Last month, we chatted about what global leaders need to know—Intellectual Capital, Psychological Capital, and Social Capital--and where to start with their development—by leveraging development opportunities and tools already in your organization.  Once you’ve identified existing resources, what do you do with them? 

Our research at Najafi Global Mindset Institute shows that leaders with the highest Global Mindset abilities are not made in the classroom.  They develop through a series of layered learning and experiences over time.  Now, that’s not to say classroom or instructor-led…

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. It’s a popular cliché I’ve seen tossed around a lot.  And I get the premise – strong cultures can make or break your organizational strategy.  It’s true. But where does culture start? Well, Steve Boese recently wrote a post titled, “If culture eats strategy, then what eats culture?” answering that exact question.

Without giving Steve’s post away, it got me thinking about talent.  And, who “owns”…

In an attempt to circumvent the keyword-laden resume game, job seekers are taking a more creative approach to captivating recruiters. Rather than dropping the resume altogether, the trend seems to be a breakaway from over-automation and a return to the heart of what makes a good hire. Laurie Barkman of The Resumator explains, “We’ve been told for a long time, ‘This is how you do recruiting, and here’s what matters,’ but organizations are now more interested in interactions that help to determine a good fit.…

The problem with trying to change occupations or industries, is that most people don’t have the skill set to support a broad leap in jobs. So they end up willing to do practically anything other than what they are currently doing, and subsequently flounder in their job search.

After 15 years in recruiting, helping companies to find and hire teams of highly specialized consultants and executives, my job is now to teach employers and recruiters how to find and attract talent better. But one of my primary passions remains helping job seekers along in the career…

There’s no denying that social mediais changing the way we work. From its emergence in the recruitingsphere to the way it is redefining workplace culture and flexibility, organizations and HR professionals are quickly adapting and growingwith each and every innovative step that social media takes.

As social media continues to grow, so does We Know Next.…

Achieving milestones within a department or an organization is a process that involves a clear strategy, research, team members, and the flexibility to change and adapt along the way.  Just like leaders, a company’s culture or environment doesn’t just happen.  Great cultures are made from the top down and the down up.   The key in creating a corporate culture focused on high achievement doesn’t come from the learning curve employees and their teammates face but in how they learn and work together during their failures.  It’s the low…

It is 9 am.  The secretary reports to her desk.  Waiting for her is a sealed card.   The secretary opens the envelope and it is a Valentine's card from her manager.  Having undergone sensitivity training, the manager signs it "fondly" as opposed to "lovingly."   The employee is creeped out and goes to HR.  HR talks with the manager based on a script we had prepared together.   HR asks the manager if he knows why the card is inappropriate.  He responds "no."   HR asks the manager to whom else he gave a…

Much has been said about the contribution of the “skills mismatch” to the United States’ elevated unemployment rate. Even President Barack Obama weighed in during his State of the Union address, calling it “inexcusable” that there are job openings in many industries that can’t be filled while millions of Americans are looking for work.   Although most economists argue that joblessness is largely a function of lowered demand at the moment, simple math says there’s also something else going on: There are 13…

2011 Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge   The Cleanup X Challenge offered $1 million to the team that could invent an oil-recovery system able to recover oil from the surface of the ocean at a rate two times the industry standard. The building and testing of such a device was already an improbable feat, but the stakes were raised even further: contestants have 90 days to complete it.    Team Elastec met the challenge    When Donald Wilson, the CEO of Elastec, the largest manufacturer of oil-spill-cleanup equipment in the US, read about the innovation contest, he enthusiastically jumped. They…

When I was a teenager my parents told me to be careful about the character of my circle of friends.  Positive friends make good friends and will likely improve your quality of life and decision-making.  Negative friends, on the other hand, will have the opposite effect. Before you know it, toxic friends will craftily lead you to make poor decisions, ultimately directing you to a bad place in life.   You are eventually the product of your environment. That’s why I highly recommend you surround yourself with good, smart and honorable people.   When I was…

What will you do?

To most of us, mentors are people of experience and knowledge who help the less experienced advance their careers and/or their education. There are plenty of well-known examples throughout the course of history; Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great, Laurence Olivier mentored Anthony Hopkins and Freddy Laker mentored Richard Branson.    In the early days of my 40 year business career, I was lucky to work under two gentlemen who instilled several critical success factors that guided me from Brand Manager to CEO. One of my mentors was brilliantly creative, the other skillfully strategic. But when I finally reached the…

Did you talk to a customer today?   Simple yes or no answer.     According to Frank Pacetta (a hero of mine) and his Blueprint for Success a “no” gets the leader or manager (CEO especially) an immediate failing grade.   {click through and take the rest of Frank’s Blueprint for Success Management Test}   Today’s leader is charged with navigating through chaotic and disruptive times.  Employees are anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, uncertain and have far less trust in senior leadership. …

French novelist Alphonse Karr once wrote, “the more things change, the more things stay the same,” which might explain why this same phrase shows up in Zeppelin lyrics a century after Karr’s death.     And nowhere is that more true than HR, which as a function seems often to be the business equivalent of the Amish – a quaintly anachronistic sect who shuns modern technology (with the possible exception of cute cat videos on YouTube, which, as we all know, really never gets old).   This is probably why we’re still talking about…

As the workforce grows more complex, businesses and organizations are tapping into new trends and people strategies to recruit and retain the best and brightest talent. With today’s four-generation workforce and the increasing globalization of business, workplace flexibility is an imperative for today’s 21st century workplace. 

In recent research from SHRM, C-suite executives said that the biggest threat to their organizations’ success was attracting and retaining top talent, and found that the best way to combat this was to provide flexible…

It’s that time of year when business owners and senior executives take stock of the past twelve months. What did 2011 look like for you and your company?  The questions you could ask during your year-end assessment are endless. But there’s only one that really matters: Did your company effectively execute its plans and initiatives?   If an organization can’t get things done, nothing else matters—not the smartest strategy, not the most innovative business model, not even game-changing technology.  And for many companies, there is a clear gap between strategy and…

According to the SHRM Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report for February 2012, although the pace of job creation at this time last year was higher, the hiring outlook for this February shows that far more companies are expected to hire than lay off. 

Many business leaders have long suspected that active social networkers are a breed apart from other employees. A new report looking at the state of business ethics in the U.S. supports that belief.   The nonprofit Ethics Resource Center (ERC) says that corporate ethical behavior will likely get worse in the foreseeable future. In analyzing its data, the ERC was surprised to find how different social media people are from other employees. Workers who are active on social networks report more…

Paper — symbolizing strength from the connection of individual threads — is a traditional gift for a first anniversary.   Making a strong connection is a fitting description as SHRM marks the first anniversary of the groundbreaking partnership on workplace flexibility with the Families and Work Institute (FWI).   Announced Feb. 1, 2011, by SHRM President and CEO Hank Jackson and FWI President Ellen Galinsky at the National Press Club, the partnership works to help organizations transform how they view and adopt flexible…

During the past decade, much of work/life research has been dedicated to identifying and measuring the bottom-line benefits of workplace flexibility to an organization and its employees. Unfortunately, far less attention has been paid to the challenges that managers face when integrating flexibility into their work groups.   A 2010 survey report, Alternative Workplace Strategies in the Current Economy: Results from New Ways of Working’s Benchmarking Study, cited executive buy-in…

“If you come to work with ten fingers and ten toes, then that’s how we intend to send you home each day.”     That was the oft-uttered phrase of an Operations Manager with whom I worked.  It was the foundation of his message to new hires during New Employee Orientation and he repeated it at all staff meetings. Safety mattered.   Most employers are subject to the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act and therefore have what’s termed a “general duty” to provide a workplace that’s free from…

Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board announced in this press release that it had issued a second social-media report to help provide further guidance to practitioners and human resource professionals.   The social-media memo, a copy of which you can obtain here, covers 14 cases, half of which involve questions about employer social-media policies. Those seven cases that address the scope of social-media policies underscore that they should not be so broad as to chill employee's rights to engage in

It’s that time of year again, when we sit around and try to predict what will happen in the months to come.  I just read an article that 2012 could be the year of payback.  Employees will really make those moves that have been predicted since 2009.     If that’s true, I see an overall trend of companies shifting toward training and development as a retention and recognition tool.  Here how it could impact how training might look this year.   1. Social learning and gamification will…

There are 9,497 books with ‘global leadership’ in the title on Amazon.com, as of January 12, 2012.  Yet multinational organizations continue to struggle with how to develop their global leaders.  We see that daily in our work with these organizations at the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management.      Why is global leadership development so difficult to figure out?     There are many reasons, and chief among them is that global leadership is complex.  It encapsulates management, leadership, diversity, intercultural competence, and strategy, to name a few critical areas.  …

Every performance review I ever had was a colossal waste of time.   The dust laying on yours indicates it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.   Performance reviews are like Santa Clause, they don’t really deliver. Yet, organizations are filled with true believers who persist in wasting time, demotivating employees, and creating more paperwork.   You’re in the minority if your evaluation produced lasting benefit.   5 Reasons Performance Reviews Suck:   You’re never really sure how they’ll turn out. The time between reviews is too long.…

Fact: most employees occasionally use social media tools at work for personal reasons, anyway. Unsurprisingly, business leaders want guidelines in place for regulating employee use of social media outlets--and protecting against misuse--on personal and company accounts alike. Many 2012 corporate to-do lists include creating an official policy for regulating employees’ Tweets, Likes and Shares while at work.   One thing that I've noticed, though, is that while regulation-focused policies protect an organization against any potential social media blunders, they cast a shadow over the shoulder of every employee who uses the internet on a daily basis (shudder). Well-intended though…

Social media sites Wikipedia and Google held a blackout day on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 to highlight their opposition to the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" (PIPA) bills in Congress. Wikipedia claimed that over 162 million people saw the blackout message on its website. One day later on January 19, the unofficial vote ledger switched from 80 members of Congress supporting SOPA/PIPA and 31 opposing to 65 supporting and 101 opposing it. This was a net loss of 85 votes for the SOPA/PIPA advocates in only one day!   How did this happen? Coordinated advocacy by these major websites leveraged the…

I could talk about their brands, their global clout, their sales growth or their stock market value. Not today. The mystical factor that distinguishes Procter & Gamble from everyone else is people. From 1837 to the present, P&G people have been the company’s sustainable success factor. To many in the consumer packaged goods industry, this isn’t an epiphany. But what is it that makes the people at P&G stand out from the rest?       1. The character of P&G can be summed up in one word – Exploration. Throughout its…

The first thing you should know about recruiting Generation Y? According to pioneering generational researchers William Strauss and Neil Howe, workers born between 1982-2000 actually prefer to be called Millennials. 

That nuance illustrates the essential element to recruiting and attracting the best Millennial talent -- effective communications that speak to and understand their language and values. 

Millennials and Social Media Use

While it’s no secret that communication is increasingly facilitated by social tools and technologies,

As 2011 draws to a close and a new year begins, SHRM is pleased to report that the global HR standards initiative has not only successfully launched but also continues to gather steam across the world.  As of the end of December, there are 13 participating countries and 19 observing countries from around the globe that are involved with ISO Technical Committee 260 for Human Resource Management.  Additional countries are expected to join the effort in 2012.  This assembled body will propose and develop global standards for topics within the purview of HR.     Why do standards matter for HR?   …

Numerous employment, labor and employee benefit laws regulate the American workplace.  Human resource professionals conduct business daily within this framework. But what if HR professionals helped shape these very laws and regulations?     Given HR’s unique knowledge and experience of implementing these laws within their organizations, wouldn’t their influence make for better HR public policy?  The answer is unequivocally YES, which is why the role of an HR Advocate is so important.   But what does being an HR ADVOCATE entail?  Consider these key elements of the job:   Activism – Engaging…

What’s more important? Looking good or doing good?

An increasing number of businesses are responding: Why not do both?

Recent articles, including a McKinsey & Co. global survey report and a column in The Economist, have laid out the advantages that many organizations seek, and some organizations find, when they commit to environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. There are a variety of approaches to sustainability, and some of them depend upon the industry in which the company competes. For example, companies in the energy, transportation and extractive (or mining) industries have a greater…

Between now and New Year’s Eve, just about everyone — from late-night comedy show hosts and newspaper editorial boards, to individual families — will be compiling their Top 10 lists for 2011. SHRM’s Government Affairs Team has taken a slightly different approach and compiled its Top 8 list of HR public policy accomplishments for this past year.

2011 will not be remembered as a hallmark of post-recession job creation, but there’s some hope hidden beneath the gloomy headlines kicking off 2012. It’s easy to forget that job growth is a lagging economic indicator. This is what lends to the frustration so many of us have when we keep hearing that consumers are spending more, that corporations are raking in record-level profits and that there’s little fear that the economy will slide back into a recession. …

A side effect of HR professionals taking on more leading, visible roles in business could be becoming the target of workplace bullies.

More than 30 percent of HR professionals responding to a survey in the summer of 2011 said they had been bullied at work—about the same rate as other employees responding to recent surveys. But over half of the bullied HR professionals said they felt that the abuse was related to their role as an HR practitioner. (See Study Probes Bullying of HR Professionals<…

As we all know, in EEO termination claims, how we treat the "comparators" is critical.  Two (2) key questions:   Did you let anyone else go for a same or similar reason? Did you not let someone else go even though they had engaged in same or similar conduct? What do you do if you have an inconsistent practice historically?   If you take a hard line, you may get an EEO claim. You are treated more harsher than X because of my  [insert protected group or protected activity].    If you play it safe and a avoid…

Mentoring Saved Best Buy’s Future President

Brian Dunn started with Best Buy in 1985 selling VCRs, but his first day was so bad that he wanted to quit. He confessed to his store manager that it had been a “lousy experience.” At that the manager invited Brian to come in on Saturday morning and he would personally teach Brian how he operated on the sales floor when he was in Brian’s position. The manager mentored Brian. In doing so, he cleared the way for Brian to not only be good at his…

The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report found that January 2012 will mark the third consecutive month that hiring activity will decrease, while job cuts increase on an annual basis.

Comparing January 2012 to January 2011, service sector hiring will drop by a net of 15.4 points while manufacturing sector hiring will fall by a net of 4.4 points. Taking a…

Is it possible the practice of retirement for hard-working employees could be disappearing from America’s social landscape? The concept of retirement has been the ability to relax and enter a phase of life where you pick and choose your activities, vacation with your spouse, volunteer at a local non-profit agency, go fishing, play golf and talk about old times without much worry of your financial future.    Poof! Your future retirement may have left the building.   Attention Workers, Your Retirement Has Been Cancelled   The freedom to choose your post-career activities is supposed to be your…

Manifestos ignite people into action. The best manifestos are so emotionally charged that their catalytic influence can endure for centuries. The Ten Commandments and the Declaration of Independence are good examples. As recently as fifty years ago, an emotional speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial established a clear and compelling purpose for American Civil Rights. Today, MLK's I Have a Dream is arguably the most inspiring manifesto of the 20th Century.    Though manifestos are best known for political movements, the ideals and intent of such potent texts can also move people to excel on…

HR is in a boring field. We are in business of mitigating risk and keeping our executives out of trouble. There are very few bold predictions for 2012.

Here is my attempt to gaze into a crystal ball and tell you about the upcoming year.

For many demographers and social scientists, the long-awaited year has come and gone, almost. It was estimated that between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2011, more than 7,000 people would turn 65 years old every single day. Those numbers are astounding.

In AARP's 2010 survey of boomers turning 65 in 2011 finds this first wave of the boomer generation were generally satisfied with their lives and optimistic about the next third of life.  Financial security and improving their health were a few top concerns which affected their outlook about the future, and their retirement plans.

In a few respects, boomers turning 65…

If you own a small business, where every hire counts, or if you are hiring someone for a key role, don’t get complacent after you’ve interviewed your ideal candidate. Too often, leaders set their minds on a candidate and delegate the rest of the hiring process as a pro forma exercise. Doing so is a mistake no company, these days, can afford.

Face it. The greatest indicator of what someone WILL do, is what they HAVE done. How do you get there? From real, authentic, engaged references. HR folks, this is why C-suite…

Much has been said about Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, whose come-from-behind victories during the 2011 NFL season have been chronicled far beyond the sports pages. The second-year player out of the University of Florida makes exceedingly public displays of his Christian faith. That bothers some people. But aside from that divisive issue, one important question about the Tebow saga carries significance for the business world:

Is Tim Tebow a great leader?

We all know that we can’t manage what we can’t measure. There are several ways to look at Tebow&rsquo…

At SHRM we have been researching some of the factors that are affecting job growth in the U.S. This is important information for HR professionals who are on the frontline and in the trenches dealing with the filling of jobs. Although there are many reasons that U.S. job growth is very slow, SHRM Research has identified some problematic issues that need solutions from HR professionals.

American businesses are facing a paradox – in the midst of high unemployment and slow job growth, many organizations are faced with inability to fill key jobs in their organizations.…

With 20 slides and 5 minutes, Joe Gerstandt brings a new clarity to what diversity is, why it matters and how it shows up in our work and our relationships with others.

At the recent annual conference of the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources, one message came through loud and clear. Repeated by multiple speakers, the concept was uttered best by Jon Love, former president of Pitney Bowes Government Solutions.   “I don’t need the HR police,” Love said.    What CEOs and other top business leaders want—and need—from the HR professionals in their organizations are solutions to problems. Telling the C-suite why they can’t do something isn’t helping the company, according to business leaders at…

Reality Check

(All resources available upon request)

What went wrong?

While money and managing people were…

When creating a social media recruitment strategy, there are 3 critical considerations every employer or talent organization must address directly and comprehensively.  The good news is, you already know the answers to these crucial questions, and while unique to every company, recruiter and job opportunity, those answers provide a strategic, measurable framework for social recruiting success.

The Big 3 Questions of Talent Acquisition

Hiring managers, HR business partners, recruiters and executive leadership (not to mention current…

What’s your Philosophy on HR? 

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to interview a lot of managers and leaders.  One of my favorite questions to ask when I interview professionals who claim to have successfully managed people in the past is this: “What is your management philosophy?”  In my experience, good leaders have an easy answer for this question.  It may not be something they have written down on a piece of paper in their desk at the office, but they can always articulate an intentional…

The holidays are a wonderful time to share good feelings and sometimes that includes gifts.  But you don’t want your seasonal gift to result in a January gift for plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Now is a good time to look at your policies on giving and receiving gifts and remind employees of their application to the holiday season.  Here are some suggestions:

I saw Jack Welch speak at the 2009 Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference in New Orleans. Welch delivered the opening speech for the conference and completely dissed the idea of work-life balance for women in corporate America.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Welch told the audience, "There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences."

Welch said, "We'd love to have more women moving up faster, but they've…

During the month of November, the U.S. traditionally celebrates Veterans Day, focusing attention on those who have served our country through military service. It is a time to reflect not only on their contributions but also on their post-service needs, which have evolved over the years. One key challenge today, for example, is how to successfully seek employment after service.

Veterans represent an elite and diverse talent pool available for hire. Most veterans possess transferrable skills, professional discipline and positive attributes identifiable in today’s evolving workforce.…

Note: This series is based on the paper My Generation.

The makeup of formal – and informal - organizations has always mirrored that of society as a whole. As societal demographics shift, organizations have no choice but to consume the transformation.  A “failure to respond to the demographic changes of society will make it difficult, if not impossible, for…

When it comes to using social media websites for recruiting - what we call social recruiting - how far is too far? Beyond learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the proverbial envelope too far. And hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools built into applicant tracking software to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.

3 Lessons Learned from the Trenches

…

Late November, I had the privilege of delivering the luncheon keynote address to the 1,000 volunteer leaders gathering in Washington, D.C., for the annual Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) Leadership Conference.

It was a fitting conclusion to my conference keynote schedule for the year and marked my 12th engagement in partnership with SHRM this calendar year.  My relationship…

Workplace flexibility initiatives are moving more workers out of cubicles and into home offices. This can represent meaningful cost savings for companies, reduced stress for employees and higher productivity. The challenge for management is to keep these isolated employees working well together. 

How are you devising ways to make isolated employees feel connected?

We want to hear from you! Share your stories in the comments section below.  We’ll feature the most interesting and instructional ones on Next. 

The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report predicts that hiring expectations in both the service and manufacturing sectors will decrease slightly compared with a year ago.

Similar to past months, human resource professionals reported continued difficulty with recruiting in November. In the manufacturing sector, a net 13.5 percent of HR managers reported difficulty, compared with 8.3 a year ago. In the service sector, a net .3…

At Motorola, Inc., designers, engineers, and manufacturing experts are linked in a single production function that spans Chicago, Frankfurt, Singapore, and Beijing. This work takes advantage of the most qualified talent in the world and continues literally around the clock. In terms of innovation and accelerated speed-to-market, the old ways of working simply cannot compete.

We are quickly moving toward a kind of "virtual workplace" – a world in which networks of people work in new ways, assisted by technology and…

1. A strategy from Hemingway The Hemingway Bridge In order to avoid starting a new day with a cold, blank piece of paper, Ernest Hemingway ended his day by writing the first paragraph of a new chapter. During the evening, he considered where the paragraph might go. In the morning, he was ready to go. Tomorrow’s great start begins today. End today by starting tomorrow. 2. Sleep on it If you are the tenacious type, it’s hard to set a problem aside. You just keep banging your head into it until you defeat the “enemy.”…

If you have read anything about leadership in the last 10 years, the case for leadership at all levels of an organization is clear.  Executives, managers, and employees must all use personal leadership skills in their various functions and departments to accomplish goals and build relationships along the way.  Curiously, though, we are hesitant to widely embrace the notion of global leadership. 

During a recent networking event, a few of my senior human resources professional colleagues asserted that it is the domain of the expatriate, globetrotting executives, or those with “global” something in…

The growth of mobile technology is simply staggering. According to mobiThinking, there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that translates to 77% of the world's population.) By 2014, it's expected that mobile will overtake the PC as the most popular way to access the web. People are using mobile technologies for commerce, entertainment, and productivity.

No surprise, this trend has a definite impact on business and the workplace. The International Data Corporation (IDC) has estimated that the mobile workforce will exceed 1 billion people in 2011. The reasons…

How would you like to keep track of trending topics within your distributed workforce at any given moment in time? This valuable tool would give the chief human resource officer the ability to apprise the CEO of internal workforce trends.  Important workforce and operational decisions could be made quickly by taking advantage of this Internet technology.

Having served as a chief human resource officer for a large private energy company located in several countries, the ability to keep track of trending workforce and operational issues would have made the employee survey process, including flash surveys, look…

In September, a National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ruled, for the first time, that an employer could legally fire an employee based on Facebook activity. In Karl Knauz Motors, Inc. d/b/a Knauz BMW and Robert Becker, the ALJ okayed a BMW dealership firing an employee who posted pictures (accompanied by some snarky comments) about a neighboring Land Rover dealership. 

I work very hard at what I do with every client, presentation, and article I write.  Some may call me an overachiever.  I work long hours, solve complex problems and do it all with a passion and smile most days.  I love what I d0, but not everyone loves me back.

Hate is a very strong word.  It’s an emotion, a feeling.  Tied very closely to love and lust.  So why do organizations, leaders, and co-workers hate overachievers?

Over the weekend I watched one of my favorite…

As a loud and proud advocate for diversity and inclusion, I am supposed to be all about harmony right? Well, I am not. Harmony scares me.

At the core of the definition of harmony is:

a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity

It is hard to have real order or a “pleasing arrangement of parts” when there are awake and alive human beings involved. The fact is, if we are being authentic and honest with each…

Like most developed countries, the U.S. faces a major demographic challenge. This year, the oldest of nearly 80 million baby boomers turn 65. According to the Pew Research Center, about 10,000 Americans reach that milestone every day.

Most organizations can’t afford to suddenly lose such a reservoir of work experience and seasoned judgment. And that maturity and judgment is of particular value in forging collaborative teams within a workforce that now includes four and soon five generations. To keep those experts on board as long as possible, human resource professionals are pursuing innovative strategies like flexible work…

Note: This series is based on the paper My Generation.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.  - George Orwell

For perhaps the first time in recorded history, labor markets in the 21st century are comprised of members of four generations. This situation presents very real challenges – and opportunities - to organizations and…

“When you are the top person in your profession, even if you do everything right, you can have a bad day that brings it all down,” said Dr. Jack Stark, a psychologist who has counseled professional athletes and worked with Fortune 500 company leaders.

Joe Paterno, 84, was the longest-serving and winningest coach in NCAA Division I football until his career came to a screeching halt Nov. 9, 2011, when he was fired by the Penn State board of trustees in connection with the scandal involving former coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been accused of sexually abusing young boys.<…

I’m captivated by infographics.  They, in my mind are the preferred alternative to boring reports and bullet-filled craptastic powerpoint presentations.  For me an infographic is a great way to explain a point of view or organize a group of interesting facts and data points designed to please the eye.  Kind of like how social media is the new alternative to email.

I’m pretty passionate about social media in the workplace. Last week I flew to New York City to speak at Jeff Pulver’s BrandsConf and this week…

Last week’s blog post bemoaned the lack of strategic discipline in today’s world of business. I posed three simple strategic questions that on the surface appear easy to answer.

You’d think executives from the same organization would offer the same responses. More often than not, their answers can be as different as night and day. Why?…

I have shared these ideas before.  They are worth repeating.

You don’t need a title to lead.  Titles don’t earn followers.  You earn followership based on your own ability to contribute value to the process, people and performance.

You don’t need permission to influence.  You impact others and initiate change through action.

We all have the power to make a difference.  Especially among the people that…

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down.  No matter what he did, Sisyphus could not get to the top of the hill.

We can all feel Sisyphus’ pain as HR and other executives.  We are constantly rolling up against regulatory boulders, plaintiffs’ lawyers and labor unions marketed by the NLRB.

But Sisyphus had it easy in one respect.  He did not have to worry about the FLSA.

We are…

Whole Foods Employees Vote for New Hires

Every new hire at a Whole Foods store is subject to a peer-based selection process. The newbie is provisionally assigned to a team, for example in bakery or produce, pending a 4-week trial and a team vote. After the trial period, that team votes on the newbie’s suitability and ultimately his or her fate. A two-thirds majority vote is needed to achieve a full-time slot on the team.

Pret a Manger Employees Vote Too

Similarly, to secure a job at Pret a Manger, a…

By Shirley Davis and Lisa Horn, Co-Project Directors, SHRM’s Workplace Flexibility Initiative

The first joint SHRM and Families and Work Institute work-life conference is next week in Washington, D.C. The conference — Work-Life Focus: 2012 and Beyond/Workplace Effectiveness Strategies that Work — promises to provide senior HR professionals and other business leaders with the opportunity to explore effective and flexible workplace practices and the impact they have on business success and improved employee job satisfaction.

Kyra Cavanaugh,…

The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report expects that job growth will be limited in November, as job creation slows and job cuts rise in both the manufacturing and service sectors.

As in previous months, human resource professionals report recruiting difficulty in both sectors; a net of 14.5 percent of manufacturing respondents had increased difficulty with recruiting, an increase of 5.9 points compared to one year ago. A net 7.9 percent of service-sector professionals had more difficulty, an increase of 3.4 points from…

The internet age is a scary place in a lot of ways related to talent, but I'll focus on one today - employee rants that are mistakenly posted to public sources or leaked out of a company and broadcast globally.  

I've posted a lot of those here - mostly memos from CEO that have been leaked by a recipient in the company.  It's good material to review.  You get a sense for how the leadership of…

I am a very lucky Human Resources professional. I began my career in the glamorous world of administration. I typed up timecards at a candy factory. I completed the VETS 100 and EE0-1 reports by hand. Yes, computers existed back in 1995. No, my employer saw no value in them.

After college, I moved into a world of recruiting and HR transformation. I earned my SPHR in 2001 and bought my

Diversity in business and other organizations has been a goal for more than a quarter of a century, yet companies struggle to create an inclusive workplace. In Reinventing Diversity, Howard J. Ross, one of America’s leading diversity experts, explains why most diversity programs fail and how we can make them work.

Ross uses interviews, personal stories, statistics, and case studies to…

Everything you need to know about getting a grip on time is contained in three words.

Eliminate … Delegate … Accelerate

Eliminate: Stop unnecessary or low priority tasks. Delegate: Give tasks to others. Accelerate: Become more efficient.

All time management tips and principles either, eliminate, delegate, or accelerate.

8 Time Management Tips:

There are many things that great leaders can do to create opportunities for employees to perform at their highest possible level.  Aside from developing and sustaining strong personal relationships built on a foundation of trust, feedback and coaching, leaders have the power to implement workplace initiatives such as flexibility, inclusion and a culture of candid communication.  We all want to have a ‘great place to work’ so we tinker and adjust and align our ways of operating and our workplace values with our goals and strategy.  We speak of empowering our employees so that…

I’ve always loved strategy. Maybe it’s because I grew up playing chess; maybe it’s because I can be stubborn. Luckily, good strategists are also stubborn. They have to be, because in today’s “light-speed” business world, most of their business colleagues are anything but strategic. They either believe that strategy is a deterrent to opportunity or they’ve never experienced the strategic disciplines of a prudent mentor. I suspect these…

Lost in all the buzzwords and best practices about social media recruiting is a simple fact: it’s supposed to be fun.  In the olden days of faxed resumes, form cover letters and cold calling, engaging talent could be a chore.  But new methodologies have developed along with new mediums.  As more and more employers are finding out, the business of work doesn’t have to feel like, well, work at all.

One of the emerging new topics in talent acquisition is the concept of gamification, a concept…

One of the sessions I really enjoyed at this year’s SHRM Annual Conference in Las Vegas was presented by Sue Meisinger, former CEO of SHRM, on the “10 Things Your CEO Will Never Tell You, But HR Needs to Know.”  If you missed the session…well, that’s a bummer but Sue did mention a report you might find interesting.  Booz & Co. compiles a CEO study each year that offers some insights about the role of the CEO in today’s marketplace.  It's an interesting read and you…

Since October is National Work and Family Month, it’s a good time to discuss work-flex.

I love how Jason Seiden described “work/life balance” recently at Illinois SHRM: “We talk of it as something we separate by a slash and then hope we can balance everything in between. Trying to package them and keep them separate doesn’t work…There is no…

Have you ever had a red rubber ball moment?  Kevin Carroll, author of the Red Rubber Ball Book Series describes these as when play transform even tense, high-stakes moments into pure fun and result in deep connections formed that can last a lifetime.

My first experience in a post-college and professional environment was while working for Target Corporation as part…

SHRM is proud to congratulate our very own Dr. Shirley Davis for being named one of Profiles in Diversity Journal’s “100 Women Worth Watching” for 2012.  As SHRM’s head of Diversity & Inclusion initiatives, Shirley has been instrumental in advancing the D&I field – and has become a leading voice on the challenges and complexities associated with managing diversity in a global workplace and marketplace. …

Flight Attendant vs. Consultant

“They paid some consultant millions of dollars to figure out how to load this plane. They should have just asked me. I’ve been a flight attendant for 22 years.” I overheard this on a recent flight when the boarding process caused a traffic jam of people.

Office Managers vs. Corporate Headquarters

“They said they wanted to ‘empower us’ to come up with our own ideas for developing our agents, and so we did. We actually got excited about the opportunity to do something…

There I was, at a steak house on the Vegas strip, with 4 Brits and a German who couldn't pronounce Mojave.  They had, as I had, driven into Las Vegas from Los Angeles, through the mountains and desert, a couple of days prior for HR Tech 2011. 

That dinner was one of many highlights for me during a few days spent speaking at HRevolution and covering the HR Tech 2011…

For being a profession with heavy detail and conformity requirements, I’ve always wondered why we aren’t better at using the rigor of science within our work in Human Resources.  It would seem to me that the structure and process of the scientific method would appeal to us since we spend much of our time working with structure and process all day long. 

And yet, when we look at how we approach our work in HR, there’s not as much science…

Few would argue the pace of change is increasing, especially in business and technology, along with their impact on the workplace. Wise company leaders sense these changes, and adjust, adapt, plan and execute. Each day brings an evolving convergence of many external influences that shape upcoming days, weeks and years. The workplace is greatly impacted by this convergence of external influences.

In the past, employees resisted organizational change initiated by leadership. Now that technology is causing seismic changes in how, when and where we perform work, it is leaders who are resisting the evolving, 24/7, distributed workforce.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report, hiring will come to a near standstill and compensation will inch up during the month of October. Employers in the manufacturing sector report a virtually unchanged annual hiring rate increase of just around 1 percent while those in the service sector anticipate a year-over-year 10 percent decline.  Both sectors continue to report recruiting difficulty, which may be…

There has been an astronomic increase in employment litigation. The result is that there is almost an apoplectic fear of litigation. Indeed, because the cost of litigation can be so high, sometimes we try to avoid risk at all cost.

But we cannot avoid risk. It is not a question of risk avoidance, but rather risk selection.

In my experience, here are the top three mistakes that are sometimes made in managing risk and can result in buying one risk to avoid another.

Memo To:         CEOs and Aspiring CEOs

From:               John Bell

Re:                   Your CEO Epitaph

If you are already in the C-suite, I suggest you take a moment to contemplate your epitaph. Will you be remembered as Jack Bighead or Andy Goodfellow?

Epitaph of Jack Bighead:

A master dealmaker, the tenacious Jack Bighead believed a good deal was one in which the other side got…

Over the years I’ve received a handful of anonymous notes and letters while working at various organizations.  Scribbled on pages torn from legal pads or neatly typed and sealed in envelopes, the notes often lacked specifics and were furtively slipped under the door of the HR Department –

“Some coworkers who work in my department are doing things that go against company policy. 

I thought you should know.  Signed,  A Concerned Employee.”

It’s often a challenge to determine how…

Have you ever heard of a company like this? Or is this just a dream job? 

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure…

Over the next few weeks I’ll have the opportunity to speak with thousands of HR Professionals & Leaders in business. This week I will be in North Carolina and soon following in Minnesota, New Jersey, Bahamas, as well as

The world of Human Resources is a weird place filled with contradictions, confusion, and cognitive dissonance. We tell our CHROs and SVPs to be more strategic and create a department of thought leadership and entrepreneurialism; however, we still ask our HR department to oversee personnel management, payroll, and compliance issues.

Good luck working in Human Resources in 2011. You have your work cut out for you.

A new trend in Human Resources has emerged—social networking and brand management. Because those concepts are much more appealing than employee relation’s issues and OSHA investigations,…

OnPoint Consulting’s global study on virtual collaboration found that top performing virtual teams reported higher levels of trust than teams that were less successful, which means that trust is an essential ingredient for virtual team success. 

Despite the importance of trust to virtual collaboration it can take much longer to build trust when working from a distance because team members rarely see one another and, quite often, have never met in person.

While we typically rely on…