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As the 2012 National Study of Employers (NSE) suggests, workplace flexibility is replacing the one-size-fits-all, 9-to-5 way of working in a growing number of organizations.  What’s motivating companies to consider new ways of making work “work?” And what impact does giving employees more choice over how, when and where work gets done have on workplaces and the bottom-line?

Please join us for #NextChat on May 2 at 6 p.m. ET with special guests Ellen Galinsky (@EllenGalinsky), president, Families and Work Institute, and Lisa Horn (@SHRMLobbystLisa), co-leader of SHRM’s Workplace Flexibility Initiative.…

We (Americans) live in a “take action” culture, a culture of the “yankee work ethic” in which incremental effort and pressing the nose harder to the grindstone supposedly leads to success and rewards. We are also a culture of immediate gratification the “I-want-it-now-quick-fix-diet-pill-plastic-surgery-100% LTV loan” society.

Don’t get me wrong, those traits are to be admired when put to good purpose. They have helped to make us the innovative, industrious, can do leader of the modern world. But they can often (as in a crisis) work against us.

It’s no secret that technology as well as social media are changing the way we work and live.  Thankfully, corporate America and the U.S. Government are finally getting the clue, learning that technology offers an opportunity to provide more employees flexibility while cutting overhead costs at the same time. 

Two trends I’ve seen emerging among the workplace mainstream are telecommuting and BYOD. 

Telecommuting is a relatively simple idea, although a challenge for managers and supervisors to execute effectively.  Employees and teams work virtually from their…

Social media keeps changing. It’s not just Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Ning, Tumblr, Meetup, and Foursquare anymore. Now there’s Pinterest, Google+, …

I opened my eyes 5 minutes before the alarm clock sounded. 5:25 a.m. Atlanta. Still half-asleep. I was into the third day of a 3 city, 3 keynote speeches on 3 different topics stretch. Time to help a national sales organization kick of their annual Sales Summit. We finished our sound check around 7:30. Attendees were starting to fill the room to an upbeat playlist. Coffee. Breakfast. Name tags. Networking. You know the drill.

My client, the CMO of the organization walked over, smiled nervously and asked if I was ready. I smiled and answered in the affirmative. Then she added:

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…