Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

I am 48, and my earliest memories are in front of the television (I think a fudge-pop may have been involved) during the turbulent middle and late 1960s. I have thus grown up during the era of civil rights; that period that transformed this country from a Protestant, white-male dominated culture to a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and religiously diverse nation. My time in business, first in line management then in HR, has been entirely during the era of group rights and redress of societal grievances, some legitimate and some not. Now more than halfway through a career focused on business management and HR, I'm well versed in all the things you can't say, can't do, and sometimes don't dare think in regards to race, gender, national origin, etc... Along with the political correctness of our culture, which can't help but be reflected in our business culture, come a few assumptions; women are more sensitive to women's issues, non-whites are more sensitive to race i...

As of last week we have 136 people signed up to work partial weeks from home. These individuals work in three of our five divisions. In HR, we are building an email distribution list so we can send email blasts with tips and best practices, communicate directly to those in the test to see how its going, and start to build community around those involved in this innovation. One group we're watching closely is the Design group working in Production under Debbie Eicholtz , since they are Mac power-users and a key test of how the remoting software works with Macs. In trying to stay ahead of the corporate test, HR is pushing ahead with two more phases of the project. About three weeks ago, with the wise counsel and support of our IT group, we installed video conferencing software and web cams for most of our staff. Since then, we've expanded our work-from-home schedule. At first we had three salaried staff members working three half-days each from home, making sure to have ev...

If you're in the business world more than five minutes you've probably been audited or even investigated. This experience ranges from when you started running a cash register in an entry-level position and having someone spot-balance your till, all the way up to having an auditor or investigator dispatched to investigate some perceived or suspected irregularity. My first response to this as a junior staff member was to be offended; after all, I know my integrity and intentions so what makes someone think otherwise? As you grow your career and have staff, especially if you have a hand-picked and trusted staff like I have, its easy to take up their cause and be offended on their behalf. The plain truth is that this is one area where you have to grow thick skin and love your auditors as yourself. Not only should you not mind audits or investigations (this is assuming you're conducting your business as you should be) but you should welcome them. Here's why: Audits Pro...

If someone were to ask me what I really believe in and know to be true, along with the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Communion of the Saints, and the power of prayer I would list The Business Cycle . Anybody whose been in business for long has seen it for themselves and heard the age-old phrase, "What comes up must go down". The fact that "everybody knows that" however, is an assumption we can't make because a lot of your young staffers have never seen a down cycle. They hear the hystrionics of the mass media and believe we're all going to die broke, and very soon. Here are some facts to help you and your staff through the trough and back up to the inevitable peak. Unemployment? Take a good macroeconomics course and you'll hear that full employment in this country is an unemployment rate of 4 - 4.5%. That's because, historically, about that percentage of the U.S. population is in transition at any given time. By transition I mean just coming out...

I generally am loathe to talk about something new before its tested and fully functional. However, at last week's Publishing Compensation meetings I heard several comments about why we're not talking about our telecommuting pilot program. I haven't been because its a test , meaning we don't know what we don't know and are trying to learn. Still, the enthusiasm for the test is such that a lot of people apparently want to know about it. We began a pilot program in HR about 9 or 10 months ago, without telling anybody (including the ELT and my boss the CEO) what we were doing. The idea was this: if a face-to-face service department like HR could leverage the technology available to us with zero additional investment and no drop-off in service, then almost any business unit in the company could do the same. None of us own laptops, none of us carry a blackberry, and we committed no funds to the program. Instead, we worked with our IT department (and what great part...

On my way home last night I listened to a long-form news report on NPR about the Supreme Court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, where the court ruled that law-abiding citizens have the right to own guns for their own protection. The case has been years in the making and involved overreaching gun control laws in the District of Columbia which prohibited lawful handgun ownership. NPR, of course, was predicting the end of civilization as we know it. Curiously enough, it blamed D.C.'s unacceptable violent crime and murder rate not on defenseless citizens, but on gun shows in Maryland. In other words, their answer to the dismal failure of gun control in D.C. was to export it to Maryland. The high court's ruling came on the heels of yet another workplace shooting, this time at Atlantis Plastics in Henderson, KY fairly near my home town. There Wesley Higdon shot his boss and five coworkers before killing himself. He used a handgun that he kept legally in his vehicle ...

The slowing real estate market is bringing to the forefront a long-simmering problem for small-to-medium-sized companies. The majority of corporate relocation expense is now reimbursement for realtor's fees. That just feels wrong in so many ways. For decades the best practice in relocation management, if your company is too small to buy the houses of the relocating candidates or employees, has been to reimburse realtor's' fees for the selling of their current house and closing costs on the purchase of a replacement in the new city. This is 6% on the selling side and 2% on the buying side, and assuming that the transferee purchases about the same priced home as the one they sold, that's a flat 8%. When this practice became industry-standard, a modest 1500 sq. ft. in a major city was priced around $95 - $125,000 and the expense to the company was usually no more than $10,000. Today, that same house is $325,000 - $400,000 unless you're in a premium neighborhood, i...

There's a line in a song I heard several years ago that says, " All Things Work for Good has become my favorite verse ". I thought about this during Father's Day week. After years of being distant my Dad and I have become close again. It started about three years ago as our daughters started attending the same college and our nests emptied simultaneously. It continued on with his urging me to take up guitar again. It solidified this past winter with the passing of his dad. Suddenly each of us has graduated to a new role. I no longer have kids at home, and he's now the patriarch of the family. He has things he'd like to do but no longer feels up to it alone, and I find myself coming up to Kentucky more often to pick, fish, drop things off or help around his cabin. This past Father's Day week I arranged a guide on Percy Priest so he could fish for rock fish and stripes like he did during the two times he's lived in the Nashville during the 60's and 8...

Friday I had lunch with Stephen Harrison , founding partner and current Chairman of Lee Hecht Harrison . LHH was one of the handful of companies who helped invent the professional outplacement industry and Steve, along with Bob Lee and Bob Hecht, were its founders. Steve is the author of " The Manager's Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies " (McGraw Hill, 2007) which I began reading last night (even though I typically detest business books). Our company used the Nashville office of LHH for the majority of our professional outplacement during our April staff reductions; their service was spectacular. After meeting their Chairman, I have a better understanding of why their company performs at this level. Steve was in town to visit the local office, and Mark Marshall, who heads that office, told me in a private moment how Steve spent Thursday and Friday. Thursday was spent in the LHH Nashville office with Steve speaking to people who were in outplaceme...

The tried and true method of performing communal office work is for people to commute into an office, work for a set number of hours, and commute home. While there's nothing new that I can write about telecommuting that hasn't already been written, I've not seen much written about the cost to the local economy of continuing what is increasingly an arcane work style. Here's food for thought... I was surprised to learn from our Facilities department that the gold standard calculation for space needed per employee is about 200 ft. Now you may look at your 8 x 8 cube or 10 x 15 office and think, "where's my 200 ft.?" The difference is that Facilities professionals like ours know to allocate hallway, restroom, break room, and lobby space into their needs. So for the sake of calculation, let's go with 200 sq. ft. per person. With that established, we now have to rent that amount of space. For a typical office outside of the downtown Nashville area, you...

In every era capitalist economies form systems to maximize efficiency. In past decades work had to be performed at a work site where processes took place that added value to physical materials. Retaining a healthy workforce over several years was necessary both to keep labor peace and also to maintain efficiency and quality through retention of company-trained employees in a generally uneducated workforce . Employees themselves sought the security of a job that lasted a lifetime. Insurers could underwrite policies accurately and profitably, because it had the worker throughout his or her lifetime, collecting excess premiums in their youth and investing that money sufficiently enough to cover the expenses of current employees and fund the period of deficit premiums when that same worker became older. The typical retirement age was 65 and typical mortality was at age 69, so companies and insurers could profitably provide retiree medical benefits for a period of only 4 or 5 years in most...

Let me first say that I am no fan of either Bill or Hillary Clinton. My idea of Hillary as Commander in Chief is this; imagine your wife in a terrible "I told you so" or "I know best" mood... for eight years... with Army Rangers to back her up. But again I could be wrong... But this post isn't about politics other than using two amazing politicians as an example. The seldom-told secret of how either of these two made it to power really rests in a rare dynamic within their campaigns. It is something managers could do well to learn and replicate. They empower someone in their inner circle to tell them the brutal truth, no matter what the topic. They act immediately to counter or capitalize on that truth. Here are some examples. During the first Bill Clinton campaign his staff planned contingencies around what his inner circle labeled "bimbo eruptions"; revelations from young women who might claim to have known him well. Each time a Jennifer Flowers or P...

I can point to the spot in the street, 17 years ago, where I was walking with our then six-year-old daughter Rachel one night when she asked a question that literally changed my life. The family was young, money was tight, and she had just started 1st grade. The teachers were encouraging these new young students to do well in school so they could one day go to college. After dinner we were out for a walk when she looked up and asked me, "Will I get to go to college"? Without the slightest hesitation or idea how , I promised her she would. This past Saturday she changed her tassel from left to right, walked across the stage, shook President Gary Ransdell's hand, and my promise was kept. After I made that promise, my work life became serious. Very serious. Serious to the point of often being unbalanced, unhealthy, and focused to the point of obsession. We lived in a small Kentucky town where jobs were scarce, and as my career progressed a good job like mine was rare. Beca...

Forget for the sake of this post that I have any managerial or leadership position with any company. I'm not serving as an apologist for anyone when I say to those of you seeking long-term corporate careers that getting past difficult decisions and people is an absolutely essential skill. Now two-weeks past our staff reductions, I see and hear of a person here or there who is struggling to keep their chin up. Their best friend was let go, the person who hired them is retiring, someone they loved was laid off while someone they despise was kept. It is not at all unusual, and is actually fairly common, for personal loss to cause someone to change jobs. The idea that, "its just not the same around here anymore" can cause you to look for another job, or at least suffer a loss of commitment to the job you have. Its a form of grief not unlike the death of someone close to you. I know this first hand. A few years back I knew I needed to leave Sumitomo Electric because I sa...

I have been in the corporate life long enough to have seen my early mentors retire or otherwise move on to their own businesses. Its been interesting to watch the social dynamic of people who are tight with one another on the job, and how that changes as people change jobs or retire. Some of the most hurt and disillusioned people I know are those who took to heart assurances of true friendship from people who were simply colleagues. One of the truest tests of the bonds between you and those who befriend you at work is what happens after you no longer work together. I've seen this again recently through not only our staff reduction, but just the overall transition from the founding management team to the current Nelson leadership. We've had some turnover, particularly in Marketing and at Women of Faith, and of course at the CEO/Board level as we went private. I've seen evidence of true friendship that is lasting long after the commerce ended, and I've heard hurt fee...

The Reduction in Force from last week has now been implemented, and most of those leaving the company are starting their outplacement. Some are trying to negotiate better exit packages, and the inevitable 2-6 legal disputes (I'm making an educated estimate based upon headcount leaving) are being formed. As of this reduction I've now passed the 1,100 mark in people I've helped terminate in my 25+ years in HR or operations. As reductions go (none of them are pleasant), this one seems to be heading in the right direction. People's spirits are good, and we're getting inquiries from companies wanting to hire some of them. We've had a resignation or two that will create openings for someone on the list, and we're generally getting high marks from our remaining staff as to how we implemented the reduction and are treating our people. Here at "ground zero" things are generally positive, which makes the spin on this from some agents and competitors c...

Its been quite a week, and its only Wednesday morning. A few months ago I was asked to co-present a seminar on hiring and selection at the Christian Leadership Conference going on right now in Dallas. The pre - conference session was Monday, and we were planning a reduction in force for Tuesday. We worked late Friday getting all the details together, I put my presentation together Saturday, flew out Sunday and met with my co-presenters Sunday night to put our respective pieces together, presented on Monday, and flew out that same night to execute the reduction in force Tuesday morning. At the seminar I found myself annoyed and uneasy as to the nature of many of the questions from the audience. These were managers or HR administrators in non-profits and churches, and they were interested in Thomas Nelson's policies. I don't think half the crowd liked my answers any more than I liked their questions: Q: Do you have to be a Christian to be hired at Thomas Nelson? A: No Q: Do you ...

On the matter of the national and local immigration debate, I have often said that Nashville today reminds me of South Texas when I was a student in the 80's. In those days Anglos (which is the Tex-Mex label for white folks) were uneasy with how Hispanic culture was invading their area, but powerless to do anything but watch it happen. Economic dependence on Hispanic labor, and being eclipsed by that group's birth rate vs. the natives, all anyone could do was utter a racism slur or two and watch as Texas became, well, more uniquely Texas. It wasn't Mexico; there was too much native Texas history for that; but it sure was different with everyone's maid and landscaper being Hispanic. Over time, however, people got used to it, got over it, and race relations have been mostly peaceful and in some areas downright warm. Speed forward 24 years since my leaving College Station and I present to you, in the upper right hand corner of this page, Dr. Elsa Mureno , recently i...

Last night I chaired the annual meeting of the Merritt Downs Homeowners' Association. I am blown away by how well that meeting went, capping a year-long turnaround effort by the two of us who comprise the HOA Board of Directors. Now some of you who know me know that I'm a start-up and turnaround junkie; a fact that has a lot to do with my coming to Nelson seven years ago. Having done so many of these I thought I had a good handle on how its done. The feedback from the homeowners last night, however, gave me some new insight on what people look for in leadership. Here's where we've been and what I've learned. Context This week last year Dalton Masson and I came to the annual meeting to see what in the world was going on. We'd had two Boards in the three years that the community had existed (being a former cattle field in Old Hickory). One Board resigned amid scandal, the second resigned in disgust. There were only a hand full of people at the meeting, an...

Hiring and promotion decision-making is not an exact science. Its highly subjective and often you won't agree that the person to whom you now report was really that good of an idea. You may feel that you're more qualified, and you sometimes may feel that you're just plain smarter than the person you report to. When I've dealt with these complaints from an HR perspective I've generally found them to fall into three categories: the new boss is from another discipline (but quite capable), the new boss has traits you haven't seen or appreciated yet, or the new boss is a Pretender. Let's briefly discuss each. Another Discipline - Often a promotion decision is made based upon general leadership or managerial skills identified in one discipline, but the next promotional opportunity is in another. Supervisors in this situation will get off to a slow start because they have to remediate in the new discipline first. Over time, however, their gifts show through o...