SHRM11: Day One Recap: We Don't Want Love

I don't have children. I won't profess to know what it's like to have them. My only point of reference for what goes on in their heads is that I was one myself. For me, I was never thrilled to go to fabric stores with my mom, or play Little League. If I had no interest, I was hard pressed to bend to the will of the adults. I had my own agenda.

It doesn’t appear that this is unusual. This is what I believe I see in a number of kids today.

For example, on the way to Las Vegas for the Society for Human Resources Management 2011 Annual conference (SHRM 11), my airplane seat was in close proximity to two very willful children. They squirmed and made loud noises despite the constant request of their adult companions to shush and to comply.

This willfulness is what carries these young folks to keep pushing the boundaries. They want to make it clear. If they are forced to be on a plane, they're going to get something for themselves out of it. In this case, it was a simple matter of creating chaos.

I had similar thoughts during the first day of SHRM 11. The sessions I attended reminded me of the willfulness of employees. It reminded me that no matter how many processes HR creates, they best processes succeed when we take into account the willfulness of people to work.

The first session I attended, “Call To Action: Employment Of People With Disabilities”, was facilitated by Dinah Cohan, Director, and Derek Shields, Program Manager, Dept. of Defense Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP). Even though it was 7 am, the cold hard truths were laid down when Cohan said, “Being disabled is a group everyone can join. And if we’re lucky enough to live a long enough life, we probably will.” Hence, I immediately felt drawn in and in turn was disappointed by the low turnout for this session.

Statistically there is still either a push back to hiring and retaining the disabled. Yet this could end up being anyone of us. It could be any employee or manager in your company. Thus, does becoming disabled make you less likely to want to succeed at work? The answer is obviously no.

The answer is no because who doesn’t want to be engaged at work? To get to the heart of the matter, I attended two sessions that addressed that very issue. The first was by James Robbins on a concept called “Nine Minutes On Monday,” which offered some simple concepts on how a leader’s job is to get to the top but to recognize the parameters. Plus, ultimately leadership is a practice. To be a great leader, you have to think about your employees as creating an alliance. The reason for this is no matter how much you may to want discount this, employees (like everyone else) look to authority figures.

Despite anyone’s thoughts on rebellion, people still want leaders. People still look to leaders for an emotional attachment to their work.

By virtue of what was talked about by the excellent, Lior Arussy from the Strativity Group, during his session entitled, “Why Excellence? Transforming Performance of the Entitled Employees” employees need to be tied closer to the customer's viewpoints. Plus, the reason there are cynics in the organization is they are not knowingly tied close enough to the customers.

Some other great points for HR practitioners included:

• You don’t need a survey to measure employee engagement. You can see it from walking around.
• Who as a child thinks when I grow up, I want to become someone who adds value to shareholders?
• All work should connect to values and empowerment.
• Because we all imagine excellence differently and as something legendary, it becomes almost impossible to obtain.
• HR is in the business of Choice Management. Every day employees come in and choose between working in a mediocre manner or with excellence in mind. Plus, your business is the sum total of every decision that every employee makes every minute of the day.
• A paycheck is for attendance. Everything else: making a difference, to belong, to be mentored, are things that people do for themselves. These are things that people choose. They choose them because work is not for the bosses, it’s for themselves.

At the end of this interesting day, I realize I never heard anyone utter that employees want to be loved. In reality, It’s because love comes from people we know. It doesn’t come from work. At work, we want it to come from within ourselves. We want that intoxicating feeling of feeling engaged, of feeling like we created something, of making a difference.

It must be something in our DNA. We are hard-wired for work. We are compelled to satisfy the internal need. There is no escaping it or denying it. It is willfulness that we express even at an early age in life. Thus, much like the children on my flight, we must have purpose otherwise it will be complete chaos.