Simplicity is Our Job

Your CEO/owner/boss/etc. is a busy individual.  That’s why they hired you.  Your job is to support them.  My first boss told me, “Your job is to make me look good.”  This may sound egotistical, but it’s the absolute truth.  The best thing you can do for your career is to make your boss’s life easier.  This encompasses a lot of tips for first-time professionals: dress well (so your boss doesn’t have to explain you to others), be knowledgeable about the business (so you can actually carry on a conversation and add value), etc.  All of these boil down to one thing: doing your job exceptionally results in your boss’s life being easier.

In order to do this, you need to hone your “simplicity” skills.  Taking something complicated and being able to straightforward give facts is an invaluable skill.  Your boss (and others who are invariably watching you) will notice that you’re the one to go to for answers.  Simplistic isn’t skewing the facts or being lazy, it’s being able to sift through jargon with an awareness of what is relative to the business and thus valuable to the C-suite.

The second step is the ability to analyze the simplistic data and provide a suggestion.  Your boss will love getting hard facts and a suggestion on what to do.  They may not like the idea, but by hearing “no” and reasons why you will learn something.  You’ll also be seen as someone who is willing to take risks and think outside the box.

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

-Charles Mingus

In HR, we not only need to make things simplistic for our fellow managers, but also for the employees.  Taxes, benefits, policies… these things are all daunting to employees, especially new hires.  Knowing how to give complete, simple, concise information is key to achieving your own goals.

Too Much Information

Have your notices concerning the new Health Insurance Marketplace been sent out yet?  If not, you have a whopping 11 more days to distribute them!!

Things like this make me nervous.  I hate sending out information to our employees that they 1) are not going to understand and 2) will freak out over because they think we’re messing with their health insurance.  Unfortunately, this also falls during Open Enrollment for me.  Our new insurance starts on Oct 1… and no decisions have been made yet.  None.  We don’t know what we’re going to do.  So the employees are unsure about their medical plans, I have two pregnant employees who are literally due any day now, and I have no answers for them regarding their benefits.  Now I have to send out a notice about the Marketplace and confuse them even more.  

Regardless, the notice is required by law so I’m sending it out.  Key points for minimizing the damage to be done:

• I’m warning them it’s coming out.  I will be distributing the notice with their pay stubs tomorrow, so today I will send out a company-wide e-mail letting them know it’s a required notice but it has absolutely NO BEARING on our renewal and we are NOT suggesting everyone goes to get their own plan.
• They freak out anyway.  The e-mail will cause a frenzy, so I have dedicated time today to speak with everyone and unruffle feathers.  I realize in a large company this is absolutely not possible (I only have about 48 employees to unruffle).  In that case I would have met with the managers.  Stolen ten minutes out of the last managerial staff meeting to explain that this notice is coming out but it doesn’t change our employee benefits.
• Stress that it is important information, but no action is required.  It’s not critical to them to understand exactly how the Marketplace works or to research every plan out there.  If they’re happy with our benefits, then they can stay with our plan and no surprise penalties are in store for them.  There are some who will want to research every minute detail, but that’s on them.  A good chunk will just want reassurance that they don’t actually have to go to the Marketplace.

Anything the employees don’t understand is scary.  Throwing too much information at them is a dangerous thing.  No matter how long your company has been around, everyone feels instability during the economic recovery.  HR is the Change Agent that needs to do everything they can to make transitions seamless and easy.  My philosophy is this: be extremely knowledgeable.  Know everything you can about changes and be ready to answer questions.  Those who need reassurance will be comforted by your confidence and those who want the research will be happy you know your stuff.  We are changing lives by making changes easier.

Investigating a Complaint

HR handles a lot of traffic and a good chunk of it is complaints.  The key to being an effective HR Pro is to be able to sift through all the whining and get to a legitimate problem that needs a solution.  Experience at a company will tell you which employees have actual complaints and which ones consistently must whine or they blow up, but how do you differentiate them?  I am an efficient individual, I like to get to the point quickly, digest the information, and make a decision quickly.  I’ve found one question that cuts to the heart of whether a conversation is going to result in a legitimate complaint:

“What would you suggest as a solution?”

People who like to whine don’t have solutions.  Or their solutions are so embarrassingly unrealistic that they give up halfway through their explanation.  A slightly raised eyebrow will end their commentary, a few of these encounters will teach them that you are not going to just endlessly listen to them.

Those with legitimate complaints have often already thought of a solution.  They try to present the problem so that you’ll come to the same conclusion they have.  If you ask this question and their solution is not workable, continue digging for more information.  Oftentimes they’ll withhold selective information that would lead to a different solution than the one they want, so if you can find out all the details you can work on an answer together.  Asking this question of these employees will help them feel empowered in their role, guiding them to something that is workable will teach them more about the company’s strategy and your goals as a manager or HR Pro.

The benefits of listening to employees are endless… just don’t let their complaining be endless as well.