Leadership on the Hot Fly

If you have been keeping track of the US Open, you know that the extreme heat and humidity has affected the players.  It has also tested the leadership and decision making skills of the tournament organizers as they try to keep the players safe, the competition fair, and the paying customers and TV partners happy.  But, there is a lot of bureaucracy to deal with, too.

The red tape comes from the rules of different stakeholder organizations: WTA (which runs the women’s tour), ATP (which runs the men’s tour), ITF (which runs the Grand Slam tournaments, of which the US Open is one of 4), and the USTA (which runs the US Open).  What could possibly go wrong?

The WTA established a heat policy in 1992 (a 10-minute break between the 2nd and 3rd sets if the heat and humidity reach certain levels).  The USTA has in the past issued heat guidelines for individual tournaments. Neither the ATP nor the ITF have any policies that speak to excessive heat.  However, the Australian Open (another Grand Slam tournament overseen by the ITF) does have one (though not without its critics).  During the US Open, the WTA policy has been implemented and the USTA decided to implement a modified version for the men where there is an optional (at the players’ discretion) 10 minute break between the 3rd and 4th sets.

The USTA showed some leadership to protect the male players and have not received much blow-back for it, other than, “What took you so long?”  Was it the BEST decision?  Maybe, or maybe not—I’m not a physiologist.  But, they made it before someone was seriously injured (or worse).

What I find most interesting here is that there are four stakeholders in running the tournament, but they have not gotten around to coming up with a standard policy to handle something that they have already had to address and is likely to come up again (both the US and Australian Opens are played in the summer).  One can easily imagine other areas where they should be working together (e.g., drug testing and match fixing).

Now, think about your organization.  Are your operational policies consistent across business units/locations where they need to be and also flexible to account for local realities?  Is it clear who makes on-the-spot decisions when these policies do not cover a particular situation?

It is impossible to come up with a policy for every possible scenario.  But, smart organizations develop structures where decision making responsibilities are clear and different parts of the organization can learn from others.  This leads to quicker decision making and smarter operations.

Who Should Identify and Develop the Non-College Workforce?





  • Provide lifetime learning programs. One thing we know about millennials and Gen Z is that rewarding them for learning is a powerful incentive. Companies should show new recruits all of the opportunities they could potentially have, not just the ones in their trade.


Adapting to Changes in Job Duties

I wrote a couple of months ago about how McDonald’s is changing the cognitive requirements of some of its jobs by adding channels for customers to order food. I argued that such a development should get them thinking about who they hire and how they train new employees.

If you have recently wandered into one of their stores, you probably noticed that, if it is not too busy, a McDonald’s employee may bring you your order. OK, this is not particularly revolutionary. But, to quote a franchisee in an article, “We’re bringing the employees from behind the counter out front to engage, in a more personal way, with our customers.” Maybe I am making more out of this particular example than it warrants, but this strikes me a really upping the customer service requirements of a McDonald’s employee. And I am guessing that a fair amount of the employees are not going to meet it. It’s just not what they signed up for.

This is not about whether McDonald’s employees are capable of providing the additional service or whether their ability to do it well affects the customer experience and/or sales. Rather, it appears to be an example of company changing job requirements and then assuming that people hired using a process that does not account for the new skills will be able to carry out the new duties.

Changing skills requirements is a good thing. It shows adaptation to technology and customer needs and makes the work experience more interesting for people in repetitive jobs. But, companies cannot assume that the incumbents can magically adapt without training and revised performance expectations.

This change also requires updating validation selection processes. Whether it means increasing the weight given to certain aspects or validating a new test, we must adapt our workforce to new job requirements on the front end. As jobs change, hiring practices should as well.

Technology and customers are big drivers of change in the skills, abilities, and personality characteristics required of employees. Smart companies not only redesign work to account for this, but they also update how they train and hire to help their workforce adapt.

Selection When There Are More Jobs Than People

As the economy adds new jobs, some sectors are having a problem finding enough workers for them, including construction. This is regardless of the pay and benefits associated with the jobs. However, the same is true in other blue-collar sectors. This is not a shock to those of you who have been trying to hire people for these types of positions in companies that were not hit by the great recession. For instance, utility companies have been having a difficult time recruiting lineman (sic) for years, and these jobs pay into the six-figures will full benefits.

While the reasons for the hiring shortage are numerous (“You can’t pay me enough to do that kind of work,” “I’d rather work in tech,” “I want to set my own hours,” etc.), these businesses do have a significant challenge. There are some things that you cannot use technology to replace (yet).

In this situation, HR should take the long view. With low unemployment, it’s unlikely that you can just hire your way out this. The labor pool won’t support it. Rather, companies need to engage with high schools and trade colleges to develop candidates. But, they also need to promote and market these jobs in a way that will make them more appealing because right now. This is because many more young people (and their parents) would rather code than swing a hammer.

To avoid the expense of high turnover when hiring for these positions, companies need to do a very good job of validating good selection tools with tenure in mind (as well as performance). They include:

1) Modified versions of Interest inventories (what are someone’s likes and dislikes).

2) Biographical information (do candidates enjoy physically difficult hobbies) surveys (also known as biodata) are very useful ways to determine whether a person is likely to stay in a specific area of work.

I have had good success in validating these for hard to fill positions in manufacturing. This is especially true where giving physical ability tests are either expensive, have a risk of injury, or may lead to high levels of adverse impact against women.

These companies also need to embrace the investment in training and accelerating wages as new hires gain more skills. I have seen this put to effective use in reducing turnover.

There will not be a silver-bullet for creating enough workers for physically demanding jobs in the near term. However, employers who think long term may find viable solutions that will serve them well.

Escape Room Selection

Over the weekend I had a chance to go through an escape room (not as scary as it sounds). An escape room is a physical adventure game in which players solve a series of puzzles and riddles using clues, hints, and strategy to complete the objectives. This one was setup so that the team (there were 9 of us) had to solve a variety of number, word, and logic problems related to a theme in order to find clues and “escape” the room. This required a great deal of team work as some problems required information from a variety of sources and there were a good number to be solved in 50 minutes. We were able to escape within the given time (yay us!).

The process reminded me in some ways of an Assessment Center (AC). An AC is a process of evaluating complex skills and abilities in a variety of methods. Normally, a majority of the assessments are in realistic situations, as opposed to only paper-and-pencil, ones. You can see how the escape room experience reminded me of this.

Even though the eventual success of the group relied on teamwork, there were many opportunities to observe individual performance. For instance:

1) Leadership. Who spent time organizing the task (Where should we start? Should we break into small teams?) and who spent his/her time following?

2) Facilitation. Was there someone who kept time, tracked which puzzles still needed solving, and helped the group communicate?

3) Problem Solving. Who actually solved the puzzles?

4) Communication. It was easy to observe who was sharing information with others and who the good listeners were.

It would have been possible to video record, or otherwise gather behaviors, and score them for selection purposed. Or, provide the team and individuals with feedback for development purposes.

If I sound confident about using something like this, which in the case of my puzzle was not anywhere close to a work environment, it’s because I am. The AC method has consistently been found to predict performance and not have adverse impact. Effective ones have participants interact in a business situation other than their own so that job knowledge/experience does not play a big role. This creates an equal footing for all participants and gives a clearer assessment of their skills and abilities.

The escape room added elements of gamification from the facilitator, which is different than most live ACs. Of course, many online assessments have added gamification to their design (though with mixed results).
It was good to see this type of creativity in allowing people to show their skills. Particularly since so many innovations in assessments are focused so much on technology.

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