Photo by Hector

I have a friend named Gary. He’s a nice enough guy, but talking to him can be really painful. Why?

He only talks about himself.

Think about the most interesting conversationalist you know. She probably asks a lot of questions. She’s funny. She shares interesting information about lots of other people and things. She doesn’t just talk about herself (chances are, she rarely talks about herself).

Social media isn’t a magical tool. It’s just a scalable, searchable conversation.

When you build an employer brand using social media, what you’re really trying to do is have a conversation about your culture. And the same skills that make you a great conversationalist in real life apply online.

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Back in March, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, gave an awesome presentation at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival about culture.

You can check out the presentation and download the audio below (subscribers click through).

Here are some of Tony’s HR insights.

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Renegade HR is really about two things:

1. Hiring great people.
2. Enabling them to do great things that drive your business.

Hiring great people can be difficult. It takes time to get it right.

If you want to be a better HR pro today, find out what’s stopping your employees from doing great things. If you can, ask them directly. Speak to their managers, too.

Once you find out what they need to do great things, get it for them.

Maybe it’s more direction and feedback. That’s something that should obviously come from their manager. But part of your job as an HR Renegade is coach managers on how to better manage.

Maybe a policy or procedure is getting in the way. Find out how to get rid of it, if possible.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Help your managers and the people they lead do better work, and you’ll be a better HR pro.

Should corporate values be aspirational or reflect the way your company actually operates?

Some people argue that if your values aren’t reflective of your actual culture, they’re disingenuous. Other people assert that if your culture sucks, you should aspire (and actively work) to improve it.

Here’s my take: If your culture rocks, your values already reflect that, whether they’re written down or not. And if your culture sucks, it doesn’t matter what your stated values are if you’re not actively working to fix it.

Zappos (who I also wrote about on Monday) believes in this thing called “committable values.” That means they’ll actually make hiring and firing decisions based on them.

What are your organization’s values? Are they committable?

You may or may not have heard that Zappos, the online retailer, was recently purchased by Amazon.com for a ton of money. One of my favorite things about the sale was the way Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, told his employees.

Read Tony’s email

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Laurie Ruettimann of Punk Rock HR discusses the future of human resources. (34:52)

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Direct mp3 download

Links from the podcast

• SHRM, Kennedy, & Blowing Up Human Resources
• The Zappos Culture Book
• Monday is Pitch-a-Policy Day
• The case for the HR generalist

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If you’re not familiar with ROWE (the Results Only Work Environment), here’s the 30-second elevator pitch: Employees can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Just like in college, they can’t lie, cheat or steal. But as long as they do their work, they can work wherever and whenever they want to.

I actually like ROWE. A lot. In college, your professor didn’t care where you wrote your paper or when you wrote it, as long as you met the requirements and got it in by the deadline. Why do we treat employees like grade schoolers again once they hit the working world?

That said, ROWE isn’t perfect. Today, I want to tell you why I don’t like ROWE.

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