Take the case of P. Stephen Potter.  Stephen, who is a lawyer by trade, moonlighted for thirty six years as the “Hot Dog Man” for the University of Nebraska.  What is a hot dog man exactly?  Well, Mr. Potter would dress rather eclectically and wander around the stadium on game day throwing hot dogs as high up in the stands as he could.  People then wrapped their money in the hot dog wrapper and threw it back to Mr. Potter.

After so many years and becoming an icon at the stadium with the Nebraska fans, he was told his services were no longer needed.  Some think it was because he had asked to bring his granddaughter on his back, without a ticket.  But some think it was because of….The Beaner Slinger.

From the Daily Nebraskan News

About four years ago, another hot dog man showed up with The Beaner Slinger, an air gun (of sorts) for shooting hot dogs farther and higher into the stands.

Call it technology or maybe declining performance of the man throwing hot dogs manually.  Either way, Mr. Potter lost his job.  So, the next time you are going about your daily routine, remember the hot dog man.  Are you doing all you can to keep up with technology and bring new and innovative delivery to your job?  Maybe you should.

What would it take for you to move in order to accept a new job?  Have you ever relocated in order to take a new job?

As an HR executive, I have had the good fortune to live in a city that afforded me opportunities to progress in my career without having to relocate my family.   There was a time, years ago, that I was offered the opportunity to relocate to the west coast.  The package was not too bad and the pay would have been good for the role in that market, but no one ever mentioned that I was a mother with young children.  Children that were nearing school-age.  For me, that was the only factor that kept me from making that move.

According to the 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey, “Two factors are most likely to increase a candidate’s willingness to relocate- higher salary (reported by 82% of HR professionals) and career advancement (reported by 79%).  Three factors are most likely to limit or restrict willingness to relocate:  spousal employment situation (80%), children’s plans/ schools (72%), and selling a home/ mortgage (69%).  (Chart 5)

Last week, following the release of the research, Kris Dunn shared his thoughts in How To Tell Whether Your Relocation Package or Your Closing Skills Suck.  It made me think back to the time when I did not make the move and why I chose not to move.  It was a combination of the HR pro not closing the deal and some of the missing pieces around how things would be handled with my family.

• Would my husband leave his position he had held for his entire career?
• How would we find him a new job that he would love?
• Where would my children go to school and how would I find the perfect environment for them?
• How would I find good quality child care, pediatricians, and a church?

HR professionals need to know that it is questions like these are running through your candidate’s head and that may prevent them from taking your job offer. In order to create a relocation package that sets your company apart, one of the key factors is considering these types of questions and providing the support the candidate needs.

Stand out from the crowd

• Since only 2% of companies help with spousal employment, you can make your relocation package unique by offering unemployment assistance or job serach assistance for the candidate’s spouse or significant other.
• While 16% of companies are offering to assume a loss for a recruit’s underwater mortgage, you can boost your chance of landing a candidate for a hard to fill position if you take the step of offering that type of assistance.
• If only 39% of companies are offering information about the local community and schools, you can provide a packet of information or links to sites that support various communities in your area that a candidate would be interested in.  For families, focus on the school district and any extra-curricular activities available.  For families or singles who like to participate in activities like running, working out, etc., include community information on parks and trails they would find appealing.

Are you ready to make the difference to your organization’s ability to both attract and close the deal with your top candidates?  Start today.  To learn more, continue to check in to the Allied HR/IQ website for more results from the 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey.

My plan is to give a brief description today, then provide more detailed posts about the steps to actually accomplish each one.

10 Easy Ways to Build Social Media into Your HR Practice:

• Tweet your jobs-  It’s becoming common for companies today to have a company Twitter account.  Make sure that at a minimum, your recruiters are sharing their job openings on Twitter.  They should also tweet reasons candidates would want to work at your company, share awards or recognition the company has received and in general, any positive messages about the organization.
• Engage with candidates on Twitter and Linkedin-  The key to closing a candidate on a specific position is the ability of the recruiter and interviewers in connecting and engaging with the candidate.  Connect proactively with the candidate on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Find HR resources on Twitter, then connect-  Twitter has a “Lists” feature where you can search for specific types of people who use the medium.  Search for other HR professionals or recruiters then start following.  Even if they are not following you yet, “tweet” at them and introduce yourself. It’s a great way to build your network and add valuable HR resources to your practice.
• Strengthen your employer brand with FourSquare- Make sure that your organization, or each of the locations, is listed on FourSquare.  Encourage employees to “check in” each day and once they do, encourage them to leave “Tips” on why it’s great to work there.  This is a great way to strengthen your brand and you can easily reward employees who are most active.
• Reach out to passive candidates via FourSquare-  One tactic I’ve heard about may be a bit controversial but in times where there is a talent shortage in certain skill sets, you may need to try innovative ways to connect.  Post open jobs in locations near your target candidate market.
• Use a blog to communicate HR news- Not everyone or every company should have a blog.  However, if you have at least one person (exec or HR team member) who is committed to writing, a blog is a great way to share HR news.  The key is also having someone who can respond to comments and questions that come in from employees.
• Create podcasts for employees- Do leaders have regular meetings about the health of the organization?  Do you have HR activities like annual benefit enrollment, merit increases, performance reviews and such?  If so, you can use podcasting as a way to save key information in a format that is easy for employees to listen to anywhere and with minimal time needed.
• Post YouTube video showing what it is like to work at your company-  Another way to strengthen your brand is to ask employees to record videos of what they like about working at your company.  These videos can be posted on your intranet, on the company site or via sharing sites like YouTube.  It’s a great way to engage both current and potential employees.
• Reward employees who share positive company messages using social platforms- Instead of being the company that monitors social platforms to catch employees posting things that are considered wrong, catch them posting messages that are positive about the company.  Set up an incentive program to encourage positive participation on social media.
• Create a LinkedIn Alumni group-  LinkedIn is the one platform employees and employers tend to agree is the most business focused.  Since membership is on the rise, take advantage and set up organization groups to drive interaction.  Specifically, don’t forget about your employees who are leaving the company.  Ask each one to join an alumni group and use it as a way to remain connected, share company news, and provide information on the industry.

There you have it- ten quick things you can do to amp up your HR team’s involvement in social media.  Stay tuned over the next two weeks for more detailed “how to” posts on each of the items.  

What have you done to get your HR team involved in social?  Share in the comments.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to a keynote that stood out from the rest.  I attended the TALX Client Forum in St. Louis.  The event was kicked off by TALX President Dann Adams.  Dann was at ease in front of the large crowd.  He opened with humor and proceeded to describe why the theme Explore & Discover is relevant to some of the exciting changes going on at TALX.  As part of Equifax, TALX is using transparency around access to credit combined with their wealth of data around unemployment claims, I-9′s and employment verification to change the way HR professionals use analytics.

TALX launched Elements, workforce information solutions that allow HR professionals and executives to see data in a way that lets them drill down to where the problems lie.  It includes visual representation of the data which is helpful because people learn 17 times faster from interpreting pictures rather than just raw data.  Dann’s conversational style captured the room as he was able to easily describe how this journey has been one of exploring new strategic approaches and allowed them to discover new ways to work with clients to communicate people-related data.

With that, Dann transitioned to Susan Ershler, a twenty year veteran of sales in the telecommunications industry with ten of those years spent directing teams in Fortune 500 sales situations, Sue has her “business chops”.  She is also an accomplished mountain climber and was part of the first couple to climb all seven summits in the world.

Sue captivated the audience with her passion about climbing and she easily transitioned stories of her experiences to relevant examples of how those same lessons learned apply directly to our roles in the business world.  The connections she made around leading and guiding others, being a strong leader and mentor in times of trouble, and how to handle the feeling of failure when you or your team fall short of a goal even though you may have surpassed all prior performance were impactful.  I could relate to many of her stories and found myself inspired to either keep pushing myself.

My biggest take away was around visioning.  Sue explained how she found success in business, in climbing, and in her relationship with her husband by envisioning herself as a success.  She saw herself breaking all company sales records, she saw herself at the top of the summit and she saw herself having a happy, fulfilled marriage even though she and her husband experienced obstacles as many couples do.

Key messages from Sue:

• Surround yourself with people who won’t let you quit
• Push through the pain, pain is temporary
• Teams outperform individuals every time
• Project your future and focus on the vision- vision drives activity

I hope that future keynotes I hear are as relevant and inspirational.  Thank you to Dann Adams and the entire team at TALX for giving me clarity on how to motivate my team and remain focused on my vision in my organization.

The Conference Board

I am participating and speaking at the Social Media for HR seminar at The Conference Board in New York this week.  As always, The Conference Board brings together high-level executives to share insight into how major organizations are tackling human resource and leadership issues.  This particular seminar is solely focused on social platforms and implications and is interesting for anyone who needs to learn more about implementation and strategy for your organization.

One session that stands out for me was led by Karl Sanchak, the Director of Innovation, Corporate Engineering and Technology for Lockheed Martin.  Mr Sanchak addressed the strategic use of social media in the organization.  Lockheed Martin is clearly aware that people’s actions in the online world most closely reflect how they really think.  They use the idea that Information = Intelligence in their creation of a strategy that incorporates and measures social platform use.

 What are some key components to build into a social strategy?

• Look first at social platforms that your employees are already using.
• Measure the patterns of use and frequency in order to know when the best times to post information or invite collaboration are based on the users.
• Build in subject matter experts and data experts who can work collaboratively to bring the social strategy to fruition.
• Plan how the social tools will be used.  For example, social can be quite effective for R&D and new business initiatives.
• Innovate the future! Don’t wait for your competition to pass you by.  Create your focused strategy now.

As you can see, quite a bit of great insight and I only scratched the surface of what the session covered.  Be sure to check The Conference Board website for upcoming events.