The cavnessHR podcast – a talk with Jeff Kramer. Jeff is currently the Assistant Vice President of People at 1st Global

The PDF for the show notes is below

Attachment

The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places. Both on your mobile device or your desktop.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cavnesshr-podcast/id1289104534
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cavnesshr/the-cavnesshr-podcast?refid=stpr
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-119338849/the-cavnesshr-podcast-19
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/s/19556cc

Social Media links for Jeff Kramer below!!

email: jkramer@1stglobal.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrykramer

Jeff’s Book recommendation: “On Fire” by John O’Leary.
The link to purchase the book is: http://amzn.to/2jC3ZTi

Jason: Hello, and welcome, to the cavnessHR Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Cavness. Our guest today is Jeff Kramer. Jeff, are you ready to be great today?

Jeff: Absolutely, Jason.

Jason: Jeff Kramer is an accomplished Human Resources executive with extensive experience in providing strategic leadership to world-class financial services, technology and biotechnology organizations. He has a proven track record of developing innovative, high-impact human resource programs that align with business strategy and values. He is skilled at rapidly designing and implementing programs to address mission-critical business issues. Jeff is currently the Assistant Vice President of People at 1st Global http://www.1stglobal.com who oversees a daily operation of the human resources department and tries to continue to maintain and improve employee culture and engagement throughout the entire organization.

Jason: He began his career at 1st Global http://www.1stglobal.com in 2014 and finds value in helping to provide an enjoyable workplace for employees. So they can, in turn, provide more exceptional service to the clients and their buyers that they serve. He appreciates that his current role provides him the opportunity to create a compelling employment experience for all 1st Global http://www.1stglobal.com staff members. Which ultimately improves overall service advisers, allowing them to help their clients' financial dreams become reality. Jeff stays active in the professional community through the involvement in the Society of Human Resource Management, https://www.shrm.org the Human Capital Institute http://www.hci.org and Dallas HR http://www.dallashr.org.

Jason: He lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife Jan, their daughter, Grace, who they adopted from Guatemala when she was a baby. In his free time, he enjoys volunteering in the Hockaday school https://www.hockaday.org/page and the guiding center for adoption – an organization that seeks to help to improve the lives of children, adoptive families, and birth parents. He also loves to travel and seeks to live a healthy lifestyle through fitness and nutrition.

Jason: Jeff, you're doing great; a lot for us. Before we start, Jeff, I want to publicly thank you. A couple years ago, when I was leaving the military, Jeff Kramer was one of the people I reached out to as a senior HR person and he was a great help to me to transition from the military to civilian HR. He helped me with my resume, gave me a lot of great advice and it was something he didn’t have to do. He didn't know me from anywhere. I sent him a blind LinkedIn message and asked him for some help and he helped me. I really appreciate Jeff.

Jeff: It's my pleasure. I think all of us in H.R. need to, among other things, serve each other. So, absolutely happy to do it and we do it in a blink for anybody.

Jason: So, Jeff, is 1st Global a national company?

Jeff: We are basically a domestic company in the United States. Almost all of our employees are here in Dallas. We kind of have an unusual business model, which I'd like to take a few minutes to explain. At 1st Global our purpose is to enable intentional living and I want to explain what that means. We were founded 25 years ago (this is a big anniversary year for us) by a C.P.A. named Tony Batman who believed that people might trust their CPA more with their wealth management and financial planning than conventional financial services companies. So, Tony has built a business around enabling C.P.A. firms to provide wealth management services to their clients as we believe that those people do trust their C.P.A.s more. While we're a B2B company, we never lose sight of that individual at the end of the transaction that we're trying to help, and that's what we mean by intentional living. So, those clients have kids they want to send to college, or plan to retire with dignity, and we want to enable that in their lives and we think about them every day here, at 1st Global.

Jason: Jeff, H.R. has a bad reputation sometimes. How do you and your company make sure that H.R. stays open to all employees and make sure that it’s a positive impact on your employees?
Jeff: We are incredibly intentional about being transparent with what everybody in the company does, including HR. For instance, we have something that we call The Transparency Channel – it is on flat-screen TVs all around the company and it runs a slide show every morning and every afternoon. Which is updated weekly, which has our progress to goals, recognizes achievements, talks about news and happenings at 1st Global. So, every employee, every day, can stay current on everything that's going on in the company.

Jason: Jeff, how do you handle performance management in your company? I know a lot of people don't like the annual evaluation. There are all these ideas out there, how do you all do it at 1st Global?

Jeff: We are currently doing a fairly conventional, focal-point, annual appraisal and we use the pure manager calibration as well. Which our employees like because it gives them process integrity and we can say to them that there's no favoritism. There are no easy graders; everybody is being evaluated on a level playing field. I will tell you that going to a more agile objectives- and key-results-based performance management system is on my white board.

Jason: Jeff, if somebody wants to work at 1st Global, how do they go about it? Do they apply on the website?

Jeff: They should apply to our website. One of the things that we have on our website is a product that's called a Talent Community. It gives somebody the opportunity to not necessarily apply for a job or even leave a resume. But just leave their name and some information about how to contact them and their interests. Then if a position that meets their interest became available, the system would automatically push out an email.

Jason: Jeff, as one of the senior leaders in H.R., what do you look for in H.R. professionals, regardless of their level?

Jeff: I think, business acumen. It's very difficult to do any H.R. if you don't know what your business is trying to get done. The job of H.R. is to create a human organization that can execute a business strategy. Unless you understand the customer, the marketplace and what your business strategy is, to grow and to gain share. It's very difficult to do H.R. In my formative years, one of the people that really influenced me was, the first time I worked for a C.E.O. Who insisted that I sit in on all the business meetings and that I went and sat with him and ran through P&L statements and really understood how those businesses were making money. It kind of pivoted me from an H.R. person to a leader with a special expertise in people.

Jason: That's very good for a young career, I'm sure. So, Jeff, next, how do you advise someone in H.R. to continue to keep themselves to be professionally developed? What steps should they take to be professionally developed?

Jeff: There's so many ways, formally and informally – the SHRM, and others, have excellent programs. I'm at the point in my career where I have positioned myself with enough organizations where I get enough email pushed to me with subjects that I have interest in that keeps me current. The other thing is, not only keep current on H.R. and what's going on but keep current on what's going on in your industry. I could talk to you, at length, about what the D.O.L. fiduciary rule is doing to financial advisers; even though it has nothing to do with H.R., it has a lot to do with my company.

Jason: Jeff, next question. Everyone knows H.R. has to be open, trying to do the best they can. But, of course, we know there's some companies out there where the C.E.O.s and bosses want H.R. to do administrative functions and be like the old H.R. What advice would you give these H.R. people to do in that situation?

Jeff: Well, I try to pull those executives out of the darkness and into the light. But you have to make the business case for what you're trying to do. Early in my career, I remember being asked to come into the office of my C.E.O., and I was recently hired. The idea was for me to kind of present what my ideas were for the company moving forward. I started talking about best practices and what these big companies were doing – what GE was doing, what Deloitte was doing. He started asking me questions like, “what's this going to cost me, how long is it going to take, how do I know it's working?” I had no answers for any of those questions and I thought he was going to fire me – he did not – but he looked me in the eye and he said to me. “Jeff, if we're going to work together, there's one thing you have to understand – I hate it when someone walks into my office and asks me to grant a wish. That said, I have no trouble making a business decision.” So, the way to bring the C.E.O.s, the leaders who think that personnel is administrative, is to demonstrate that there's a business value in a very concrete sort of way.

Jason: Jeff, so moving on, talk to us about a time you were successful in the past, what you learned from this success, and what we can learn from your success.

Jeff: One of the things that have really helped me is to look at everything that H.R. does through an R.O.I. lens. So, the other thing that has helped me is to look at H.R. operating – if you can visualize that, from left to right. So, at the left side, is access to a talent pool, hiring decision, onboarding, performance management rewards, succession, (you get it). I try to go through each of those segments and say, “can we can we put a dollar-figure on compressing time to fill a position, can we put a dollar-figure on the cost of failed hiring decisions?” If we can get an employee who currently takes 90 days to go from new to fully-proficient; if we can do that in 60 days, how many man-hours are we saving and can we monetize that, and so on. It has helped me a lot to be able to talk HR with a business man's language to executives and be able to talk business with an H.R. person's language to my H.R. team. Does that make sense?

Jason: It does make a lot of sense, Jeff. So, Jeff, another question for you. So, it’s like it’s a disconnected job market right now. So, you have companies, [where] they'll say, “well, those people can’t fill our openings because there’s nobody with enough direct skills. You have the candidates who're like, “I have the skills, but I cannot get the job for the right companies.” Why do you think that disconnect is there?

Jeff: Honestly, I see the combination of the increasing shortage of labor and technology closing that disconnect to the extent that there are people out there that do have skills that match companies’ needs. Dallas is one of, if not, the tightest job market in the United States right now. One of the things that we're seeing is if a candidate with marketable skills posts say, on CareerBuilder, they'll get seven [or] eight inbound contacts in a matter of days. It's important for the people who are feeling the disconnect to really closely examine their virtual presence – do they have the right keywords on their LinkedIn profile, are they on the right boards (and by boards I mean career boards like Monster, like CareerBuilder). That's where corporate recruiters are going out and looking for talent.

Jason: Yes, that's the thing – some people don't realize the importance of being on social media like Twitter. Doing video chats or being on LinkedIn, or all the social media, putting yourself out there; write a blog. Because when you put yourself out there, the better chance you have being noticed by a recruiter.

Jeff: That's exactly true. The other thing that I cannot emphasize enough is the impact that modern, talent-acquisition technology is having on the job market. So, even a company my size – 200 some odd employees – can build a candidate database in their H.R. technology, which they can keyword-search off of. So, if you're sending resumes, but you don't have the right keywords, we're not going to find you.

Jason: Yes, that's very true. So, Jeff, next, talk about a time you failed in the past, what we can learn from this failure and what you learned from this failure.

Jeff: Alright, so it's happened a while ago, Jason, but it's probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my career. So, to give you some context, I was the head of H.R. for a publicly-traded software company – this was back (you probably remember as well as I do) in the dot-com boom days. Like many such companies, one of the important incentives that we used was stock and stock options. We had a program, which a lot of companies had at that time, which we called an evergreen program.

Jeff: An evergreen program is a program whereby, as your stock options vest as an employee, as a retention tool, we will fill that bucket back. I was executing that program at this company but, in the same week, we were doing a major hiring event in our Silicon Valley office – the headquarters of my company – was on the East Coast. But we had just as many employees in Silicon Valley and it was very important that I attend the West Coast event. I left two experienced H.R. managers, one of whom was our stock option administrator in charge of distributing these new stock options. I honestly was not worried about it. Well, as it turns out, unbeknownst to me, the Excel file that they used to generate the notification letters had multiple pages on it with multiple scenarios. So, every eligible employee in the company for that program received a letter in the mail telling them they were granted an enormous amount more options than we intended to give them.

Jeff: So, as you can imagine, my phone started to ring pretty quick and I went running up to the to the C.E.O. of the company and he looked at me in the eye and he said, “Jeff, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to my company.” So, I guess the lesson learned is, “what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.” But maybe the more practical lesson is, “don't assume anything is failsafe” and build more Q.A. and then you think you need if it's something that's important an employee facing. But yeah, that was a bad, bad time.

Jason: Well, you can laugh about it now, so that's good.

Jeff: Yeah, it was quite a while ago.

Jason: Jeff, so let's suppose somebody calls you or contacts you. They are a junior in college looking at a degree in business and they want to go in H.R. What advice would you give this person?

Jeff: Well, first of all, understand what H.R. really does and doesn't do. The old cliché is, “I want to be in H.R. because I'm a people-person.”

Jason: Then you learn you hate people.

Jeff: Well, yeah. Of course, I don't, and we don't. But some of the best H.R. practitioners are really not the warm and fuzzy types. You would mistake them for a C-level executive in any other function if you were to sit next them on an airplane and talk to them about the business. So, first of all, understand what it is that that you will be doing. What outcomes you will try to be achieving, and if that's what you want to do with your time and with your career. If it is, work hard at understanding what competencies are most desirable for companies who need H.R. people. Also work hard at understanding the business that these companies that you may wish to work for are in. Pay attention to what's going on in the stock market, pay attention to what's going on with employment figures, pay attention to inflation. That's how you know I can add value but earn the seat at the table – by being a trusted business adviser.

Jason: Yes, great advice. Jeff, next, you’ve talked about this a little bit, but expand on how you add value and to solve problems.

Jeff: It still goes back to having a business perspective. But I guess the other part of it, for me, goes back to the fact that I've been doing this for 20 some odd years. So, I've seen most of the stuff that happens in companies at this point. I can reach back to my experience and maybe apply a solution that's worked in the past.

Jason: Jeff, next, talk about somebody who's helped you out in the past and how they helped you.

Jeff: It's that same C.E.O. who absolutely changed my career. It was the first time I reported to a C.E.O., it was the first time I was head of H.R. He was a Harvard Hopkins educated, Wall Street business type, and he also (I haven't used his name so I can say this) he also was about 6’6”, three hundred pounds, with a big, bushy beard. So, for like my first seven/eight months. I was scared to death of the guy. But he insisted that I be a business person and not just an H.R. person. He was relentless in staying on top of me to understand all the mechanics of how our business is – because this was a portfolio of businesses – how the businesses ran and that experience proved to be a great differentiator for me as opposed to other H.R. people as my career advanced.
Jason: That's great, Jeff. So, Jeff, next, tell us something about you that most people don't know – your close family knows, close friends may know, but most people don't know this about you.

Jeff: So, my bio mentioned that I have a daughter named Grace who was adopted as a baby from Guatemala. So, a lot of people know that Grace is now ten years old, in the fifth grade. Some of those people also know that I am 60 years old – so, there is a 50-year gap between my daughter and myself. My daughter is very athletic, plays tennis and she plays volleyball and she plays lacrosse. So, the thing about me that most people don't know is, I am a 60-year old bodybuilder. I have a personal trainer and I live in the gym, because when my daughter is 18, I will be 68, and I need to keep up.

Jason: I would never guess you're 60 years old, though. You look a lot younger than that.

Jeff: Well, I always say something – I didn't write the bio. But it says something about embracing a healthy lifestyle and I am very intentional about fitness and about nutrition. I wasn't always that way; it was about having a baby when I was 50.

Jason: Wow, that's great. Jeff, you have any social media links you’d like to provide our listeners so that they can reach out to you to ask you for H.R. advice or anything else?

Jeff: You can find me, Jeff Kramer, on LinkedIn, and you can email me at jkramer@1stglobal.com. I'm happy for people to reach out for advice, to connect on LinkedIn. As I said at the top of the broadcast, all of us H.R. folks have to understand is that we serve each other and by doing that, we serve the employees and companies that we work for.

Jason: Yes. Jeff, thank you. So, Jeff, we've come to the end of our talk. Do you have any last words of wisdom or advice for our listeners?

Jeff: Yes, I do. As you can probably tell, and your listeners can probably tell, I take what I do here very, very seriously. I feel it's very important to the employees and to the customers and the stakeholders at 1st Global. But, I never for a minute get confused with the relative importance of what I do here in the office and what I do with my time outside of the office. I urge all of you not to get confused about which is more important.

Jason: Jeff, thank you for that great advice. Jeff, thank you very much for your time. I know you're a busy person, you're doing a lot of things. Once again, thank you for your time you gave me a couple years ago, I really appreciate it. So, our listeners, thank you for being here and listening to us. Remember to be great every day. Thank you.

The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places. Both on your mobile device or your desktop.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cavnesshr-podcast/id1289104534
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cavnesshr/the-cavnesshr-podcast?refid=stpr
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-119338849/the-cavnesshr-podcast-19
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/s/19556cc

Social Media links for Jeff Kramer below!!
email: jkramer@1stglobal.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrykramer

Jeff’s Book recommendation: “On Fire” by John O’Leary.
The link to purchase the book is: http://amzn.to/2jC3ZTi