Don’t get me wrong: I consider myself a relative novice when it comes to social networking, given that I really only use LinkedIn and Twitter while religiously avoiding the siren song of Facebook or MySpace. Still, I felt a surge of social networking pride this past fall when I asked my college class full of tech-savvy 20-something students if anyone used Twitter and I only got one to hand go up.
But back to my point: I’m trying to do more real work with the social networking tools I have, so I’ve been making a big push to get and use more LinkedIn connections and recruit more followers on Twitter. As part of this effort, I bumped into the “Answers” feature on LinkedIn that allows users to ask a question in any number of targeted areas of their own LinkedIn network connections as well as the larger group of people using the service.
Most of the questions are about things that don’t interest or pertain to me, but this week, I bumped into one that got me going. Here’s what it asked:
“I keep seeing the word ‘evangelist’ being posted in want-ads and by several professional folks here on LinkedIn. Not to sound dense, but while I have some idea of the use of this word in today’s marketplace, I’d love to see a real definition of this term.”
Most of the answers to this sincere question were courteous and straightforward (example: “I understand the term to mean a passionate spokesperson for a company, product, service or initiative.”), but just about all missed the larger point. “Evangelist” in a business setting is a pompous and overinflated title that is both silly and stupid. It says nothing, yet reeks of arrogance and idiocy.
I’ve written about silly, meaningless titles before, the last time about “chief people officer,” and what I said about that holds for any business title with the word “evangelist” in it as well. It’s not only incredibly pretentious, but it’s also vague and terribly overdone. Plus, it’s laugh-out-loud nutty—like something from the “Department of Silly Titles” in a Monty Python skit.
The “evangelist” title is apparently something that was coined by Guy Kawasaki, but that only confirms to me how over the top this is. Kawasaki is the original full-of-himself, know-it-all business type I hear speak at just about every business or HR conference these days. You know what I’m talking about: the business “expert” who gets paid a lot of money to talk to a captive conference audience for an hour with vague and non-actionable “solutions” to the latest pressing business problem.
To my way of thinking, the wave of silly job titles we’re seeing speaks to a bigger issue, which is that people who use sobriquets like “business evangelist” or “chief people officer” believe that they need some marketing blather to get people to listen to them. Rather than leading people through their charisma, strength of character and compelling argument, they have to resort to trickery and puff—or silly and foolish titles.
Could we please get rid of all this nonsense in 2009? I sure hope we can, because I have no respect or use for anyone using the term “evangelist” in their job title—unless he’s John the Baptist.
I read a lot of news stories in the course of a day, and I am often surprised and amused about what I find buried deep down in some of then.
Here’s an example: According to Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, “the new Belgian owners of Anheuser-Busch Cos. announced Monday that Busch Gardens will end a 50-year tradition and stop handing out free beer samples.”
OK, that’s just another corporate cutback at a time when corporate cutbacks are a daily occurrence, but if you read past the Busch Gardens’ visitors bitching about the loss of their free beer, you bump into this little nugget: “Ditched in the same fell swoop with free samples: a longtime monthly perk to full-time park employees of two free cases of Anheuser-Busch beers.”
In the world of benefits, this is a throwback to the 18th and early 19th centuries, when workers got daily alcohol rations as part of their pay. It was an accepted part of many jobs back then—in factories and the military, for example—to get beer or alcohol on the job. It was as accepted then as a free parking space is for many workers today.
What surprises me is not that the free employee beer is being cut at Busch Gardens, but rather, that anyone in America in 2009 would still be getting free alcohol as a perk. And it just goes to show you that there are all sorts of odd and unusual benefits out there. From Google’s free meals to Florida companies offering spiritual and faith-based services to employees, managers and HR executives are dealing with company perks that bring their own unique issues with them.
This also reminds me of the last time I encountered beer as a benefit. It was in Hawaii, of all places. When I moved to Honolulu in the mid-1990s, my neighbors were kind enough to clue me in on an odd but longtime New Year’s tradition: putting out beer for the garbage men.
This was one of those word-of-mouth things, but every New Year’s Day in Honolulu, the garbage workers came by to pick up your trash. Friends and neighbors warned me that you were expected to put out some beer for the garbage guys to both thank them for their hard work and to ensure that your trash got picked up efficiently over the next year. And we were warned that NOT putting out the beer was not really an option. By not observing the tradition, you just made sure that your trash would never, ever be treated kindly again.
No one seemed to know exactly how much beer to put out, but everyone agreed that it needed to be at least a case, and preferably two, in order to accomplish the desired goal.
So, I got up early that first New Year’s Day in Hawaii to see how this was all accomplished. Around 7 a.m., the garbage truck came barreling down the street, as usual, with workers picking up the weekly trash with their usual skill and efficiency. What was different on this particular day, however, was that the garbage truck was followed by a large pickup truck with two guys picking up the cases of beer that had been carefully placed on the curb next to the trash cans.
It was an incredibly efficient operation—and very unlike what you got out of so many public workers in Hawaii. But it did show the power of a timely and focused workplace benefit.
So farewell to the free beer for workers at Tampa’s Busch Gardens. It will surely be a benefit sorely missed and fondly remembered.
Companies and organizations are like families, and no matter how big or small, the best ones always have someone at the top whom everyone else looks to for hope, guidance and inspiration.
At Apple, that inspirational leader is Steve Jobs. He not only founded the company but had a riches-to-rags-to-riches saga. He was fired only to come back years later and not only save Apple, but reinvent it completely with the creation of the wildly popular iPod. And, Jobs does this despite being famously known as a legendary asshole and jerk who is prickly and difficult even on his best days.
The latest Steve Jobs health rumors surround his decision not to appear at the annual Mac World show, which begins today in San Francisco. This has always been a place where Jobs has introduced new Apple products to great fanfare, so his decision to skip it became a big deal and fueled new speculation about his health.
The focus of the Steve Jobs health stories ALWAYS seems to be the stock price: That is, what is the impact of the uncertainty about Jobs on the price per share? That’s important, of course, but what gets lost in these stories is this:
What is the impact of all these rumors on Apple’s workforce? How do employees feel about the up-and-down state of health of their charismatic leader? What happens if he can’t continue as CEO?
This is not an insignificant question. Although the HR perspective is simply that the health of any employee is a private matter, that is an extremely shortsighted view when it comes to the CEO, or any key executive. Yes, everyone is entitled to privacy. But don’t the top people—those who set the tenor and tone for where the organization is going— have a duty to be open, honest and upfront with the rank-and-file workers who count on them for that leadership?
This is the problem I have with Jobs and his silence, up until now, about his health. He not only leaves stockholders in the dark, but his workforce and executive team as well. They deserve to know what is going on and not be subjected to the never-ending rumors that surely have a deleterious impact on everyone at Apple.
Jobs has been known to fess up to missteps before. He did it when he made a mistake with iPhone pricing, and his public apology, I noted at the time, was both quick and decisive. And even if you don’t believe it, Jobs’ apology sounded a bit sincere and a tad contrite, which apparently is not his standard operating procedure.
This is the lesson of Jobs: Being frank, open and transparent with the workforce—going beyond company press releases and media hype—is critical for success in the turbulent work environment we all will face in 2009. Steve Jobs has always been an innovator and trendsetter, and it would be great if he could extend this into the area of workforce management by being honest and leveling with his workforce about what is going on with him. As with the iPod, it might just set a new standard for everyone else in the process.
I’ve never been a big fan of Wal-Mart—despite the aggressively low prices, I have always found the stores to be crowded and cheap, with marginal customer service—but that doesn’t mean I don’t admire it as a smart business.
Setting aside my personal feelings about shopping there, I have always marveled at Wal-Mart’s ability to manage itself profitably with ruthless efficiency.
And that’s why this holiday announcement from the world’s largest retailer shouldn’t come as any great surprise: Wal-Mart announced this week that it has agreed “to pay up to $640 million to settle 63 suits alleging it routinely underpaid employees around the country, ending years of embarrassing legal battles over its treatment of workers,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
“The workers and their lawyers will receive at least $352 million, and the payments could reach $640 million, depending on how many claims affected workers submit,” according to The New York Times.
“Union critics of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, saw the settlement as proof of their view that the company achieves its low prices in part by cheating workers,” the Times added. “But the company rejected that characterization, saying it had already corrected wage practices that it has long attributed to local managers acting without authority.”
As I’ve noted before, Wal-Mart management has an uncanny ability to know when to fold its tent and get in front of a negative issue, as the company did last year when it came to criticism over not providing adequate health care to its workers. Still, the company’s actions on health care, I noted at the time, were disingenuous and little more than PR spin given that Wal-Mart touted that “92.7 percent” of employees were covered by a health plan—any health plan—when in fact only 50 percent were being covered by an actual Wal-Mart health plan.
In other words, there is ALWAYS something else behind the scenes that Wal-Mart is trying to accomplish when it offers up a settlement like this. The company doesn’t do it because it feels it is the right and honest thing to do for workers; no, Wal-Mart only gives in when there is some bigger issue at stake.
And, here’s what is behind this settlement, according to The Wall Street Journal’s law blog: “Wal-Mart wanted to settle the lawsuits not just to avoid potentially more costly defeats in the courtroom, but to resolve issues that might be used to argue for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation, expected to be considered by Congress next year, is fiercely opposed by Wal-Mart because the company worries it will make it easier for workers to unionize,” according to Paul Secunda, an associate professor at the Marquette University Law School.
Secunda told the Journal’s law blog: “This is part of their overall strategy to get their labor house in order, and compared to what unionization might cost them, I think they probably realized it was a small price to pay.” In other words, this settlement by Wal-Mart is less about doing the right thing by workers and more about posturing for a long-term strategy to fight the Employee Free Choice Act.
I’ve said here before that I think the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act pushes the frighteningly wrongheaded notion that the secret ballot, a pillar of our democracy, is somehow good for electing presidents but flawed when it comes to union organizing. It’s a bad idea that is going to make for even more divisive labor-management relations, in my view.
But, a disingenuous Wal-Mart “settlement” as a hedge against the Employee Free Choice Act, if that’s what the company is doing, doesn’t help matters either. It’s just the beginning of the PR spin and posturing we’ll undoubtedly be bombarded with from both sides as the battle over this terrible piece of legislation heats up in the new year.
So, Merry Christmas and happy holidays from Wal-Mart. Ho, ho, ho indeed.
Everyone knows it’s a tough job market right now, and there are lots of job seekers looking for their next paying gig, but does that totally explain the fact that “more than 330,000 people have applied for top jobs in the Obama administration so far, in an unprecedented outpouring of interest spurred by excitement surrounding Barack Obama’s election,” according to a story in USA Today?
Here’s what is amazing about this number: “At this point in President Bush’s 2000-01 transition, there were 44,000 applicants; in President Bill Clinton’s 1992-93 transition, there were nearly 135,000,” according to Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. His group, according to USA Today, “promotes effective government.”
Why so many applicants? The newspaper points out some obvious reasons, including the desire to help the country during an economic crisis and “the pent-up energy of Democrats waiting on the sidelines through eight years of a Republican White House.” But it also points out a more pragmatic reason that recruiters can certainly identify with—”the ease with which applicants can apply online at www.change.gov.” Clearly, it is a lot easier to apply for government work now than it was in late 2000 and early 2001 when George Bush took office.
Still, people who are applying for a spot on Obama’s team need to take a pragmatic approach and not get their hopes too set on this being their next paying gig, because as the story also notes, “only about one in 100 applicants will get jobs.”
In other words, you need to keep looking for a job no matter where you may have applied, either in the Obama administration or elsewhere. Normally, I tell people that the holidays are a terrible time to be looking for work, at least based on my past experience in both recruiting and job searching at this time of year. But this year is different.
When will things get better? Who knows? One thing is certain, though: A job in the new Obama administration is probably NOT something you should be counting on finding in your Christmas (or nondenominational, all-purpose holiday) stocking this year.
= Member Only
