No, you're not. But a growing number of people in the world will say that you are a jerk for sending that 9 pm email. The reality is . . . it's complicated. Let's dig in. You being a total machine and working to get things done isn't the issue. The issue is the perception that you're projecting your workhorse mentality onto others who report to you who can't match your speed, urgency, or general kick-ass vibe. In today's world of empathy, mental health awareness, and work/life balance considerations, a growing population feels like you're part of the problem with your drive, ambition and ..read more

Editor's Note: To keep the crazies away on both extremes, I present my status and views on vaccination below. --Vaccination Status: Fully Vaccinated (Pfizer) --Job: Business Owner who will fall into the 100+ employee mandate --View of Employer Mandates: Supportive that organizations should do what they think is best, especially in healthcare or high contact businesses --Historic View of Broad Federal Mandates: Not Supportive --Zodiac Sign: Scorpio (actually Taurus, but Scorpio sounds super credible) ------- Now that we've got the housekeeping out of the way, let's break down one underreported ..read more

We're just going to shut everything down for two to three weeks, and we'll be good. --Everyone, late March 2020 ----------------- In a pandemic, wouldn't it be cool to say, "I don't know?" Masks, distancing, hybrid school, vaccines and more. The reasonable position on all of it is that most of it makes sense. But, if you become absolute about your position and your position turns out to be wrong, it kind of undermines your authority to be absolute moving forward. This is the problem with COVID hot takes eighteen months in. Three weeks to flatten the curve. Masks are effective. Wait, two masks ..read more

Most people don't worry about having to do business introductions. I'd say that for 90% of the world, introducing someone to a person inside your network for the express purpose of mutual gain isn't a thing. For 10% of us (myself included), the requests come on a weekly basis. It's a thing and it's full of peril, as the tweet below (email subscribers, click through if you don't see the tweet) from Valley investor Chris Sacca outlines: If you ask for an introduction, once it’s been made, it is on you to follow up first. If you make an introduction without double opt-in, it’s on you to come up ..read more

Hiring Recruiters is Hard - This Makes it Easier When it comes to Talent Acquisition, there's one thing that can sneak up on TA and HR leaders - hiring recruiters for your own team. As good as you are at serving the needs of the businesses you support, having a strategy to land the best recruiting talent can be challenging. I've always used an assessment layer when we hire recruiters at our firm, so this Kinetix Labs paper, The Assessment Profile of a High-Performing Recruiter, outlines everything we've learned about using an assessment to hire the best recruiters and prevent false p ..read more

"You don't know me, son!" --David Goggins I'll start with a shout out to the benefits of tracking my s**t everywhere on the web. I don't mind it. I like when Google knows based on the time of day where I'm going and tells me how long it's going take to get there. I'm fine with the running shoe recommendations and more I get from Instagram. Helpful.  Track me all day long, because I live an honest life. You're going to be freaking bored if you track me for dirt.  But don't judge me. You know who's in the business of tracking AND judging? Microsoft Office. Google and Instagram don't te ..read more

Post-Covid. Summer of 2021. The tour you wish you didn't have a ticket for. You thought the market would be employer driven coming off of 14% unemployment. You (we) were wrong. Here we are. The recruiters, the HR pros, the talent leaders. At our best, we like to think about candidate experience and, at times, even take action to make it better. If the internet has taught us one thing, it's that it's probably too easy to apply for a job you're not qualified for via technology. That means hundreds of applications—way too many to treat people with any modicum of respect. So from a candidate expe ..read more

I'll start this post by saying this: I've been on the corner of "no politics at work" way before 2020 happened. I've been on this corner so long that I questioned the wisdom of many small business owners pressuring their employees to vote GOP in the 2016 election for reduced taxation and concerns about Obamacare. Ah, 2016. Ah, Obamacare. So long ago, such a simpler, innocent time. When you choose political sides at work, you're alienating and decaying trust with close to 50% of your workforce. Go back historically and look at the vote splits. We're a 50/50 nation.  To choose either side ..read more

The best candidates don't want a boss or a manager. They want a Career Agent. A boss/manager of people who is a Career Agent is there to get the job done and get business results, but they'll accomplish something very important along the way. A career agent as a manager of people approaches every assignment to the team, every task and all feedback through a simple lens related to the team member/employee in question: What's in it for you to do what I'm asking you to do? Think about that for a second.  Whether you're assigning work, talking about a project or giving hard feedback for ..read more

On episode 66 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee  and me (KD) come together to discuss the topic of whether geriatric millennials are coming to save the world or not! Move to minute 21:00 to dig into the topic of geriatric millennials. I might have gone off on a rant or two. Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS: 1:00 - JLee is in the DC metro area and is currently being overrun by cicadas!  3:00 - JL ..read more