HR Schoolhouse

We in HR spend quite a bit of time peering at the seedy underbelly of human behavior.  We see the sad, the depressing and the downright horrific.

Sometimes however, the stories are just funny.  People behaving badly, or, to be more precise just not able to realize the difference between ‘stuff you should do at home’ and ‘stuff that’s OK to do at work.’

Like vice cops, HR swoops in, conducts a raid, and passes judgment on activities that society views as evil, degrading or immoral.

Over the years I’ve played vice cop a number of times such as when I:

• Discovered the (quite successful!) porn magazine ring being run by several enterprising team members.  Participating employees would bring magazines and stash them in a ‘library’/storage closet to which they all had access.  Checking out desired reading material was on the honor system.

• Unearthed a huge (!) bag of cannabis while conducting an employee locker-room cleaning.  Obviously, dude had been sampling the product and missed the signs posted for a full month beforehand that any lockers not claimed/listed would have the locks cut off.

• Convinced a hiring manager that a candidate’s 20-year-old self-disclosed arrest (no conviction) for prostitution was not pertinent to the current discussion about her suitability for employment

• Found rumpled, um, bedclothes in a seldom-used work space.  Very well-used, um, bedclothes.

Good times.

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Obviously, in addition to common sense, HR policies or organizational codes of conduct come into play when investigating and evaluating when an employee’s activities require discipline or termination. And, naturally, we review some activities in conjunction with our workplace/sexual harassment policies.

There are, however, some organizations that consider conduct that constitutes “moral turpitude” unacceptable and immediate grounds for discipline or termination.  Defined as “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals,” this can cover a whole lot of ground.  In legal proceedings, a conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude may result in witnesses being impeached, license-holders (i.e. attorneys) losing their licenses, or lawful permanent residents (immigrants) being deported.

Independent of the various legal definitions around the theory is this something that we, especially in HR, categorize as something that we’ll “know when we see it?”  

And I wonder if we get overly worked up and climb up on our HR-High-Horse when employee behavior includes elements of sex, drugs and, perhaps, even a little bit of rock-n-roll?

Who passes judgment on morality?  Are HR practitioners – or lawyers, god forbid – the ones who should be doing this?

I’m curious – who amongst us has been faced with making an employment decision based on the concept of “moral turpitude?”

I am the world’s worst gardener.

Every now and again, in a moment of delirium, I get the urge to grab an exquisite potted bloom from the local florist or pick up a lush piece of greenery.   “I can nurture this plant!” I tell myself. “It will flourish!  It will grow big and tall and be fabulous!!”

Sadly, however, whether inside the climate controlled environs of my house or outside in the glorious sunshine where it’s able to spread it’s little roots and experience magnificent photosynthesis while basking in the gentle rays of the sun, within weeks days the miserable little plant is dead.

I like to think that beautiful hydrangea was as keen to get to his new home as I was to bring him with me.  But still his lovely color faded and Mr. Hydrangea withered and died.  Rather quickly.

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I’ve had a few conversations recently with some folks who relayed stories about starting new jobs.  Much like that lovely hydrangea (eager to arrive at a new sensational destination!), once they crossed paths with incompetence, their will to live desire to work at XYZ Company quickly perished.  To wit:

• New Employee A who reported to the HQ (multi-state employer with tens of thousands of employees) on Day 1 at the appointed time of 8 AM.  She was told to wait in the lobby for her new manager.   Which she did.  For more than 2 hours.
• New Employee B who reported to her new employer where she spent the first day engaged (disengaged?) in the mind-numbing exercise known as New Employee Orientation.  After which she was handed over to her new manager.  Mr. Manager explained that he didn’t have a cubicle/computer/phone for her yet so ‘could she please just find a place to wait in the cafeteria?’  Which she did.  For four days.
• New Employee C who, during the courtship recruitment phase, was told that he would be in Bonus Group 3 (25%!), additional PTO time ‘should not be a problem’ and working from home was supported – and even encouraged! – by the company.  Sadly, this was a fairy tale spun by the hiring manager and one that the HR Department quickly squashed, causing Employee C to consider reactiving his job search.  Which he did.  That evening when he got home.

Dying. On the vine. In the pot.  Before they even get a chance to extend their green leaves and shiny petals toward the promised sunshine.

I wish some of those gardeners would just slaughter their plants at home – like me - and stop exterminating the dreams of employees.

Today, here at the Schoolhouse, we take a few moments to learn from the Brothers Grimm…

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A merchant had done good business at the fair; he had sold his wares, and lined his money-bags with gold and silver. Then he wanted to travel homewards, and be in his own house before nightfall. So he packed his trunk with the money on his horse, and rode away.

At noon he rested in a town, and when he wanted to go farther the stable-boy brought out his horse and said, “A nail is wanting, sir, in the shoe of its left hind foot.” “Let it be wanting,” answered the merchant; “the shoe will certainly stay on for the six miles I have still to go. I am in a hurry.”

In the afternoon, when he once more alighted and had his horse fed, the stable-boy went into the room to him and said, “Sir, a shoe is missing from your horse’s left hind foot. Shall I take him to the blacksmith?” “Let it still be wanting,” answered the man; “the horse can very well hold out for the couple of miles which remain. I am in haste.”

He rode forth, but before long the horse began to limp. It had not limped long before it began to stumble, and it had not stumbled long before it fell down and broke its leg. The merchant was forced to leave the horse where it was, and unbuckle the trunk, take it on his back, and go home on foot. And there he did not arrive until quite late at night. “And that unlucky nail,” said he to himself, “has caused all this disaster.”

Hasten slowly.

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image Creative Commons

I roam around in the day-to-day world of HR where I talk to lots and lots of HR practitioners who are plying their trade in a variety of organizations ranging from small to mid-sized to ginormous.

Since 2010 I’ve traversed the great state of Louisiana (and beyond) speaking to SHRM chapters and at HR conferences about “HR and Social Media.” While the content has varied, in general we discuss why they should get involved, how they should get involved, and what they can expect as a return when they understand, embrace and use social channels in their professional lives as well as within their organizations.

Three years hence I still get a few eye-rolls although, thankfully, I see fewer attendees sitting with the deer-in-head-lights look.  Rather I’ve noticed a growing – and welcome! – sense of curiosity from the nice HR practitioners in attendance.  Not as scared as they once were, they want to know and they want to understand.

However, as might be expected, despite its mammoth scale and infiltration into every aspect of our lives, Facebook continues to be the channel that the HR ladies and gents are the most reluctant to use for any sort of ‘work’ related function.   “Too personal.”  “Too much like the wild west.”  “I don’t want to know what my candidates/employees/colleagues do on the weekend!”  OK – I get it.  I’m not sure I want to see Bob in Purchasing hanging out sans-shirt at his weekend crawfish boil either.

Plus, of course, we’ve been informed in the course of our HR careers to ‘be fair’ and ‘neutral’ and evaluate people using slide rules and spreadsheets.  We institute attendance policies and track time in 7 minute increments to determine if Joe is a crappy employee and needs to be fired.  Government employers (city, state, federal) follow hiring rules that attempts to turn every job applicant into a number by calculating points for months of experience, education and related activities.  36  months of experience, will always trump 34 months and thus, effectively, move Ms. 36-months higher on the hiring-list than Mr. 34-months.   Don’t believe me?  Go fill out a civil service employment application.

So this way of operating infiltrates the thinking of many HR practitioners whenever anything new or different is introduced.    And nowhere has this been more apparent than when HR folks have contemplated how to use social media in the brave-new-world of recruiting and employee interactions.  I recently talked to:

• A company that won an award (!) for its robust, engaging and successful Facebook campus recruiting page.  I checked it out and saw recruiters building relationships with students early in their college careers, leading to internships and ultimately professional positions upon graduation.  Sadly, upon reporting for duty on day 1, the freshly-minted college grad who had been wooed, courted and had lots of conversations where he hung out, found that access to all social channels (including, naturally, Facebook) was blocked at the office.

• A large employer that dove headfirst into all-things-social – The CEO is on Twitter!!!  We have tens of thousands of likes on our Facebook page!!! We’re communicating news updates and tips and promotions to our customers and interacting with them online!!!  And we encourage you, our employees, to watch all these channels for updates in real-time; except, well, you can’t do that at work because we have them blocked….”

• A hiring manager who after a successful interview checked out (against the directives of his HR Department) the Facebook profile of a very strong candidate. What he uncovered there made him hesitant to further consider her because of a status update that she ‘wanted to move to San Francisco.”  I, of course, have posted I want to marry Johnny Depp; wishing and wanting don’t make it so.

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Now I’m not saying all these organizations need to be sourcing candidates and recruiting across every social channel.  They need to decide what works for them.  But:

• HR practitioners must develop an understanding that the use or non-use of social channels can either reinforce or obliterate the  targeted employment experience.
• HR professionals have the ability, if they understand these channels, to drive conversations within their organizations and encourage adoption by working in conjunction with other functional areas such as Marketing and IT.
• HR leaders can either get on board with social tools or be at risk of once more being viewed as the department of naysayers.  In the 2^nd example given above, the employer has hundreds (!) of open positions, yet is not recruiting via any social channels at all.  None.   But their sales, marketing and operational messaging is very strong on Facebook.  Why is HR not part of the overall organizational messaging and engagement with the community?

So come on HR friends.  Look around.  Explore.  Ask questions.

It may be curiouser and curiouser.  But that’s OK.  Really.

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“’Curiouser and curiouser!’ Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). ’Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off).”  (Alice in Wonderland, Ch. 2)