Lance Haun

Lance Haun is the Editor of SourceCon. After spending seven years in the recruiting and HR business, he moved over to ERE Media in 2010 where he started as Community Director for ERE and then as Contributing Editor for TLNT. You can follow him on Twitter, check out his rarely updated blog or contact him directly at lance@ere.net.

Articles by Lance Haun

Culture, TLNT Radio

What Makes A Company A Great Place To Work? It’s More Than Free Lunches

by Lance Haun on Feb 22, 2012, 10:44 AM | No comments yet

Editor’s note: The TLNT Radio Show is a weekly podcast where we talk to the top minds in HR and talent management. New episodes are posted here every week. Make sure you subscribe to TLNT and get our daily newsletter for the latest, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes to automatically get updates.

The 2012 best places to work list was recently released, and in shocking fashion, Google placed number one on the list.

Of course, if you’ve been paying attention to any of these lists, you know that this is no shock at all. Google, with their perked-0ut workplace, free lunches, and even allocating of time to work on pet projects you want to work on, have all been the rage for years. But is that the only reason they topped that list, or is there something more important going on that almost any company can attain?

HR News & Trends

Workforce Trends Survey Finds the Biggest Obstacle to Increased Hiring

by Lance Haun on Feb 16, 2012, 7:45 AM | No comments yet

If you want to look more deeply into why hiring will continue to lag, just turn on the news and you’ll see the biggest reason in the headlines this week: economic uncertainty continues to keep company pockets buttoned tight when it comes to adding to their workforce.

Whether it is Greece and the European debt, Iranian saber rattling, the U.S.’s own inability to manage their finances, or variability in global demand, all of that is what businesses are looking at while they keep their cash reserves stacked neatly in savings rather than investing in employees.

That’s just one of a handful of trends that a recent workforce planning survey covered.

Rewards & Recognition, TLNT Radio

Isn’t It Time to Reconsider the Carrot and Stick Method of Employee Motivation?

by Lance Haun on Feb 15, 2012, 8:50 AM | No comments yet

I like perks and rewards. Who doesn’t like getting a gift card, cash or even a reward trip for working hard? And when we talk about motivation and engagement, we talk about these things because it is easy to understand (and maybe more importantly, easy to believe they are effective).

But the question shouldn’t be whether or not we think these things are effective. On the contrary — we should be examining whether or not they actually are effective.

HR Management, Leadership

“Manager Knows Best?” It May Be Annoying, But It’s Not Going Away

by Lance Haun on Feb 14, 2012, 7:45 AM | 1 comment

In the future, nobody will be poor, everyone will be happy, and managers will never pull the old parental line at work: because I said so.

That rose colored view might not be one I share but I can certainly understand where it comes from. People who work a lot with Millennials seem to err on this view. And as a Millennial myself, who am I to question that?

After all, if I have a boss who won’t do anything without having a long, drawn out justification (or worse, feels the need to include everyone in a decision), it could make life a bit easier. At least for now.

But when Gen Y grows up — and they will — there’s no evidence suggesting that “manager knows best” will disappear.

HR News & Trends, Recruiting and Staffing

Jobs Up, Unemployment Down; So Why Are Things Still Not So Rosy?

by Lance Haun on Feb 9, 2012, 8:55 AM | 3 Comments

I’ve got to admit, when the employment numbers were released last week, I was incredibly happy.

The fact is, it’s hard to be completely unbiased when all you’ve talked about for four years has been decreases in employment or the incredible lagging recovery. There aren’t too many people left unscathed either, whether it be a family member, friend or colleague. Add into that equation housing and health care woes and you find yourself rooting for better news.

But just a week after the euphoria of this positive news, there are a couple of sobering reminders that we’re not out of the woods yet. Even a couple of months like the one we just had won’t solve anything. It’s still better than the alternative, though.

TLNT Radio

How Much Can Technology Help With Employee Engagement?

by Lance Haun on Feb 8, 2012, 9:40 AM | No comments yet

Employee engagement has been the buzzword that has dominated HR for the last five years. With so much focus on the topic though, there seems to still be confusion on how to get the most out of your workforce through engagement.

One solution that is looked to is technology. How much can it really help though?

HR Insights, HR Management

The Ethical Limit: How Far Is Too Far For an HR Person to Go?

by Lance Haun on Feb 7, 2012, 9:40 AM | No comments yet

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about the not-so-fun aspects of HR that a friend has been dealing with lately.

To make a long story short, his company has done wrong, admitted as much, but won’t fix the issue. And because it is a non-profit with a solid mission, the typical response of going after them is off the table. He can’t bring himself to do it.

Throughout the entire ordeal, I’ve wondered how I would live with myself as the HR person for this organization. Then I remembered that I had done a few things that I wasn’t exactly proud of in HR. And if you’ve been in HR for long enough, you’ve probably done the same.

HR News & Trends, Talent Management

Super Bowl Hangover? Yes, Employees May Be Less Productive on Monday

by Lance Haun on Feb 2, 2012, 7:45 AM | 2 Comments

If you’re in the U.S., this coming Sunday may as well be a national holiday. We’ll gather with friends and family, eat and drink too much, and watch football.

It may sound a lot like Thanksgiving, but the difference between that and the Super Bowl is that almost all of us have to go into work the next day.

I know, these are the choices we make. Certainly people can choose not to watch the Super Bowl (and many don’t). What I’m asking is that we stop wringing our hands over the lost productivity next Monday, and instead, start thinking about ways to handle it.

TLNT Radio

Money Can’t Buy You Love … Or Change Your Culture

by Lance Haun on Feb 1, 2012, 8:55 AM | No comments yet

We all want the quick fix and easy do to cure what ails us in the business world. Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy in the world of human resources. We’re dealing with people and people don’t respond uniformly to any action.

So when we talk about the world of incentives, recognition, culture and cold, hard cash, the incentive programs we design and put a huge amount of effort may not be making the most important change we need it to make: a shift in core values.

Recruiting and Staffing

Twitter Just Made The Greatest Recruiting Video of All Time

by Lance Haun on Jan 31, 2012, 8:50 AM | 13 Comments

As a person who sees a ton of recruiting videos (and I just got done judging ERE’s Recruiting Excellence Awards so you can bet I’ve had my fill of these things), they seem to follow a few general rules:

Have a friendly narrator talk to you about working for the company;
Try to make it fun and approachable with real employees’ and,
Give people a glance at a day-in-the-life.

All good moves by any measure, but Twitter took it one step further: they did all of those things while humorously demonstrating how not to pull off a recruiting vid. To say the least, it was brilliant.

Lance Haun

Articles by Lance Haun

What Makes A Company A Great Place To Work? It’s More Than Free Lunches

Workforce Trends Survey Finds the Biggest Obstacle to Increased Hiring

Isn’t It Time to Reconsider the Carrot and Stick Method of Employee Motivation?

“Manager Knows Best?” It May Be Annoying, But It’s Not Going Away

Jobs Up, Unemployment Down; So Why Are Things Still Not So Rosy?

How Much Can Technology Help With Employee Engagement?

The Ethical Limit: How Far Is Too Far For an HR Person to Go?

Super Bowl Hangover? Yes, Employees May Be Less Productive on Monday

Money Can’t Buy You Love … Or Change Your Culture

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