Do You Have a $5.3 Million Budget for Sexual Harassment Claims?

Thanks to our state's Freedom of Information Law (also known as FOIL), lately the local press has been peeling back the layers of the cost to settle sexual harassment claims made against state workers over a four-year period to the tune of $5.3 million. In no particular order, these settled claims totaling $5.3 million include allegations of:

• Inappropriate touching / groping
• Inappropriate comments and actions
• Requests for dates
• Repeated retaliation against those who filed sexual harassment complaints.

The state worker targets of these settled claims come from all organizational levels and backgrounds, including but not limited to elected officials, legislature staffers, managers and prison guards. No matter how large the organization is, $5.3 million is a hefty chunk of change in unplanned expenditures to pay out. And the salt in the financial wound is not only that the $5.3 million is funded by taxpayers, but is also FOILable, e.g. discoverable to the general public. Not the reputational / financial data that any organization wants blasted in the news.

If you don't have $5.3 million budgeted for sexual harassment claims (as well as the additional funds that would be needed to manage the negative publicity should the claims become public and featured in the press), do you follow the advice of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to employers to best prevent sexual harassment? "Prevention is the best tool to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers are encouraged to take steps necessary to prevent sexual harassment from occurring.

• They should clearly communicate to employees that sexual harassment will not be tolerated.
• They can do so by providing sexual harassment training to their employees; and
• By establishing an effective complaint or grievance process, and;
• Taking immediate and appropriate action when an employee complains."

The cost (payroll, subject-matter expertise, etc.) to train your employees, managers and executives as well as to set up the proper expectations, policies, due-process complaint and investigative infrastructure in your organization to prevent sexual harassment can be as little as .0005% of a potential $5.3 million budget for sexual harassment settlement claims. Sounds like a cost-savings home-run to the bottom line to me.

Liar, Liar, Job on Fire

When an employee falsifies any records for any reason, whether it's time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc.: in my experience as a Human Resources practitioner, it's pretty black and white: it's theft of company resources, grounds for immediate termination. Moreover, in my HR travels: if an employee is stealing company time by falsifying a time sheet indicating time worked when in fact they were, say, sleeping in a warehouse rack location on a pallet 30 feet above the cement floor (a double-play of theft of company time and violating safety rules, both gross / willful conduct violations each worthy of immediate termination), that lack of integrity is usually just the tip of the internal-loss iceberg, an indicator of other internal theft / loss prevention issues, e.g. the theft of company money and/or property.

Now, we may debate that I lean towards the hard-ass side, reminiscent of my Marine-Corps-trained dad. Before we debate too deeply, the following true story of employee falsification and theft of time is submitted for your consideration, straight from the New York State Inspector General's press release last week and quoted by The Times Union:

"Acting State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott today announced the arrest of a New York State Department of Health employee on felony charges, accusing him of submitting an application for handicapped parking supported by a forged doctor’s note. He also was charged with filing paperwork certifying he was working when he was not.

[The employee was arrested] by investigators from the New York State Inspector General’s Office and charged with four felony counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree and one misdemeanor count of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Third Degree. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted. The Inspector General’s investigation determined that in May of 2011, [the employee] obtained special parking privileges at his work location at Empire State Plaza based on a forged doctor’s note.

In addition, Defendant admitted that on three separate occasions in January and February of 2012, he submitted certified time records indicating that he had worked full days when he had not reported to work at all. (Emphasis mine.)

“New Yorkers have every right to expect that state employees will comport themselves with the highest degree of honesty and integrity,” said Acting Inspector General Scott. “Fraudulently obtaining handicapped parking not only is unlawful, but potentially inhibits the rights of New Yorkers with disabilities in need of accessible parking. Further, any fraudulent abuse of time and attendance records undermines public trust. Such conduct is not tolerable.”

[The employee] was arraigned today before Town of New Scotland Judge David Wukitsch and held in County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash or bond. [The employee] has worked for the Department of Health as an Information Technology Specialist II since 2007. His current salary is $58,311.00. Acting Inspector General Scott thanked the New York State Police for their assistance in the case and the Albany County District Attorney’s Office for the prosecution of this matter. The defendant is innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law."

The debate on whether falsifying time sheets, doctor's notes, travel expense reports, etc. is theft takes a bit of interesting turn when it's money from the pockets of New York State taxpayers that's being filched. That outrage that you may feel at having your hard-earned tax dollars unlawfully stolen is underscored by the felony charges of forgery filed by the NYS Inspector General's office. Not to mention the reputational damage to the accused employee, his managers and the NYS Department of Health.

Upholding and enforcing true / accurate records protects the reputations and assets of everyone in your organization, including but not limited to promoting to industry those employees who will not / cannot follow those standards of integrity. You can handle the truth, and so can your colleagues, executives, managers and employees.

Giving Pays Large Dividends for All of Us at Work

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

  

-Lilla Watson

I've spent most of the day putting the finishing touches on this year's property tax appeal; my brain cells are squeezed dry. I am, as always, looking forward to a lively discussion on Tuesday, while Noah and Joel watch me channel my inner amateur lawyer.

Earlier today, our Senior Youth conducted their annual Bridging Service to send their dear comrades off to college. One of them quoted Lilla Watson during their presentation to us. Another youth, a former Coming-of-Age mentee, shared her love and appreciation for her older sister, headed off to start her college career. "I know my life would not have been the same without her in it; I will miss her terribly," she said.

Yesterday, my good friend Avon asked me to present a Career Workshop to up-and-coming young women served by The Northeast Parent & Child Society. I'm no fashion diva by any means; and my challenge was to coach these young women on how to make a great first impression.

In preparation, I reached back to my own early career experience, with a equivalent college loan debt of about $40,000, making only $8,000 a year during my first of many rides to the Recession Rodeo. What meant the most to me as I began interviewing for career jobs? The first thing that came to mind was how to look professional on a shoestring budget. So I put together an interview outfit accordingly:

• Navy jacket:      $6
• Navy pants:       $3
• Peach blouse:   $3
• Matching scarf: $1
• Navy shoes:      $7

And made it part of my "show me, don't tell me" workshop presentation.

That day, I shared my experience, strength and hope with about 60 talented young women, as my mentors before me have so lovingly and generously done for me. I validated their great outfits, all decked out for the Career Fair. I recognized some of their talents on the spot, and told them. I gave advice on how to best manage and conceal tattoos. I gave them my daddy's advice: if you make 30 calls and you get one "yes," you're having a great day: for after all, you only need one job. My friend and co-presenter Barb Wisnom provided a new, more positive trope on that theme: try and collect 20 "no's" and make it a game. Can you? I'm going to try it out. Because one of the hardest lessons when you're marketing yourself to potential employers (customers) to learn is that it's business, not personal. "How can your feelings not get hurt," one of the students asked. "Practice, repetition and time," I replied, with full knowledge and serenity.

Saturday was a day of vocational giving, and I received nothing in return except an unexpected and delicious sandwich from Ambition. And from my experience, the dividends that always come thereafter are: priceless.

Who’s Watching Your Cash Register at Work?

I love cash registers. I remember like it was yesterday when my dad worked at a stationery store in Queens; I was 3 years old. Mom and I stopped by for a visit, and the store owner let me push the buttons on the mechanical cash register at the front counter. I was hooked. At the age of 4, I subsequently destroyed an electronic adding machine in Dad's office during a Saturday morning visit by pressing all the keys I could reach simultaneously. It whined, smoked and shorted out as part of its death throes. Today, I treat my electronics with a great deal more respect and thankfully, they last longer. Just to be safe, Joel asked me to not interact with our cash register when The Best Framing Company had a physical storefront.

Cash registers are on my mind tonight because I've read too many stories in the last year, in all sectors, of employees who have been caught with their hands in the till, so to speak. In other words, abusing their positions of trust as bookkeepers, office managers, accountants, controllers and CFOs by stealing money from their employers.

A common thread in all of these stories is that each organization did not have in place a system of financial / accounting controls to minimize the chances of one person using their organization's funds as illegal incremental income.

Another thread is the reliance on relationships alone to ensure financial controls. These stories always start out with the heartbreaking "I trusted him / her for years." Trust is critical in the workplace; however, it cannot be the only source of financial controls. It's a setup for failure for the entire organization.

So who's watching your cash register at work? And what's your system to keep the wrong hands out of the till?

Diamonds or Toads: How Your Hiring Authorities Help (or Hurt) Your Company's Reputation

My brother teases me for retaining my 20 year-old AOL email address.  Call me sentimental:  it's the account Joel and I created the year we were married.  It doesn't have any numbers in it.  My AOL account is a repository for merchant emails, so I basically skim it once a day.

When I opened up AOL this morning, I saw the story on the news feed about the store manager who allegedly told the applicant with 1.5 arms that he would not be able to work in her store because of products placed on a high shelf. (Apparently, the store manager experienced interview amnesia and forgot the store had both a step-stool and a ladder, standard gear for a retail store).  The applicant appears to be a nice, stand-up guy with 11 years of uninterrupted service and retail work experience and a sterling reference from his last manager.  The same applicant who the store manager during a 15-minute interview also allegedly ridiculed for working at Victoria's Secret while allegedly simultaneously sexually harassing her co-interviewer about her bra size.

What immediately popped in my mind was not my 20+ years of hiring and HR legal experience:  it was the Toads and Diamonds fable.  You know:  the fable about the two sisters who are tested by a fairy at the well disguised as a thirsty old woman.

The kind sister, who immediately gives the old woman a drink of water, is blessed with the gift of diamonds, pearls and flowers spilling from her mouth every time she speaks.

The nasty sister, who shooed the old woman away instead of giving her a drink of water, is given the curse of toads and vipers falling from her mouth every time she speaks; and is consequently shunned and shortly thereafter dies in a corner of the forest.

The kind sister wins marriage with a prince she meets in the forest with her new gift.   The Middle Ages' version of career success for women.  But I digress.

Hiring authorities at every level, from CEO to store manager, assume great power and equally great responsibility.

Most hiring authorities understand this role, and represent their companies adequately:  that is, they don't violate the law during the interview or engage in insulting behavior, leaving their job applicants with a neutral experience. No diamonds or toads.  The prediction would be that their customers have a neutral, shredded wheat-type experience, too.  Not the best stance against their competitors, but not the worst.

Some hiring authorities are on a power-trip doomed for personal and reputational failure, acting like the capos at the gates of Auschwitz treating job applicants like prisoners of war.  "Go to the right, and I'll grant you the privilege of working for me," the little power-mad voice in their heads sings.  "Go to the left and be condemned to continued unemployment."  Certainly not freedom through work.  And certainly not companies you would want support with your patronage or your employment.  A nest of vipers and toads to make Indiana Jones sweat, indeed.

And then there are the bleeding-edge hiring authorities and companies who get it. Who have clear values, visions and missions, and know how to walk the talk accordingly and consistently. Who recruit for the diversity in their candidates that equals or exceeds the diversity of their customers.  Who hire managers and hiring authorities who also walk the talk accordingly and consistently, and make available those who don't to industry.  Who understand all too well that their reputations pivot equally on how they recruit their employees and how they recruit their customers. And that the strategies for both employee and customer recruitment / retention are inextricably linked for long-term success.  These are the diamonds and pearls of the leading companies that we want to patronize as customers and where we want to work as employees, leaders and vendors.

Personally, I find diamonds and pearls most becoming.

Job Descriptions are Money in the Bank for Your Business

I know:  talking about job descriptions is like watching paint dry; and reading job descriptions may well be the cure for insomnia.

However, it's when your business or nonprofit organization lacks job descriptions that the excitement can begin.  And I'm not talking fun excitement.  I'm talking about a body blow to your bottom line.

Submitted for your disgust:  the audit conducted by the New York State Comptroller of the Charlton Fire District, located here in the SmAlbany, NY area, entitled Internal Controls Over Treasurer's Activities:  Mismanagement Allows Theft, which describes in detail the multi-year financial field day (a.k.a. theft) the Fire District's Treasurer (who is married to the Fire Chief, by the way) had with the District's finances, spending and paying herself to the tune of $500,000.

Aside from the complete lack of leadership oversight and commonly accepted financial controls, what caught my eye was how the Treasurer paid herself an additional hourly rate in addition to her Board-approved salary for "work in addition to regular duties."  As the Comptroller's Office noted, this is an unusual arrangement for someone who is already paid a regular salary.

What really set the stage for the theft of wages by the Treasurer to occur was the absence of a written job description prepared by the Fire District Board, as well as the lack of a written list of "work in addition to regular duties" approved by the same Board.  Nothing was documented by the Board.

That wage theft amounted to nearly $325,000.  I don't know any business or nonprofit organization that can justify or absorb a bottom-line hit like that.

So if the cautionary job description tale of the Charlton Fire District isn't enough to scare you straight about the financial importance of having current and compliant job descriptions on file for your business or nonprofit organization, here are a few additional financial parting gifts to seal the job description deal for you:

• Audit by the Department of Labor:  if DOL pays you an unannounced visit and you don't have current / compliant job descriptions, how will you prove which of your jobs are exempt from overtime and which are nonexempt?  In these tight government budget times, DOL's fines to businesses and other organizations are a key funding stream, not to mention the multi-year back-wage repayment requirements if DOL discovers Wage & Hour violations at your workplace.

• Worker's Compensation Injury / Liability:  If your employee sustains an injury at work and there is no job description, how will you prove to your Worker's Comp carrier that you've done your diligence in informing your employees about what safe conduct is in your workplace? Can any business or nonprofit organization afford a big increase in your Worker's Comp insurance coverage?

• Unemployment Insurance and Discrimination Claims:  If you don't have job descriptions, you have no ability to provide acceptable documentary proof of employee performance issues, because you never set the minimum standards of performance via current and compliant job descriptions.  Can your business or nonprofit organization afford an unplanned hike in Unemployment Insurance premiums, or worse:  an unplanned discrimination lawsuit settlement totaling thousands of dollars?

Job descriptions on the surface may be great sleep aids, but in this HR geek's reckoning, compliant and current job descriptions are money in the bank.  And that should help any business leader sleep well at night.

Avoid a $290k Hit to Your P&L By Paying Less Than $1,000 for Sexual Harassment Prevention

In the local news this week (and all over the web) was this report:

Local Franchise to Pay $290,000 to Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Teens Among Victims of Store Supervisor's Abuse, Federal Agency Charged

According to the EEOC, the manager engaged in unwanted touching and hugging and made lewd sexual comments to the female employees.  The EEOC argued that the owner allowed the manager's illegal conduct to continue even after two employees had complained about it a year before.  The manager was finally fired after the employees reported his conduct to the police and he was arrested.  The EEOC filed suit after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

In addition to paying $290,000 to the former employees, the company will be bound by a six-year consent decree enjoining it from engaging in further discrimination or retaliation.  The decree calls for the appointment of an equal employment opportunity coordinator and training for all employees and managers on sexual harassment prevention.  The company will issue a letter of apology to the women; revise its anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures; post a notice to employees about the resolution of the lawsuit; and never re-hire the manager responsible for the harassment.

Rather than walk you through the whys and wherefores of my standard Sexual Harassment Awareness and Prevention spiel, I'm going to bottom-line it for you:  investing about $1,000 or less to proactively have a qualified HR and/or Legal Subject-Matter Expert (internal or external to your organization) to:

• Ensure that your anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures exist and are compliant with state and federal law;
• Train your employees and managers annually on sexual harassment prevention and document it;
• Take violators of your compliant anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures through a progressive discipline (and if warranted) termination process;

will save you the $290,000 the above-mentioned franchise owner will now have to pay as the EEOC settlement.  That doesn't include the lingering cost of the reputational damage inflicted by the negative publicity of the compliance violations.

A $290,000 settlement is a huge bite out of an annual small-business P&L such as a franchise store:  in this tight commercial lending environment, unless the owner has a large cash reserve, that large a settlement can effectively shut down a small business.

In contrast:  $1,000 or less invested proactively in Sexual Harassment policy compliance, training, discipline and prevention by a qualified internal or external HR SME is a much smaller bite of a small-business P&L, and will pay off in positive legal and reputational dividends for years to come.

Pink donut with a bite missing (clipped to Polyvore.com)

Come In From The Margins

I'm challenging our property tax assessment again this year.  I just finished our complaint, due on Tuesday, chock full of new data and pictures.  I'm looking forward to talking to the Board of Assessors again later this week.

Joel and I watched in awe as the value of the house we bought nearly 18 years ago essentially doubled by 2008.  Yep, the same year our town decided to reassess all of our houses at full market value.  The housing market crashed just a few months after the new tax rolls were published.

No one taught me how to put together a property tax complaint.  But thanks to the experience of researching and writing discrimination complaint position statement responses and appearing at discovery hearings, that honed skill set, with a bit of help from my girlfriend Google, served us well last year, as I expect it will this year.  Rather than just complain (no pun intended!) about how outdated our 2008 property tax assessment was, I took the risk and completed work in an area I never imagined experiencing.  And saved us, at minimum, the cost of using someone else to represent us in an area we know so well:  our own house.

When Joel was laid off in 1994 because his boss decided not to renew the 10-year the Deck the Walls franchise (and we declined the offer to take on a new 10-year, $350,000 franchise agreement ourselves on a note that Joel's boss also offered to hold, a new level of their working relationship Joel and I simply did not want to explore), he spent 4 months on unemployment while I researched and wrote the business plan to get us a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan to start our own picture-framing store, The Best Framing Company.  No one taught me to put together a business plan.  However, I knew how to research (using AOL in its infancy); use MS Excel; and write a great story, factual or fictional.  Working at GE during that time was also a boon to this process, to this day a key and foundational career experience.  I doubted myself every day during the process, but Joel's faith in me and my abilities never wavered.  Long story short:  we got the loan.  Unsecured, based on our collective talent and experience.  It was a bit like a pregnancy and birth process:  our first joint creation, before our son Noah.  With some of the same pain, complaining and self-doubt:  but in the end, a great product.  And we created it ourselves, from scratch.  No stinkin' franchise for us.

What will you do this week to create something that you've never done before:  to create from scratch, your skills and experiences manifested in a new area; your own vision, realized?  With the sure knowledge that you can come in from the margins:  layoff; career and business set-backs; personal pain and crisis:  and start once again, with courage, creativity, renewed faith and irrepressible energy that comes from the best source:  you.

HR Amateur Hour

I was in Drome Sound purchasing a piano primer for my son Noah on New Year's Eve, and some funky purple guitar picks caught my eye.  As he added the guitar picks to my purchase, the owner asked if I performed locally.  I chuckled briefly.  "No.  But if you count Amateur Open-Mike Night at Folk City at midnight when I was a senior in college, I did perform once in New York City."

In the spirit of leading the examined vocational life (and walking my own talk thereof), I possess enough self-knowledge at this writing to understand where I am a subject-matter expert (SME), and where I am not (Amateur).

As you've already surmised, I'm a Human Resources (HR) SME, among other subjects.  I am not an Accounting SME, among other subjects, and therefore an Amateur.  In an odd and decidedly fleeting savant moment today however, I found the root cause of the low water level in the upstairs toilet tank and unkinked the rubber hose blocking the inbound water flow.  Although his preceding toilet troubleshooting did not identify the root cause issue, my husband Joel continues to be the house maintenance SME, so no worries:  I will not be usurping his role anytime soon, as I don't even rise to the level of Amateur in that area of expertise.

On the subject of Human Resources, I have witnessed many performances of HR Amateur Hour over the years. Particularly by organizations who don't have HR SME resources internally or even available on an outsourced basis, and who figure they'll just wing it to save some money on the front end, and hope for the best. ("Hey," they think to themselves:  "I'm great with people, how hard can HR work be?")

Gentle colleagues:  hope doesn't pay for the compliance violation fines / judgments on the back end.

Here is a small sampling of HR Amateur Hour performances (a.k.a. Compliance Juggling or Reputation Roulette) for your edification and education:

• Deleting earned yet unapproved overtime pay to save money;
• Failure to investigate and discipline ass-grabbing managers;
• Failure to respond and intervene on sexual harassment or other compliance complaints;
• No sexual harassment awareness training to teach managers not to grab asses in the workplace;
• No employee handbook or policies;
• No documentation in the personnel files;
• No personnel files;
• No performance goals or feedback;
• No compensation strategy or structure;
• Firing an employee on Worker's Compensation leave without cause or documentation;
• Failure to file and post required OSHA reporting;
• Failure to display required state and Federal labor posters;
• Asking for applicants' Social Security Number (SSN) on employment applications;
• Firing employees via the phone, email, etc. - a la Juan Williams abrupt termination from NPR; 
• No progressive discipline process (see previous item, above);
• No established and documented due process for employees to bring up issues or concerns;
• Asking job applicants:
• How old they are;
• If they're married or have children.

Employers aren't the only performers during HR Amateur Hour:  prospective, current and former employees get into the act, too - here are a few examples:

• Falsifying your C.V. / job application, e.g. college degrees you haven't earned, etc.;
• Filing false Sexual Harassment or other compliance complaints;
• Stealing your organization's time, money or goods;
• Filing Worker's Compensation claims when you haven't injured yourself at work, in order to get a financial settlement;
• Filing for Unemployment Insurance when you've resigned or you've been terminated for cause.

When our 1959 upstairs toilet finally gives up the ghost, we'll turn to a plumbing SME, like my friend Andrea's company. However, we have another toilet downstairs, so we have our backup plan.

What's your HR backup plan?  In-house, or outsourced:  an ounce of HR SME advice on the front end is worth and saves you (and your organization) potentially thousands of dollars that would otherwise be lost on the back end through compliance fines and judgments, lost reputation and turnover.

HR work is not an Amateur's stage.  If you don't have an HR SME as a strategic and compliance resource, please get one.

Don't Phone in Your Performance

NPR's termination of their correspondent Juan Williams via a phone call after his questionable comments on the Fox Network has grabbed headlines over the last week.

Williams' termination has a number of fascinating facets to consider, and I'd like to focus on how he was terminated by NPR:  via a phone call.  Look how it has bruised NPR's reputation. 

Specifically, terminating an employee by phone (or email, or text message, or by any other electronic or non-electronic means, such as the U.S. Mail) who is not a danger to themselves or others is inauthentic, disrespectful and just not good business. Videoconferencing is even a stretch. 

In the case of terminations for cause, e.g. theft, progressively documented poor performance, failure to adhere to company policies, failure to work scheduled hours, etc., when documented accurately and communicated consistently, the face-to-face discussions are actually brief and to the point.  No surprises.  The employee has effectively terminated themselves.  And they usually feel bad and take responsibility during the discussion, and occasionally apologize.  That's what happens when you conduct the disciplinary / termination process authentically, and consistently, without making exceptions, particularly potentially discriminatory exceptions. 

When you operate from a premise of truth and you have prepared in terms of documentation, procedure and contingency, the face-to-face discussion, and your potential discomfort in the anticipation thereof, take care of themselves.

Several good reasons which support the good old-fashioned face-to-face method, and your courage to take that route.

I am also a strong advocate of having the supervisor drive the termination discussion. After all, they are the organization's management representative with the best first-hand knowledge of the employee's performance, in continued support of authenticity.  As the HR subject-matter expert, of course I don't mind sitting in on termination discussions to support the supervisor and provide the recommended witness to such discussions.  If a supervisor is inexperienced and asks for help, I will drive the discussion for them as a coaching moment to train the supervisor in order to prepare them to drive their next termination discussion.

Delegating a termination discussion to HR "because they're the experts" deprives both the employee and the supervisor of dignity and closure.

I've experienced very few exceptions where termination by phone or mail make sense.  One memorable example is the employee who was constructing weapons and storing them at their work station.  Upon discovery of their cache, I walked them out of the building and subsequently mailed their termination letter to them, return receipt requested. I was spared the potential safety issue of being in the same room with them thereafter when they dropped their unemployment insurance claim after I included a picture of their weapons in the employer's document challenging their claim.

In Williams' case, there doesn't appear to be any safety issues:  he just shot off his mouth and subsequently shot himself in the foot:  metaphorically speaking, of course.

Another example is acting as a witness by phone to a manager in a remote location while he terminated his employee in person.

In our roles as managers and leaders (and in general), unquestionably, both difficult and good news is best delivered face-to-face.  In the case of Juan Williams, I would have advised the decision-maker to first take a step back and quickly plan the most authentic course of action to best support the needs and esteem of all parties involved.  Terminating Williams by a phone call would not have been one of my recommendations.

In support of your success:  don't phone in your performance.

Taking a Stand Against Bullying is Good Business

At the end of the last school year, with a substitute teacher at the helm of the class, my son's best friend punched him in the stomach.  Noah, with the intent of being helpful, pointed out a misspelling on the project his friend had slaved over and was about to submit.  Noah's friend, whose forte is not spelling, lashed out at Noah in frustration.  The punch surprised and hurt both of them.  They were both sent to the principal's office, and Noah's friend spent the whole school day there.

I saw the friend's mother that night at a school event that Noah's friend could not attend as punishment for the punch.  The look on her face was difficult for both of us.  "It's okay," I said.  "It sounds like the school took care of it."  Noah's school, like many progressive schools, has instituted anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, and more importantly, follow through in their enforcement.

She brightened.  "Yes.  I think they went a bit overboard - I mean, it was just rough-housing.  But they can't act that way at school."

"No," I responded kindly but clearly.   "We don't hit in our house.  And it was a violation of school rules."

"Yes," she said, and we parted the awkward company.

Noah also thought his friend's punishment was a bit extreme.  "I'm not upset anymore,"  Noah reported.  "Why did he have to stay in the principal's office all day?"

I thought for a moment, and spoke out of my own experience.  "Because, honey:  if he doesn't learn to control himself and act respectfully now in school, he'll be fired from his job when he's an adult for that type of behavior.  It's for his own good."  Noah's eyes widened, and he nodded.  He's 9 years old, and he gets it.  Mom has fired adults for hitting and bullying each other.

Taking a stand against bullying, regardless of age or organization, is taking a stand for inclusiveness, which in turn, is good business.

How is it good business?  Banishing bullying from your organization will help minimize the chance that your customers will be treated badly by your employees.  Simple as that.  The internal organizational behavioral norms and values absolutely dictate how your employees interact with your customers.

Without that integrity between internal and external behaviors and values, your customers -- and your business -- are at risk.  It is a paradigm bereft of all authenticity.  And your customers crave authentic interactions.

Taking a stand against bullying also minimizes the needs for third-party involvement, e.g. proposed and current anti-bullying legislation and regulations.  If you're keeping the house of your organization clean, what impact will such mandates really have on your organization?  This stand also minimizes the risk of violating other current harassment and other laws and regulations protecting employees.

An anti-bullying stance is also an educational stand.  Not only only is risk minimized, but the potential for enlightenment and re-direction is possible even for adult learners:  a manifestation for my continual hope for resurrection on the human level.  If not:  then organization bullies need to be made available to industry, as they say.

Noah and his friend remain pals.

Don't Mess Your Nest: The Secret to Employee Handbook Compliance (Business, Leadership and Career Success Too)

The ongoing postmortem on the abrupt resignation and departure of Hewlett-Packard's former CEO Mark V. Hurd due to violations of H.P.’s standards of business conduct and an allegedly unfounded sexual harassment claim continues to fascinate me as an HR and Change Management practitioner.

However, as a kid born and bred in New York City and the daughter of a Marine, a simple but visceral reaction keeps rearing its authentic head:

Don't Mess Your Nest.

My friend Carol, who had a successful career as a state government executive, helped me with this more polite version of what I learned early in life.  It was a classic NYS Downstate-kid/ Upstate-kid exchange.  "Carol, do you know a cleaner version of "Don't S*** Where You Eat?"  I asked recently.  "Yes," Carol answered immediately.  "Don't Mess Your Nest."

I liked it.  It reminded me of an eagle's nest, and for me personally, eagles are great metaphors on several levels, not withstanding a symbol of leadership and business success.  Much more nuanced than my Lower-East-Side version.

"Why do you want to know?"  Carol asked.  "Personal  theory I've developed over the years,"  I replied.  "Rather than writing a magnum opus of an HR Handbook and policies for an organization, I believe that one phrase covers it all.  And if all employees at all levels subscribed to 'Don't Mess Your Nest,' we wouldn't have to worry about an employee handbook,  and consequently work life would be a lot easier for all of us. Also, my 9 year-old son is an experienced Googler, and I have to maintain some decorum."  Carol chuckled.

I know what you may be thinking: I earn my livelihood writing employee handbooks as well as intervening on and subsequently remediating all sorts of dysfunctional workplace behavior at all organizational levels. Some potentially (but never on my watch to date, thankfully) newsworthy, some annoying and frustrating, and some just downright sad.   I approach this part of my role as a mediator, and that's why it hasn't worn me down, so what am I complaining about?  Because it takes time and energy away from more constructive and strategic efforts to build business and organizational success at all levels.

To the point I made in an earlier post:  in the dual role of HR executive and internal Executive recruiter, I would have to clean up my own mess (and credibility), HR-wise, if I inserted a candidate with the issues below into the hiring process and they were subsequently hired. It certainly motivates the drive on the front-end to place and promote quality candidates and leadership bench.

It also helps when the organization's governance structure shares the same success values.

In the latest New York Times article on Hurd's departure,  Charles House, a former longtime H.P. engineer who now runs a research program at Stanford University, in addition to his pleasure at Hurd's departure, makes this poignant observation about H.P.'s last 3 CEOs:  "What H.P. needs in its next leader is “someone with Carly’s (Fiorina) strategic sense, Mark’s (Hurd) operational skills, and Lew’s (Platt) emotional intelligence.”

Amen, brother:  a snapshot job spec for leadership success.

Sadly, a snapshot that Hurd did not fit.  He is further described in the NYT article as having the strategic sense of a gnat, and knew only how to cut costs. He was a cost-cutter who indulged himself.   His combined compensation for just his last two years was more than $72 million — a number that absolutely outraged employees since their jobs were the ones being cut. 

Hurd's cost-cutting as reported in the NYT was for the short-term hits as well:  he cut back significantly on R&D (the article notes that H.P. consequently had no product response to the iPad); he dictated that H.P. executives had to resign from all civic boards, and he cut off many of H.P.’s philanthropic activities.

In recent internal surveys, the NYT article reports, nearly two-thirds of H.P. employees said they would leave if they got an offer from another company — a staggering number. <Clearly> Hurd didn’t have the support of his people. He was also observed to be incredibly rude and demeaning, and relied on the fear factor. Although he was good at holding executives’ feet to the fire, he seemed to be the only one benefiting from H.P.’s success. He alienated himself from the people who might have protected him <Which would explain the decidedly odd publicity originating from H.P. about an allegedly resolved sexual harassment complaint.> One observer's summation:  Hurd lacked the moral character to be CEO.

Yet he was allowed to carry on for 5 years, as the ongoing postmortem seems to suggest, because of his significant but short-term positive hits to H.P.'s bottom line.  And this has all played out publicly and widely, to former, current and future customers, shareholders and employees, bruising both the reputations of Hurd and H.P.  Ouch.

Hurd sounds like a fictional character constructed to hammer home the authentic concepts illustrated by House's Stanford colleague Bob Sutton in his seminal leadership / organizational effectiveness book, The No-Asshole Rule (Sorry Noah, that's the title of the book).  But sadly, for Hurd, H.P. and its former and current employees, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The Hurd saga is also a cautionary tale about an organization off-course.  Joe Nocera, who wrote this latest NYT article, summed it up elegantly:  "H.P. says its board should be applauded for not letting Mr. Hurd off the hook. But this is just after-the-fact spin. In fact, the directors should be called out for acting like the cowards they are. Mr. Hurd’s supposed peccadilloes were a smoke screen for the real reason they got rid of an executive they didn’t trust and employees didn’t like." 

Worried about how to best follow organizational policies, guidelines and handbooks?  How to guide your employees to do the same?

And moreover, build a foundation that will ensure career and business success?

Don't Mess Your Nest.   

Because it's especially damaging and discouraging when eagles do it.


As always:  a successful week to all!