Happy Festivus to everyone

or whatever holiday you may celebrate. I'm more of a "Ill celebrate anything where I can cook and eat" kind of guy no matter what a holiday might or might not signify. The only catch is that if I have to include my inlaws, there must be enormous quantities of high proof adult beverages on hand so I can self medicate and not go all Dr House on them. (The only time I drink them)

On a lighter note.

EvilHrLady has a funny post regarding inane questions here.

Since it is near year end and a time where many people like to look at "best of" lists I would like to take this opportunity to nominate my most inane/dumb$$$ question of the year

There are many inane questions, but this wins in terms of inanity and frequency.
It has many variations, but this is one example of

Can you provide an answer based on... nothing?

Regional Branch Mgr: Umm, the branch mgr in the Tulsa office left and I want to call a guy I had work for me in my area a few years ago and see if he might want to come back

ok, what is his name?

Mgr:John something?

are you asking me?

Mgr: er...no, I think it was John, or Jack.

Was he in the Tulsa branch?

Mgr: I don't think so, but he was around that area.

When did he leave?

Mgr: a few years ago

Ok, Ill look for a John that worked somewhere in the Tulsa area a few years ago. Ill get back to you on that, in the meantime, see if you can find a file number or a name.

Mgr: ok, let me know if he is rehireable.

Will do, oh, it may take a while so don't wait by the phone.

(I had thought of telling him to wait by the phone, but sarcastic understatement won over evil)

Well, In-laws over for Xmas so off to do some "food" shopping

A Merry Xmas and happy New Year to all!

HRIS applicant questions

Evil HR Lady forwarded me a question put to her by an HRIS manager regarding some advice on questions for HRIS applicants. Thanks for the reference EHRL!

..I am an HRIS Manager (with a tech background) and need some advice on excellent HRIS questions for possible applicants...

Ok HRIS manager, I will try to answer your question with as little evil as possible (my coworkers gladly throw resumes at me to opine on anyone who claims to have HR technical skills, but rarely subject them to my interrogations er.. questions)

Here are 5 basic areas that I would touch on(and have been "subjected to")

1) Besides HRIS/technical experience How much functional HR experience do you have and in what areas?

The past few interviews I have had were more concerned about how much HR knowledge I had and less interested in how technical I am or am not. To quote one HRVP "I can get a dozen techies in here tomorrow, but none of them will have a clue about HR" My compensation and benefits background really helped me in this situation. "Great! someone I don't have to explain what a compa ratio means"

2) I would ask about implementation/upgrade experience--how many systems/types; what role did you have etc/how customized was the implementation

Even if you do not intend to implement a new system, you will be upgrading the one you have. A major upgrade it can be as demanding as a new implementation especially if you have complex custom processes . If the choice were between an applicant who was versed in my current system, but no implementation exp vs someone who implemented any HRIS system, I would lean towards the implementation background.

3) Give me some examples of how you provided excellent customer service.

Yep, as you know, HRIS is a service organization---and even if you are evil, you still need to be professional and make the customer think you are not evil.

4) Have you any experience with outsourcing, or dealing with a SaaS vendor?

Chances are your senior management is going to read a trade rag or buy into the groupthink that outsourcing saves money at all costs and you are going to have to deal with outsourcing. If you have, tell me about it and how you would deal with a vendor with poor support?

5) On a scale of 1-10 rate how technical you are---with 1 being "what's a computer?" to 10 being I wrote my own operating system because Vista was a memory hog.

You want a 5. This can be fun---get a partner in IT (or do it yourself if you have a tech background) and get a feel for how really technical they are. I remember one interview where the IT director came in and asked me some basic questions about SQL; database keys; effective dated tables and the issues involved in querying data tables; inner joins vs outer joins etc.

Oh, I was offered the job(s) in my examples above, but didn't take them for work/life balance reasons. (didn't want the commute, nor the travel)

Anyone other suggestions (I'm tempted to throw in "how long have you hated Payroll", but that's a given)

Why I Shop at Best Buy

Yeah, Ill be there on Monday , by the way, can I have the key to the stockroom?


At least the ones who do come back should be reinstated, (assuming they offer any benefits/vacation etc) to have the service time count for anything.


There would be a few queries I would set up right now---look at the % of hosed people who actually did come back and then an analysis of shrink numbers before and after.


Im guessing that the good ones are already working and the ones that you do get back, you probably do not want.


Maybe Jim Collins can write a sequel---Good to Great to Laughable?

Best Business Blog award

Go vote for Evil HR Lady here
Then vote again tomorrow!

Consequences

EvilHRLady has a great follow up post to comments on 8 hours &lunch and HR Capitalist about overly family friendly workplaces.

She touches on one of my favorite topics---Choices and consequences. Every choice has some sort of consequence even if it is simply the "loss" of the road not taken. (Opportunity cost in economic jargon?)

Every day I say to the young offspring. "You are making your choice right now!"

They are beginning to get it---they choose to keep doing what they are doing at the moment (tormenting a sibling, jumping on the bed) and they will suffer the consequences. (cue evil laughter) It is usually enough to deter them.

Now I only wish that I could imbue the same conditioning in some decision makers who decide that simply choosing to change a policy or process in a vacuum can have some interesting consequences on an existing system.

"Ive decided to change the sick policy, we are changing the policy from an hours per hour accrual to an accrual that will accrue based on the lunar cycle and display in roman numerals!"

"You realize that it will take a wee bit of customization to do that, and since you chose to outsource all your system hosting and development it will probably take a few months to implement, test and put into production. Not to mention it will cost about 100K."

"Well, we've already published the policy"

"Good luck with that"

I wonder if a wooden spoon would work for them too?

Here's a bad choice in progress---I suppose overconfidence can lead to all sorts of interesting consequences.

Surveys

I was at a local Starbucks ordering a large regular coffee. I may have confused the barista: a non-complicated order and I was not on a cell phone while I ordered (don't own one).

I may be evil, with numerous flaws (my wife will corroborate), but rudeness* and self-importance are not among them.

Anyway, after I paid, the barista handed me the receipt with information on completing a customer service survey.

I like surveys.

I like designing them, I like reading them, I like completing them, and I even like analyzing them.

What I do not like is when well-meaning, but clueless management types decide to “do a survey” and do not consider what they are going to do with it once they get the results.

In the rare case they do ask me before they have written them and sent them out, my first question is: What type of reports/analysis are you looking to see once you get the results.
Huh?
Yep, that’s right, think about the final process first.

You know you are in trouble when you get a stack of returned surveys with all free form questions like. (yep, its happened more than once at more than one place)

Tell us how you like working for PEBKAC Corporation? ________________________

What do you think we could improve at PEBKAC Corporation?____________________

Instead of
I like working for PEBKAC Corporation: strongly disagree, agree, strongly agree, ambivalent

Then the next question, “When can we get an analysis of this?”

Define analysis---- Your only option is to get a list of the answers. We can sort it by question though.

Well, off to complete my Starbucks survey. There is a chance at a cash prize, but the price is supplying personal information on “where to send it”. Sorry, but you will have to buy that outright!

*Note to any potential HRIS converts---you really can't be rude as an HRIS person; never forget that you are a customer service provider. Therefore, one of your core competencies will be to master the art of passive-aggression.

Still here

My posting frequency is not what I was hoping, but we have been acquired and Ive been busy with the assimilation. (resistance is futile).

Hey, who knows, I soon might have PLENTY of time to post. (and play with the kids all day--- that doesn't sound so bad until they actually want to eat and have a place to live. Demanding little urchins eh?)

One of our SaS providers also was acquired so now I get to play "educate the account rep of the week" on how their own system works for us.

Nothing is more fun than telling someone how our setup works on their service and then having to do it again in a week or three when a different developer or whoever is assigned. (then again, it is job security!)