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Joe Lunt

Mid-Week Rant - Goverati, or How I Stopped Seeing Clients Altogether
April 8, 2009
Posted by Joe Lunt

So have you heard about the "goverati?" The term sort of reminds me of "The Borg," for your Trekkies out there.

To quote Mark Drapeau, who coined the term, it describes people who are familiar with government, how it works, and understand new social technologies to foster a more transparent, participatory and collaborative government.

Whew! All that with a 'Berry or an iPhone? My oh my... As someone who can remember the tolling of the administrative death knell when IBM Selectrics replaced Smith-Coronas, allow me a bit of well-earned skepticism.

Sure, technology affects how we do our business, no question. But isn't our business people, and hasn't it always been? When the tech gets in between public HR practitioners and their clients, is that really a good thing?

Most of us have probably been exposed to government "2.0" by now. People in meetings twittering each other. Using texts and emails to displace face-to-face meetings. Cute? Under some circumstances. Clever? Only if removing ourselves from the client is.

I'll own being old-fashioned, but fashion doesn't change the nature of our business. We deal in and with people. It's messy, chaotic, often aimless. Worse still, for some, it's charged with emotion. And no matter how connected you are, you can't deal effectively with emotions on an iPhone.

Me, I'd just as soon throw the Blackberries out the window when it comes to public HR practice. Our clients deserve the best they can get, and I just don't think that's ever going to be anything digital.

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It's All About the Money, Right?
March 17, 2009
Posted by Joe Lunt

Suddenly everybody's a compensation expert.  All they gotta do is read about another round of AIG pay awards, hit a couple clicks on Wiki, and voila:  people talk compa ratios, wage indexes, market ratios, base, participation, points on action, and the oh-so-stupefying "retention bonuses".

Raise your hands: Who wants to work in the AIG comp division right now?

But while we may taste a bit of sweet watching a complicated, basically uncontrolled pay plan implode, we public sector HR practitioners need to take a deep breath and admit, at least to ourselves, that we've done pretty much the same thing, but maybe on a lesser scale.

It's been different jobs at different times, but we've chased our own dragons. Since I got in our business, that's included engineers, IT (the job family formerly known as data processing), and most recently, at least since 9/11,  fire and police (perhaps the subject of a future post).

Specialness is rarely more than cute, and in organizational dynamics as well as pay, it cuts both ways.  We may be doing our agencies a service each time we suggest, gently or otherwise, that the organization consists of people with equal needs, despite different contributions.

But then, that kind of view is what HR is all about, right?

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Schadenfreude, or, Can I Really Feel Better as the World Falls Apart?
February 13, 2009
Posted by Joe Lunt

Interesting things, blogs. I participate in only a few, but on one (which centers on public HR) recently there was an observation that we in public HR are about to reap “windfall recruits.” Once I got over the mental image of a roomful of applicants flying through space, it was clear what the guy was getting at.

Sure, with literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of otherwise good people dumping into the labor market each month, it would seem that those of us who labor in the government skin game would be perched perfectly to take advantage of other people’s disappointments.

But are we so perched? Will we be able to? For that matter, should we even try?

If you were in our business back in the 90s, or a certified old mossback like me who can remember the recession of the early 80s, we heard much the same thing. What happened in reality, at least here in the Piney Hills, was something altogether different.

First thing is, today’s reality starts and ends with WE AIN’T HIRING. Most other public employers AIN’T HIRING. And that AIN’T GONNA CHANGE, at least for the next couple years.

Second thing is, that trying to place a bona fide long term, high achieving private sector type into a public sector opening can be something akin to a 220V plug into a 110V outlet. Sure, it’s plugs, outlets and current. They just don’t match well without some fiddling around.

And all that’s before you get to wrestle (or “wrassle” as we say hereabouts) with how it feels to offer someone a job under such circumstances.

The last time we saw a similar situation here was after The Storm, Katrina. Lots of good people displaced against their will. Need work, we got it, come on in. Some have stuck and done well. For some, though, it’s been a transitional period, one in which they get to re-think their life, and how they want to use it. And many of those moved on, soon as circumstances permitted.

I expect we’ll all see applicants we otherwise never would have as the recession continues to search for a bottom and turning point.  Maybe the best thing we can do is be straight with those people about what we are and what we offer, and understand that if they can, they’ll eagerly seek to get their life back much as it was.

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Salary Caps a Bit Too Tight? Welcome to Our World
February 12, 2009
Posted by Joe Lunt

I try to read Bloomberg every day, mostly so I can say “I read in Bloomberg today…” Well, I read in Bloomberg today an article with the link title: Strip-Club Chief is What Obama Could Afford with Bank Pay Limit.”

Oh yeah? Well, the title sorta tells the whole story, but if you got the time, it’s interesting, though not persuasive reading. Mostly it’s the same old wailing and gnashing of teeth (not to mention renting of cloaks, etc) over SALARY CAPS in the financial sector.

All this agita over pay brings to mind an elemental question, one that underpins every pay decision ever made: if you make more, are you really worth more? It’s time for the nation to think that one through. My best friend, the smartest man I know, is convinced that the financial sector will cease to exist if salary caps are extended, ’cause the “best and the brightest” will simply take their toys and leave.

But, with love for my bro, so what? The best and brightest have been running things, and where they’ve run things to ain’t exactly where anybody wants to be, even them. Maybe we’ll be better off if they do leave, and make room for those who are less focused on compensation and more concerned with correcting the mistakes left them.

In a way, that’s what we do and have traditionally done in public service. And we’ve had salary caps for, oh, ever. So, I ask again: if you make more, are you really worth more? I don’t think so. Not any more than people with more of anything are better/more special/more capable than people with less. Let’s hope this rather petty part of the national economic crisis can help us focus more on what’s done than what’s in it for those who do it.

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