Featured Articles

These articles were featured on TLNT in recent days.

Top Performers: Here’s Why Their Employee Referrals Are Golden

by Dr. John Sullivan on May 10, 2013, 6:55 AM | 1 comment

Articles from academics don’t always provide practical lessons, but there have been two recent ones that everyone in talent management should pay attention to.

The results of the first one focus on the output differential produced by top performers. This study published in February in Personnel Psychology which cut across several industries, revealed that the top 5 percent of the workforce at the researched firms produced 26 percent of the firm’s total output. The top-performing 5 percent produced 400 percent more than you would expect (26 percent rather than 5 percent).

That means that top performers have an incredibly high ROI because they produce more than four times more; however, they are generally paid less than 20 percent over an average worker in the same job. Read more…

HR Insights

Why Do We Seem to Hate All the Things That Make HR Great?

by Crystal Spraggins on May 9, 2013, 9:12 AM | 19 Comments

There’s a disturbing trend I’m seeing in the HR profession.

Call me dramatic, but I think HR has a self-hate problem.

What do I mean? Well, think about this question — “Why aren’t more HR people getting degrees in finance?”

Or, consider these statements —

“I’m a business person, not an ‘employee advocate.’ If it makes sense for the business, I’m an advocate for it. Period.”
“If you ‘like people,’ then HR’s not the job for you. Go work for a union instead.”

Hmmm… Read more…

HR News & Trends

Millennials on the Job: They Want to Commit, But Will We Let Them?

by China Gorman on May 8, 2013, 9:12 AM | 4 Comments

Accenture recently published its 2013 College Graduate Employment Survey findings.

There’s lots of great data — especially if you plan to hire recent college grads. In fact, some of the data is surprising.

One of the important takeaways is that employers have unrealistic expectations for the skills of the hires they make out of college. They think these young people should be able to hit the ground running and are surprised and disappointed when they don’t.

And to compound the problem, these employers are not investing in training initiatives to get the newly hired up to speed in the short term or effective in the long term. Read more…

HR Management, HR News & Trends

Should Employers Ask Candidates for Their Facebook Passwords?

by Nick Fishman on May 7, 2013, 10:20 AM | No comments yet

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which helps individuals protect their right to privacy and prohibits an employer from impersonating an employee online when other employees are interacting across social media platforms.

Removed from this bill at the last minute was a provision that would have banned employers from asking job candidates and employees for their social media passwords.

Given the public sentiment on this issue, not to mention the media outcry, this omission is a big surprise to me. Kudos to Congress for not caving to public pressure on this one. Read more…

Training & Development

Beyond Words: How Generation Y is Redefining Learning For Everyone

by Kevin Wheeler on May 6, 2013, 9:12 AM | 2 Comments

Gen Y, those in their 20s now, are born of bits and bytes. They hardly read. They watch play computer games, watch movies on the Internet, have made YouTube their favorite destination.

This generation is the one that will redefine learning. And because of them book-based learning, lectures, stand-up teaching, grades, honor rolls, and all the other paraphernalia of the 20th century will fade away faster than we image.

As I travel around the world I see cheap Internet access everywhere. Mobile data plans are getting more and more affordable and a data-enabled Sim card costs just a few dollars. Every young traveler has at a minimum a smart phone and often also has a laptop or tablet as well.

Being connected is as important to them as having electricity or running water. Read more…

Talent Management

The Employee Engagement Choice: Is It a Job, a Career, or a Calling?

by Reese Haydon on May 3, 2013, 7:00 AM | 9 Comments

As we’ve researched trends in employee engagement, we consistently find dissonance in levels of engagement between a person who views his job as, well, a job, and people who have turned their “jobs” into careers or callings.

Of course, I always enjoy being able to support our findings with similar research done by other industry authorities.

Yale psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski, for example, has published research on how the mental conceptions we all have about our jobs affect our performance and our happiness. Her studies find that different people can see their employment as any of the three aforementioned types (jobs, careers, or callings), regardless of the position they hold (and even if they all hold the same position). Read more…

HR Insights

Rejected Again to Speak at SHRM – Could It Be I’m Not Boring Enough?

by Tim Sackett on May 2, 2013, 9:10 AM | 25 Comments

I got a SHRM Strategy Conference rejection letter last week.

Some of you might remember the last rejection I got from SHRM. If not, here’s the post on Fistful of Talent (FOT) – SHRM Doesn’t Like Us – But You Should.

Here’s the email from Rejection No. 2:

Dear Tim,

Thank you for submitting a proposal for the SHRM Strategy Conference being held September 30 – October 2, 2013 in San Diego, California. Read more…

HR News & Trends, Talent Management

3 Cutting Edge Talent Management Practices From Silicon Valley

by Dr. John Sullivan on May 1, 2013, 9:11 AM | No comments yet

Anyone who tracks advanced trends in talent management knows that many of them originated in the Silicon Valley.

However, you probably also know that many of the publicized practices that start in the Silicon Valley are so unique and outrageous (like the free Sweets Shop that is part ice cream parlor and bakery at Facebook), that no firm outside of the Valley ever copies them.

The three Silicon Valley practices that I am highlighting probably won’t require immediate action at your firm simply because they are so bold and outrageous that conservative talent managers will not even consider them. As a result, I am labeling them “leading edge practices that you should simply be aware of.” Read more…

HR Insights, HR Management

The 5 Things That Make Great HR Partners Great

by Tim Sackett on Apr 30, 2013, 7:00 AM | 5 Comments

I use to think the title “HR Partner” was played out – and it probably was for a time.

There was a point a few years ago when every HR Pro had to change their title from HR Manager, HR Director, etc., to HR Partner. It always made me feel like we were all apart of a bad cowboy movie (“Giddy up, Partner!”).

I’ve actually grown to really like the “Partner” in the title of an HR Professional. While many HR Pros just changed their title, I’ve met some great “Partners” in HR who have changed their game to match their title change.

What makes a great HR Partner great? Here are five (5) things I think makes them game changers: Read more…

HR Insights, HR Management

PowerPoint Hell: Why Do We Put Up With 70 Slide Presentations?

by Ron Thomas on Apr 29, 2013, 7:00 AM | 4 Comments

“We spent literally an hour trying to decide which whether the to use a period, capital letters, or the size of the boxes in the presentation. All this discussion went back and forth for so long that I could not believe we could waste all this time on something so trivial. But then again, all of our prep meeting are like this. It seems more time is spent on this than the actual content.”

As my friend told me this, I could just see her stomach churning as she was regretting going into work for the prep session for yet another monstrous deck.

I had lunch with a CHRO friend of mine last week when she told me the story of a vendor presenting a 70 plus PowerPoint slide deck. By the time they were finished, everyone was just plain exhausted and worn out.

But did they get they content right? Well, yes and no. Read more…