Tag: human resources

The Exits Lounge

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Looking for a new job is generally a stealth project. Secretly updating CV’s, sneaking off for job interviews and quiet phone calls with recruiters. But imagine if a company encouraged staff planning on leaving to get them to help them out – better still, what if it had a formal ‘Exits Lounge’ which was a known, open company policy.

I know this sounds kinda crazy, and maybe it is, but sometimes we need to think of things in reverse, to see this could play out. Most firms have a formal recruiting process, but the exit process is informal and undercover, it’s as if they are pretending the traffic is only one way – people only come in, and they never leave. Which is kind of ridiculous. Imagine instead that employees could register their intention to leave a company. Have an honest, non judgemental discussion about why they’ve chosen to leave and be assisted along the journey.

So how might this work? Maybe they’d get assistance with improving their CV, maybe get their current employer to be a referee (if the employee deserves it). Possibly give the leaving staff member a short lead project to work on to make them more employable elsewhere. No, let’s get even weirder – imagine a physical co-working space for people who’ve decided to leave where they can work on the process of leaving, with assistance from the company, while getting full pay. The company would certainly know how happy their workers are based on how full, or empty the exits lounge was. Forget contrived culture surveys – just go see how busy the exits lounge is!

I’m certain any company which had the courage to create a formal assisted exit program would help them become an employer of choice and here’s why.

Firstly, it would be a more attractive place to take on work knowing the path out, is assisted. It would significantly reduce the risk of anyone coming in.  The company would have more time to find appropriate replacements for those on the way out. They would gather important cultural feedback from the ‘exiteers’ and have a chance to fix it – improve the way work gets done in their organisation. They’d see where the real staffing problems were – which divisions, what resources, which bosses. They might even be able to find a better or more suitable role for the person intent on leaving, before they leave and stop it. The process might even save the company money.

The kind of approach could make the company more like a learning institution, or a University where people actually expect to graduate from it – which in reality most people do. Almost no one stays at a company for life these days. It would even be a bit like a family where people learn, grow and eventually leave the home – with the help of their parents. But also, it would be a more human place to work because this process would replicate the human reality that people move on over time. And where they come from is usually regarded as quite important. “We got this recruit from Company X, you know the one with with the ‘Exists Lounge’ – all their staff are usually great.” 

The future is a weird place. Often things which seem counterintuitive and unimaginable at first become something future generations can’t imagine living without.

Open pay display

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I think companies should have everyone’s pay on display. A publicly available intranet site in alphabetical order with every employees name, salary and benefits next to it. Ok, so this is a bit of a shift from the secret salary world we currently live in. It might even cause a little bit of a distraction in the short term. But one thing is for sure, it will move our society to a far more accountable culture than we currently have.

Let’s consider for a moment the type of behaviour this is likely stimulate:

  • “I work harder than Joey, and he earns $20,000 more!”
  • “I want a pay rise”
  • “Holy shit, I better start working harder, I’ve been found out.”
  • “I wont get a pay rise in years”
  • “She doesn’t deserve that”
  • “Why do sales people earn so much?”
  • “Our company is a rip off, they don’t pay well”
  • “I can’t believe how little Mary earns, she’s a gun”
  • “I’m gonna work my ass off to get that job – I never knew I could earn that much!”

I really believe the initial chaos would lead to a better and more transparent workplace. One where everyone understands their role, impact and the investment the company makes in its people.

In my next startup, this will be policy number one. Total transparency in all financial documents, including salaries.

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Irreplaceable & the inconvenience scale

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We all want to be irreplaceable. In an organisational context we worry about how needed we really are. It’s an omnipresent reality in a world of agricultural mastery and excess capacity. This is true for white collar desk jockeys, CEO’s and entrepreneurs alike. The more they need us, the safer and happier we feel. The truth is that everyone of us is replaceable. Even Steve Jobs. And the ultimate proof of this is human death. It happens, and we continue on with whatever it was we were doing.

I heard a good way to conceptualize on how ‘replaceable’ we are recently. The idea is that all of us can be replaced, and that the key question was how ‘inconvenient’ our loss would be to the cohort we belonged to. Where are we on the ‘inconvenience scale’ if we need to be replaced?Are we very high like Steve Jobs, or are we very low like a supermarket cashier? The more inconvenient it is, the more utility we are providing. It’s also quite likely that we have greater power of choice in actually placing ourselves elsewhere. One mistake we often make is equating how much we earn, with where we sit on this scale. Higher pay does not necessarily make us less replaceable, it often means the opposite. The real questions in understanding where we are on the scale are these:

  • How important is what I do to the people who pay me to do it?
  • Will the people who pay me lose money (or systems break) if I’m no longer there to do it?
  • How many other people can do what I do?
  • Will the other people who can do it, do it for the same price or a lower price than me?
  • Are these others easy to get?

If we answer these questions honestly we can get a fair assessment of the value we are creating, for our own business or one we work for. Everything we do in a given week doesn’t have to matter. It may just be that thing you do for 1 hour per week that no one else can. And the thing that we should be working on, is that one thing that only we can do. The stuff we are already great at, not our weaknesses. If we invest time working our our weaknesses, we simply make ourselves ‘more average’ and in turn we fall down the inconvenience scale.

The best way to be be high in the ‘inconvenience scale’ is to become a close to the money expert. By doing this, our potential loss becomes far more inconvenient.

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What drives people

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I had an interesting discussion with a child psychologist yesterday. He was telling me that one theory says there are three main motivators for all human behaviour. I am sure there are a zillion counter theories, but I really think this can be useful for anyone working in the ‘influence’ arena.

The three motivators are based around the desire for:

Power

Inclusion

Achievement

The theory states that 2 of the 3 will be very important to us, while 1 of them will be very low on impacting our behaviour. It also says that this operates at a very deep subconscious level. Without knowing too much about, I already think I could pick what motivates many people I deal with in business. It might also be worth thinking about next time you’re negotiating something or working on a project with others.

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The tale of two offices

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I once worked in a consumer goods company which went from Individual offices to open plan.

I now work in an advertising agency where we have moved from individual offices to open desks.

What happened at these two firms is interesting. The first office (consumer goods marketing) sent out a mass email banning iPods (and any other brand of personal music device – this is seriously what the email said). Claiming that the idea of open plan was to encourage open communications, and it was rude to listen to music while working. That we couldn’t do our jobs while listening to music as it was distracting. While at the same time the directors had offices with doors.

The second office (advertising) did something much different. Firstly, all the directors have the same size desk and space as every employee. On our first day in the new office we all had a gift on our desk wrapped beautifully with a ribbon. Inside the pack was free coffee vouchers (for the cafe across the road) and a brand new iPod nano. And it had a note which said the following:

“The iPod nano – this is good for a few things. Moving to open will at times be challenging. If you feel it is getting on top of you, then feel free to bung in your iPod and listen to your favourite tunes. We’re also into the idea that we can all play part in creating our new vibe. So we’ll be asking you to supply the music each day. We’ll place a sign at the reception that says “Today’s music thanks to Ant Shannon.” Please make your playlist and get it on the dock. The iPods you’ve received also take video – get in the habit of recording the stuff you like or think about. Keep it, play it, share it.”


A massive difference in attitude, culture and resulting creative output. The culture we create in our startup or any business is a result of what we do, and we can change it at any time with a bit of effort and humanity.

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Don’t be boring

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s not a boring category, industry, startup or company. You’re a boring brand run by boring people.

Exciting is a state of mind, if we have the courage to create, upset or even offend, then we can change our brand or industry forever. In fact, it might even be worth going broke or getting fired for.

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Everyone cares

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

How to make a Hungry Jacks (Burger King) Whopper:

  1. Take the top of the bun and swipe mayonnaise across it twice starting in the middle of the bun and swiping out ways
  2. Sprinkle lettuce onto mayo base just enough so the white of the mayo shows through the lettuce.
  3. Add two slices of tomato on top of the lettuce at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock.
  4. Put the meat patty into the base of the bun.
  5. Spread 4 pickles in a dice configuration while using the squeeze ketchup bottle in opposite hand to spread the pickles.
  6. Squirt 3.5 circles of ketchup on the beef patty starting at the outside of the circumference.
  7. Lightly sprinkle onion onto the ketchup at 50% of the thickness of the lettuce.
  8. Place both thumbs onto the tomatoes of the bun top and flip onto the base.

Serve hot!

The reason I’m sharing this with you is, that I learned how to make a whopper over 20 years ago, at a wage of $3.00 per hour and I still remember exactly how to make it. It was and probably still is, the lowest paid job available in the economy.

And yet a business colleague recently told me his his employees didn’t care about their job or the brand of his company because they were Uni students, and part time workers. What a crock. I took particular pride in making fast, well formed whoppers. Even thought it was a menial wage. At the time I was in year 9 at school and had zero intention of going to University or finishing school for that matter, yet I still cared. I cared because I had good managers, encouragement and there was a culture of doing your best, maybe even a little healthy competition to make the fastest and best burgers. It’s my strong belief that the vast majority of people take pride in what they do, no matter how menial it happens to be. So when I hear people saying their employees don’t care about their job, because it is part time, or low paid, I tell them this story. The story that all people no matter what they do have pride in their job, so long as one ingredient is in place:

They know we value what they do, and we treat all employee efforts with respect, regardless of where they stand in the hierarchy.

Startup Blog says: Employees will respond to how we treat them. We must respect them in the first instance. When we do this and we’ll get results reflective of human nature, not the hourly pay rate.