The HR Technologist

Unless you’ve been living under a rock since the Super Bowl you’ve probably seen an episode of Undercover Boss – The latest reality train wreck television show to hit the American airwaves.  The premise of Undercover Boss is simple – the top executive of a large company leaves the safe and comfy confines of his or her executive suite, ditches the custom-tailored suit, leaves the Mercedes behind and joins the rank and file of the company in doing a variety of jobs to better understand what’s happening in their company from the ground up.  Regardless of what you think of the show, the basic premise is naturally appealing to Human Resource professionals such as myself.

While I can go on and on regarding the show, it’s easier best to share the thoughts of other bloggers who have already put digital pen to paper on the topic:

Our first post in the Carnival comes from the other side of the pond, where UK-based blogger and management consultant Jon Ingham of Strategic HCM analyzes (or analyses as Jon would say) the premise of the show.  As with much of popular reality TV in the US lately, Undercover Boss originated in the UK on BBC channel 4, and Jon highlights key findings from the UK version of the show.

Next up is the HR Bartender, Sharlyn Lauby and when she’s not playing Farmville on Facebook she’s writing her post about the benefits of Management By Walking Around.  She also further speaks to a topic that is near and dear to my heart – training, and how it really shouldn’t be optional.

While cleaning out the cat box might be more entertaining than watching Undercover Boss as Marsha Keeffer writes in her blog post, one cannot help but recognize the potential damage that a show like this can have on your employment brand.  This was highlighted very well during Undercover Boss Episode #2 where the CEO of Hooters (apparently a chicken wing chain – I wouldn’t know personally though) pretty much creates a PR nightmare in one fell swoop.  Three mile island was a simple PR situation compared to the Hooters situation.

When he’s not out driving his Saab and video blogging apparently Michael VanderVort is calling bullshit on formatted documentaries – Undercover Boss in particular.

The pride of Oklahoma City, Jessica Miller-Merrell AKA Blogging4Jobs shares with us her post regarding management types.  While she lists out a series of different management types, the one which shares my name is not quite my style.

Leadership can lose touch with the details of the business as Cathy Missildine-Martin writes here. Working in the executive suite colors one’s perspective and removes them from what really drives the business day-to-day.

Anti-establishment blogger (and all around great gal) Laurie Ruettimann – PunkRockHR believes that not everything in life has to be teachable.  And while there were some teachable moments in Undercover Boss, some lessons are better left alone.

Paul Hebert thinks Undercover Boss is worthless crap and picks it apart in his blog post highlighting the extremely unlikely odds that the show was completely random.  Statistically speaking it had to have been scripted in a way to become a PR puff piece for at least one of the executives.

The HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn points out in his post that the transformation of a dysfunctional organization doesn’t happen in 60 minutes.  I agree with KD wholeheartedly, and stake my livelihood on that that fact.  If transformation were that easy I would most likely be flipping burgers instead of helping clients transform their business.  As a result, my family is happy that it isn’t quite that easy to cure dysfunction.

While I may be chided for including the home team in this one (editors note – I do work for Knowledge Infusion), I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the post by Steve Boese on the KI Blog: Talent Nation which examines the logic of a CEO volunteering for the show.  Ultimately, in true American TV fashion, the CEO is setup to be a sort of hero.

While it would appear that the HR bloggers included in the Carnival this week were all negative on the show, that isn’t necessarily the case.  Dan McCarthy highlights some of the key leadership lessons in the Hooters episode of Undercover Boss here.  Key takeaways are the value of succession planning and company values.  And here I thought Hooters was only good for  women in skimpy outfits chicken wings.

While Dan may have seen some value in the show, that may not necessarily be the case with Wally Bock.  In his blog post here he pretty much agrees with what Paul Hebert had to say earlier in the Carnival.  Besides being scripted crap, it’s also rigged.  I’m SHOCKED to hear that.

April Dowling of PseudoHR shares her thoughts on episode 1 of Undercover Boss where Kevin the plant manager doesn’t take the time to meet his employees.  Regardless of the size of the plant, April believes that its management’s obligation to get out and meet their employees.  There’s some good lessons for managerial relations and onboarding.

Once you cut through the general silliness of the show it becomes a very effective way to help senior management hear firsthand how things really work at their companies.  Why spend hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars to conduct employee engagement surveys when you can simply send the CEO undercover into the front-lines and get the real scoop unfiltered, without spin, and as direct as possible?  While the results of the show are somewhat questionable, you cannot deny the appeal that it has for an HR professional.