HR lessons learned behind closed doors. What they won’t tell you.

Lesson #1:  Don’t ogle the talent. In the least, don’t get caught.

HR Lessons Learned as the fly on the wall

I feel like I have learned a lot of HR and career lessons. The majority of what I know was learned behind closed doors. These are the lessons your manager will probably not take the time to share with you.  There is nuance with every group, but there is a lot of commonality between people. These learnings come from observations of both and being the preverbal “fly on the wall.” 

Corporate Lessons

1. If you want credibility inside and outside of your department, learn your company’s business first, then learn your department’s business. It surprised me how many people knew about their position but not the company’s goals.       
2. If you want to be promoted to the next level, prove you can succeed within the job at that level.  Prove you have the technical chops and the maturity to work with peers at that level. Success at your current level is not enough. No manager will say, “You have been doing well as an individual contributor; we will take a chance and make you a manager.” They will say, “Even though you are an individual contributor, everyone treats you like they want you to be their manager.  We want to promote you to a manager.” Look like a duck, walk like a duck, quack like a duck. 
3. There is ALWAYS a way. It might take some digging and more hours, but there is ALWAYS a way. If we can put a man on the moon, then any impossible task your manager has assigned you can be done. The word “can’t” should not be in your vocabulary.
4. The answer is not “no”. The answer is “Yes, if we can do X.”  The answer is not  “We can’t.”  The answer is “We can – if . . .”
5. If you don’t like your current manager, trying to escape that manager by quitting or asking for a transfer is just putting off the inevitable. HR will rarely approve a transfer under these conditions. If you cannot figure out how to make it work with your current manager, you won’t be able to work with your future manager. Don’t quit a job because of the manager. Figure out how to make it work.
6. Employees don’t quit a company.  Employees quit a manager.

HR Lessons learned

1. HR should always keep a box of tissues handy.
2. I have never met someone who joined a company with the attitude that they were there to take advantage of or try to screw the company. Everyone accepts a job excited and wants to make a difference.  If they lost interest, it was over time. It wasn’t any individual’s fault. More often than not, it was a matter of communication. The company needs to communicate, and the employee needs clarification. If you don’t understand something, ASK!  
3. Working in HR, I do NOT work for the employees. I work for the company.  Make no mistake. I am here to protect the company first and the employees second. By taking care of the company, I am taking care of the employees. Spock said it best. “The needs of the few and the many outweigh the needs of the one.”
4. The department will become stronger when I can help coach individual employees to perform at a higher level.  When I can make a difference in a department and help that department become stronger, the company becomes stronger. 
5. HR has a reputation for “seagull management.” Seagulls shit on you and then fly away. HR’s biggest sin is NOT that their explanation is “no, it can’t be done.” HR’s biggest sin is explaining it can’t be done with the assumption and attitude that everyone should understand why. The “WHY” is not obvious to everyone. My goal is to deliver a business decision and explain it five different times, five different ways, so we increase our chances of widespread understanding of the “WHY.” I don’t expect everyone to like the decisions personally, but my goal is to have EVERYONE respect the decision from a business point of view so they can do their job.  There is a difference. They may not like the decision personally, but hopefully, most can respect its business application. Break the stereotype.   
6. I am not going to please everyone, EVER. I can move the needle incrementally. I can make a difference over time, but I do not know of any time ever in my career when EVERYONE was fat and happy. There has always been one person who wanted more, and that is OK. 
7. My ability to maintain confidentiality is all that I have. 
8. Culture can make a difference in a company. Culture will keep employees longer when a company is in tough times. Any company can have a great culture when the times are good, and the deals are coming. Real culture will be sustained when the chips are down.  Ping Pong, Pool tables, and beer Fridays do not make culture. People and a belief in leadership make culture.
9. Hire people passionate about your product, service, or industry, and they will be thinking about work 24/7.   Passion doesn’t quit at 5:00 PM.     

Career Lessons:

1. I need to speak up. There are no mind readers. I am helping the department, and the company becomes stronger when I volunteer my ideas. I am doing the company a disservice when I keep my ideas to myself. If the ideas are rejected, it might not be the idea; it is probably the communication style.
2. It is your career. Your career is not your company’s career or your manager’s career. Only you can put the time, effort, and, most importantly, INITIATIVE into your career.
3. Do not come to your manager with a problem. Please do not come to your manager with a problem and three solutions and ask them to choose one. Come to them with a few solutions and a single recommendation. Be a problem solver.
4. I am the CEO of the department I work in, and I should push for what I believe positively.  “This idea is stupid” is not favorable.  
5. I am an individual contributor within the company, and when I push back or disagree, I need to do that diplomatically and productively.
6. Everyone in the company has a customer.  Everyone. The richest person in the world (Bill Gates) and the most powerful man (POTUS) in the world has customers. We, as employees, have customers, and they write our checks. 
7. Too many employees expect the company to treat them like the customer. As an employee, I deliver the service and send out the invoice (time card). The Company is my customer, and the Company pays my invoice (paycheck). Care about your customer, or you won’t have one. 
8. Resigning or quitting a job may make you feel better, but it only reinforces to the company that they should have let you go earlier. Give a good Face on the way out the door. Don’t let good years of hard work disappear in a single afternoon.  
9. Everyone wants to work with someone who knows how to smile. 
10. When I talk with senior leaders, I need to keep it short, high-level, and strategic. Sr. leaders do not worry about the minutia. Companies don’t pay senior leaders to deal with the day-to-day details.  They are paid to think “strategic”, delegate “tactical day-to-day”. This is a very tough communication transition for many and, ultimately, what keeps people held back.  Individual contributors are from Venus, and Execs are from Mars. 
11. If you don’t know what your manager does, find out. If you don’t know what makes them successful, you don’t know how to help them become successful. If your manager is not successful, you will not be successful. 
12. Get to know your manager at a personal level. You don’t have to be their BFF, but if you don’t take an interest in your manager, how can you expect them to take an interest in you?

HRNasty works full-time as an HR professional and has a side business writing fortunes for Chinese cookies. 

See you at the after party,

HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone who is good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

If you feel this post is valuable, please subscribe here. I promise no spam,