sorry for him? What would you do, in his place?
• When Toby leaves and is replaced with Holly, Michael is instantly smitten and within weeks, they are having after-hours sex at the office, and soon after that, are officially dating.
• And by the way, why do they even need an HR person in a 15 person operation? Except to accept grievances about Michael and Dwight, of course. But that can’t take more than two hours a day. What does HR do the rest of the time? They don’t appear to handle recruitment or benefits or much else except occasional mandatory training, which Michael consistently derails.
• Michael’s always coming up with gems like, “I just don’t want my employees to think that their performance has anything to do with their jobs.” Huh? How did he get this job, and how does he hang on to it?
• Speaking of retention, despite all his offenses, his employees stay. He has virtually no turnover. And on top of that, and despite the fact that you almost never witness his employees working, it appears his branch is quite successful in terms of sales. How does he do this?

All joking aside, what I take from all this is the idea of the Shadow Self, those negative aspects of ourselves to which we are blind.  Michael will say, “A great boss cares more about the happiness of his employees than anything else,” or “The way I manage people is I touch their hearts and souls with humor and love and a touch of razzle-dazzle,” then turn around and insult his staff with flagrant sexist and racial slurs. He’s clueless and he just doesn’t see it. Is there a little piece of Michael in all of us, I wonder? As much as we’d all love to think that we are  all astutely emotionally intelligent, have our fingers on the pulse and are acutely attuned to our boss and employees–or as much as we’d like to think we’re the best HR pro/husband/wife/parent/friend ever–we’re probably not as perfect as we’d like to think. Do you agree? What do you think the message of the Office is?

I’ll just leave you with a collection of Michael Scottisms.

My son has been sick for three weeks and my husband for four.  Both had bad sinus infections and missed a bunch of school/work. This week, just when he should have been getting better, my husband took a turn for the worse and was diagnosed with pneumonia.

His morning appointment turned into an all day affair while the doctor ordered lab work, IV fluids, a chest X Ray, more labs, and finally an IV course of antibiotics. (Fortunately I brought my HRCP study materials and spent the day reading up on Strategic Management in preparation for my SPHR exam!) Since then, I’ve been playing a combination of Florence Nightingale and Giant Peapod (grocery delivery). My son is still home sick, my husband is still weak, has little energy and is not yet driving.

I love them and I’m glad to help, but I’m also very ready for them both to get back on their feet and out of my hair! My routine is just not the same. I’ve had very little time for myself, my work or my own priorities.

I was telling Chris Ponder there could be a silver lining in all this. Temporarily experiencing the disruption and fatigue of caregiving gives me new-found appreciation and respect for people who provide care long-term. In our workplaces, employees are caring for partners with Alzheimer’s or cancer, parents are caring for children with disabilities, adult children are taking care of aging parents.  The AARP estimates that 43.5 million Americans, or 19% of all adults, are caring for an older relative. The average family caregiver is female, middle-aged and working outside the home, according to AARP and the other literature I’ve read. Often they still have children at home, making them the sandwich generation.

If you’re a caregiver, my hat’s off to you for your continued service and sacrifice. What tips and suggestions do you have for others in your situation? How do you take care of yourself, have enough time to renew and still have time for all your obligations?

If you’re a business owner or HR person, what has your organization done to help employees who are caregivers?

photo by rosieobeirne

HR Pro Victorio Milian holds us accountable when he asks us to “Put Up or Shut Up,” to publicly declare our intentions and publicly report on our progress or lack thereof. As such, I wanted to report on my progress since my last post on this.

LOOKING BACK: This year, my main Put Up or Shut Up focus was improving the candidate experience. In general over the years, my department has done pretty well with candidate experience. Oh, we’ll never be perfect and we’ll never hit 100%, but we do some things very well. We welcome interviewees into a warm, friendly environment. Our staff are relaxed and convivial, which helps put candidates at ease.  If it becomes apparent the candidate is a better fit for a competitor, I refer elsewhere. I don’t believe in adversarial interviews and I’m often thanked for making the interview experience comfortable. But despite all that, I knew that I could do a lot more to keep applicants informed on their status. So, I dove into the PUSU challenge and almost killed myself in the process, spending countless evenings and Saturdays updating applicants on their status. My family life suffered and I didn’t have time for blogging or much else.

Eventually, I realized I needed to approach the issue differently, more strategically. Working harder wasn’t going to cut it; there simply aren’t enough hours in the week to communicate with an endless stream of applicants. I began to focus more on yield ratios (applications to interviews; interviews to offers; and offers to hires) knowing that if fewer, more qualified applicants entered the process then managing and communicating with them would be less time-intensive at every step. Not only that, but I could do it better, more personally.  I realized that conducting fewer dead-end interviews would save AMAZING  amounts of time, not just in appointment time but  because the further the candidate advances, the greater the expectation around communication.

In the last months, I’ve reduced candidate overload through psychometric testing designed to separate candidates with exceptional characteristics from the rest. (As I study for my SPHR, I am reminded that carefully designed pre-employment testing has an exceptionally high validity co-efficient). Result: I’m getting caught up on positions and I  interview fewer people per hire. This means I need to advertise less, and there are fewer people to communicate with. I am spending less of my personal time e-mailing candidates and it’s all working out well.

LOOKING AHEAD: For the next six months, I will be studying for the SPHR, with this approach:

1. Read the section in my review book.
2. Google the topic and read several other perspectives.
3. At work, look for real-world ways to apply the subject.
4. Engage with the HR online community (Twitter, blogs, Facebook) about my questions and learning.
5. Repeat.

My goal is not just to pass the SPHR, though obviously I intend to kick that test’s little butt. Rather,  my new Put Up and Shut Up is to:

1. Learn as much as I can from my SHHR review,  use this as an opportunity to audit most aspects of my department, and take what I/we’re doing to a higher level.

2. Continue to write. I just started a second blog around remarriage and blended family issues

3. I chair a nonprofit HR association network made up of fairly traditional HR practitioners and I intend to continue to reach out to them and challenge them gently toward the HRevolution direction, if you know what I mean.

photo by fanz

I wish I remembered more from my college classes. The truth is the finer points of most of them are long gone. These are the top five concepts I do remember, the ones I carry with me and use in my daily  life at home and work.

5. Less is more (from my Art class)

Popularized by architect Mies van der Rohe via Robert Browning. I’ve tried to keep my life relatively simple in line with the less-is-more philosophy.

4. Homeostatis (Philosophy class)

Explains why some people and organizations are so resistant to change.

3. Systems theory (Sociology)

I studied biology and sociology at the same time and was struck by the similarities–the mirrored  patterns and truths–whether we were discussing cell life, individuals, families, tribes, cultures or nations.

4. The law of diminishing returns (Economics)

I still remember the example the professor gave. If you are getting an “E” in a course, it takes minuscule effort to move your grade to a “D”   but it requires proportionately more effort  to move from a “D” to a “C.”  It takes a whole lot more work to get an “B” and a Herculean amount of effort to achieve an “A.”  As you move your grades up, an  application of additional resources yields less than a proportional return; you have to keep working harder and harder for smaller improvements.

I have taken this principle, flipped it, and used it to help me stay disciplined with my weight and eating habits. I noticed the first bite of [fill in the blank] is absolutely divine; OMG, this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten; I’m in heaven. Second bite:  this is yummy. Third bite: this is pretty good. Fourth bite: I’m just shoving it in my mouth. Lesson: three bites is often enough. And if I know I’m not going to truly relish three bites, I’ll forego it altogether.

5. Vote with your dollar (Economics)

The idea  is that consumers show support/nonsupport for goods, services, ideas, trends, etc., through their expenditures. You put your money where you mouth (wallet) is, in other words. If you want to see more of it, you spend more. If you want less of x, you spend less on x. You live out your values through your wallet and checkbook.

My greater takeaway is that we also vote in other ways. We also vote with our time. We vote with our attention. We vote with our laughter; we vote with our energy.  We can vote for snarkiness (or not) depending on how we use our time and attention. Ditto trashy TV, gossip, hate, fluff, unhappiness, addictions, whatever.

What do you remember from college? What were lessons you still use to this day?

photo by Michael Oh

Today is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when millions of Americans attempt to work off the previous days gluttony by getting up at the crack of dawn to battle other shoppers to the death.  Today, our office is actually open, though many people are taking leave. To make it festive, our accountant suggested that we all bring in our leftovers to share at lunch. And our administrative assistant suggested we all wear scrubs just for fun.

So I’m wearing pink scrubs pants. Since I don’t have a top to match, my I Make Work Meaningful HRevolution Tshirt.  I must say, this is darn comfortable attire.

People can call them ‘scrubs’ all they want, but my astute eyes have picked up on this truth: they are basically pajamas. It got me thinking: How did the medical profession maneuver itself into P.J.’s as a uniform, and do so without losing credibility, while still being taken seriously?

I’m jealous. HR friends, we should have had the foresight to  do the same. The HR uniform. What would it be, I wonder?

photo by spike55151

As it’s Thanksgiving today, I’m thinking about things for which I’m grateful.

1. That my ex talked me into becoming a mom all those years ago.
2. Family, both the ones that live under my roof and around the country.
3. Friends, of course. My health. A roof over my head and food on the table.
4. The HR social media world that has so enriched my life.
5. A job I love (most days)  in an industry I’m passionate about.

Since this is an HR blog, I want to focus a little more on my job and organization. I’m the HR Director for Jubilee Association, a nonprofit provider of residential supports for people who have  developmental disabilities. In the last five weeks, five things have made me especially proud to work there:

• Housing partnerships. Jubilee is doing some extremely creative and cutting edge projects related to housing, as unveiled at a ribbon-cutting ceremony of our most recently opened house, which is a result of a partnership with the local housing authority. As one of the Keep reading »

The other day, I received an extremely disappointing e-mail.  As I read it, I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.  In a few short paragraphs, six weeks of work disappeared down the drain, leaving behind untold extra hours, inconvenience and aggravation.

I could have cried. In fact, I almost did.

And then I caught myself. Cliched as it sounds, I realized I could choose my response to the news.  I could fall apart, throw a fit, or have an attitude. Or I could decide the e-mail wouldn’t ruin my day. Here are some things I did to make that happen: Keep reading »

This morning, I gave my son my standard morning send-off: “Have a happy day.” I’ve been saying this for almost as long as I remember.

He responded, “And may you have many hirings.” I really got a kick out of that, although that’s not the point of this post. My point is that that way we send our children into the world betrays our values.

I could say any number of other things, such as, “Be good, son,” or “Don’t cause any trouble, now,” or “Listen to the teacher and follow the rules, Keep reading »