Summertime is the season of box office blockbusters, when theaters abandon more intimate fare for movie spectacles.
Just because these sunny summer films contain fast cars and big explosions, however, doesn’t mean they don’t also include lessons you can apply to your hiring practices.
As the weather heats up and the inside of the cool theater beckons, here are just a few valuable hiring tips you can pick up from some of the biggest summer movies.
You might not be a superhero, but some of these tips might just help you save the day when it comes to finding and hiring the best people. Read more…
Sometimes, we need to air our HR dirty laundry.
Let’s bring into the light of day how surveys are traditionally conducted and then acted upon. Indeed, let’s stop torturing our employees with bad surveys – especially bad employee engagement surveys.
Frankly, the survey itself is rarely the problem. The questions are usually quite good in terms of defining the information you and the organization want to learn about employee attitudes, satisfaction and engagement.
Let’s look at the three most common failures of employee surveys as typically implemented today: Read more…
I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2004. I use my Ron Burgundy voice and tell people that I’m kind of a big deal, but when it comes to my personal LinkedIn profile, I am a hot mess.
Hold on, I can explain myself.
I am not looking for a job. I don’t want to see you humblebrag on your career. I am just on LinkedIn to spy on you.
But I am different than you. You work in Human Resources (or whatever) and you need to take your professional career seriously. Read more…
Hello. My name is Tim Sackett, and I’m a hugger.
Being a hugger can make for some awkward moments. What if the other person isn’t expecting a hug, or doesn’t want to hug, and you’re coming in arms-wide-open!?
Fast Company had an article recently titled To Hug Or Not To Hug At Work?, that delved into this subject. Here’s a piece from the article:
Awkwardness is … ‘the uncomfortable feeling you get when you realize that your concept of your relationship with someone else doesn’t match their concept. The intensity of awkwardness roughly corresponds to the magnitude of difference in relationship concepts.’ ” Read more…
Let’s face it — the active candidate has become a second-class citizen.
Conventional wisdom says that there continues to be a glut of in-transition executives in the job market. Just post a job on Monster.com and you can expect an avalanche of resumes to bury your inbox. Or, set your corporate recruiter loose on LinkedIn and within a few days, she will be sitting in your office with a stack of profiles from which you can choose your next VP of [insert job title here].
The only catch is that the vast majority of these candidates are either out of work or have something going on in their current companies that is pushing them out the door. Read more…
Let’s be clear, the most useless HR activity is Performance Management. Hands down.
But since I have been an enthusiastic beater of that horse already, a close second has to be the Exit Interview.
Let’s review all of the reasons for their sacred cow status:
- Good, actionable data on why people are leaving;
- Closure for employees;
- Risk mitigation for the company;
- Goodwill and future employee referrals;
- Knighted as one of the “Best Practices” by people who know things. Read more…
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve heard plenty about bullies in the workplace.
You’ve heard how bad it is. You’ve heard about the missed work days and the increased medical costs and the disability claims and the lawsuits. You’ve heard about the disruption and the drama and the colossal waste of hours employees spend managing others’ aggression instead of producing. Instead of creating. Instead of innovating.
You may have even read the statistic that workplace bullying costs U.S. employers nearly $250 million annually.
And you’ve decided that you don’t give a crap. Read more…
As HR and other leaders grapple with high turnover rates among the Gen Y/Millennial cohort (see last week’s post here), all kinds of issues get raised.
Is the turnover due to “special” characteristics inherent in Gen Y? Is the turnover due to lack of education and training opportunities? Naivete on the part of Millennials – the world of work doesn’t match their expectations? Could a lack of thoughtful onboarding play a part?
The Aberdeen Group published Onboarding 2013: A New Look at New Hires last month and author Madeline Laurano provides data that might help organizations become more effective in retaining the youngest of their workforce. Read more…
Work-Life balance.
As a Baby Boomer teen born to Depression-era parents, I never heard that term once.
It didn’t exist back then and, if it had, it would have never come out of my father’s mouth. Hard work was his life, and when he had a day off, he worked. To my dad and those who were his age and older, balance was something you did to your checkbook when the statement arrived.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s when this three-word term entered the American lexicon, and it wasn’t popularized until the late 1990s. Now, those three words are said in conjunction as frequently as pass the salt. Read more…
Here’s the scenario:
You have an opening and you do your recruiting thing. You find a candidate, and lo and behold, they are great!
What luck, you think to yourself. The hiring manager is going to thrilled. Boy, my job is easy!
Do I need to even go on?
You set up the interview with the hiring manager. She also thinks the candidate is great. Done deal, you think to yourself. Then “it” happens. Read more…
“Being called a "ninja" or a "guru" is a great compliment . . . when someone ELSE says it about . . . ”
— Amy Jones on Job Titles Gone Wild: Why It’s Silly to Call Yourself “Director of Fun”, 1 hour ago
“Senior management needs to be involved up front when planning an engagement survey so everyone is clear on WHY the . . . ”
— drblynnware on 3 Good Reasons Why Employee Engagement Surveys Fail, 1 hour ago
“As someone who has been on the receiving end of many of the situations you’re describing, you’re of course absolutely . . . ”
— Heather R. Huhman on 10 Tips For Reducing Employee Turnover, 2 hours ago
“I've noticed two things about job titles: 1) It is sometimes difficult to convey what the person does when your . . . ”
— Kyle Jones on Job Titles Gone Wild: Why It’s Silly to Call Yourself “Director of Fun”, 3 hours ago
“Sorry. Ahem... "illusions." We all know what tricks are. :)”
— ranavain on Job Titles Gone Wild: Why It’s Silly to Call Yourself “Director of Fun”, 4 hours ago