Featured Articles

These articles were featured on TLNT in recent days.

Weekly Wrap: Reverse Mentoring Cuts Through the Generational Logjam

by John Hollon on Feb 3, 2012, 11:47 AM | No comments yet

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t understand the generational issues in the workplace that we’re constantly squabbling about.

Many, many times I have written here (and elsewhere) that Millennials get a bad rap, especially when it comes to their workplace ethic. Just late last year I wrote:

The Millennial generation, in my view, is no better or worse than any other generation that came before. Yes, they have their own unique generational issues but in my close experience with them, Millennials reflect what you find in other generations and society as a whole — some are good, some average, some clueless.”

A lot of the negative stuff that Millennials (or Gen Y, if you prefer) get hammered with has to do with the perceived notion that somehow, their workplace ethic is wildly out of whack with what everyone else is doing and that managers need some special kind of coaching to learn how to cope with them. Read more…

HR Insights, HR Management

Motivating Workers: You Can Learn a Lot From 18th Century Sailors

by David Sneed on Feb 2, 2012, 9:00 AM | 3 Comments

Have you ever seen a nautical movie and dreamed of living a sailor’s life? We dream that silly dream because we don’t really understand how hard their job really was.

No matter how cold and wet you were (very and always), you still had to do the back-breaking work – and on a terrible diet, too!

Imagine working 100 feet up a telephone pole during a hurricane, except the pole is attached to a skateboard and your job is to tie ropes together. No gloves, no shoes, and a wet, cold rope. And all you had to eat that day was bread that required soaking in water just to make it digestible.

You did this every day for two years. Your home when you weren’t working (a mere eight hours per day) was a dark, moldy corner at the bottom of the ship. Oh, and when you wore through your clothes? You made your new ones from ruined sails, or a roll of fabric you brought on board when you left Boston the year before. Read more…

Talent Management

Forced Ranking: Good Management, or Just a Flawed and Arbitrary System?

by John Hollon on Feb 1, 2012, 9:37 AM | 4 Comments

Former GE CEO Jack Welch, a man who appreciated HR. From the HR blog at TLNT.

It’s not good to pull me into the debate over “forced ranking” performance appraisal system, known more commonly as “rank-and-yank.”

And here’s why: because it’s an arbitrary, formula-heavy performance system that’s obsessed with cutting people down instead of helping to build them up. Plus, it’s the brainchild of Jack Welch — and few executives today can execute it like Neutron Jack did.

The Wall Street Journal just published another article about the pros and cons of the system, and in case you don’t know exactly what forced ranking is, here’s how The Journal described it: Read more…

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.

Managing a Virtual Workforce: Setting Social Goals Are the Key

by Morgan Norman on Jan 30, 2012, 8:55 AM | 1 comment

The virtual workplace is different.

The setting is different; cubicles don’t divide the virtual space. Neither do city lines, time zones, or continents, for that matter.

The employees are different; without that immediate group feel, employees have no other option than to be more independent and self-starting than their on-site counterparts.

And, above all else, management is different. When dealing with such an unconventional and independent staff, it becomes abundantly clear that “traditional” workplace motivation and efficiency strategies simply aren’t going to be effective. Read more…

HR Insights, Recruiting and Staffing

Want to Drive Change? Be Like Steve Jobs and Hire Pirates

by Tim Sackett on Jan 27, 2012, 7:37 AM | 1 comment

Dollars to donuts, Fast Company is the best publication out their for anyone in the business world!

They hit a home run in my book recently with the article, An HR Lesson from Steve Jobs – If you want Change Agents, Hire Pirates! “Why? Because pirates can operate when rules and safety nets breakdown.” Here’s more from the article:

A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team. Read more…

HR News & Trends, Legal Issues

3 Ways For HR to Avoid Unlawful, Overbroad Social Media Policies

by Eric B. Meyer on Jan 26, 2012, 9:25 AM | No comments yet

By Eric B. Meyer

The National Labor Relations Board announced yesterday that it had issued a second social-media report to help provide further guidance to practitioners and human resource professionals.

What does that report say? And how can you bulletproof your social media policy?

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 protected concerted activity such as the discussion of wages or working conditions. Read more…

HR Management, HR News & Trends

Report: HR Still Struggling to be a Strategic Business Partner

by John Zappe on Jan 25, 2012, 7:45 AM | 6 Comments

What’s surprising about a new analyst report from Aberdeen is that in 2012, HR professionals still need to be reminded that talent management is as much a strategy as a tactic they should be captaining.

“HR still struggles to become a ‘strategic partner’ with the business, engaging employees and aligning integrated talent management initiatives with overall organizational goals,” write the authors of an Aberdeen Analyst Insight about developing a “Talent First” culture.

Drawing from an upcoming Aberdeen report, analysts Madeline Laurano and Mollie Lombardi say HR’s day-to-day work and the lack of support and buy-in from other business leaders and senior management stand in the way of developing the strategic approach that HR leaders say must be a part of their skill set. Read more…

HR Insights, Leadership

Don’t Just Think Outside the Box — Find a Better Box

by Stephen M. Shapiro on Jan 24, 2012, 9:00 AM | 2 Comments

By Stephen M. Shapiro

Leaders of organizations often use the expression “Think outside the box” when urging their employees to innovate. The belief is that eliminating constraints and allowing people to think freely will increase creativity.

Although this tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” method of innovation is conventional wisdom, this unbounded approach actually reduces creativity and leads to abstract or impractical solutions. A television scriptwriter in Hollywood once told me that he actually liked the idea of “creativity within constraints,” as it gave him a starting point and then he could “riff” from there.

Instead of telling your employees to think outside the box, give them a “better box” to innovate inside of. These constraints will actually increase creativity and lead to useful solutions. Read more…

HR Insights, HR Management

From Cost-Cutting to Revenue Generating: Driving Strategic HR

by John Hollon on Jan 23, 2012, 11:15 AM | 1 comment

Anyone who has spent much time here at TLNT probably knows that San Francisco State business professor Dr. John Sullivan has a lot to day about the state of talent management and HR.

In fact, Dr. John’s post on The Top 50 Problems With Performance Appraisals was TLNT’s most well-read article in 2011 — and that says as much about the great insights and thinking he brings to the table as much as it does the subject matter.

Whether you agree with him or not, Dr. John Sullivan is a provocative and forward-thinking knowledge leader who has a lot to say about HR.

And, that’s why his article today on TLNT’s sister website ERE.net is sure to be one that both engages talent managers AND gets a debate going about the state of HR practices. Here’s what he says: Read more…

Featured Articles

Weekly Wrap: Reverse Mentoring Cuts Through the Generational Logjam

Motivating Workers: You Can Learn a Lot From 18th Century Sailors

Forced Ranking: Good Management, or Just a Flawed and Arbitrary System?

Want to Drive Change? Be Like Steve Jobs and Hire Pirates

Report: HR Still Struggling to be a Strategic Business Partner

Don’t Just Think Outside the Box — Find a Better Box

From Cost-Cutting to Revenue Generating: Driving Strategic HR

Subscribe to TLNT

Events

Most Popular Articles

Recent Comments