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Articles tagged 'HR management'

Benefits

Regular People Return as Most Credible Trusted Sources, Study Finds

trustyourheartsample

Regular employees and “people like me” are once again among our top three most trusted, credible sources, according to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer.

They’re back in the limelight after fading away last year, somehow losing ground to CEOs. But this year, things look much as they did in 2004, when regular folk vaulted to the top of the heap of credible spokespeople.

In health communication, the Regular Joe or Jane has continuously held a starring role. While we defer to medical professionals for information about health treatment, Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project has written that we look to people in our shoes — people like me — for emotional support and empathy, encouragement and care. This is particularly true for those who are living with a chronic condition, are acting as caregiver, or have experienced a medical crisis. It’s also true for those who have gained weight, had a pregnancy, or quit smoking. Read more…

HR News & Trends

Weekly Wrap: Reverse Mentoring Cuts Through the Generational Logjam

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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…

Leadership, Talent Management

Improving Engagement: Do Workers Know the Game You Want Them to Play?

© Duncan Noakes - Fotolia.com

One of the biggest frustrations I’ve heard from managers — both middle and senior level executives — is how few employees seem to care about how they, the employee, can help their employer. To them, their employees seem more excited about the upcoming weekend, than they do about making a contribution.

In short, their employees act more like “hired hands” than real “players.”

While there are many reasons for such lack of interest, if you experience this problem with your employees, one significant source to examine is this:

“Do your employees know what game they’re supposed to be playing and how it’s played?” Read more…

HR Management, Leadership

Why You Need to Install Civility as a Workplace Business Process

civility

By Stephen M. Paskoff

Tell business leaders there’s a new operational process that has the potential to transform their organization. Then notice their reactions when you list what it can do for them:

  • increase safety
  • surface problems
  • reduce errors
  • improve quality and teamwork Read more…
HR Management, Talent Management

Where’s the Loyalty? Getting the Most Out of Your Team in Trying Times

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Lack of loyalty is a serious problem in organizations everywhere today.

No longer do people join a company and devote the rest of their working lives to it. Companies are, of course, not exactly known for offering up 30 or 40 years of employment, a gold watch and pension plan.

Times have changed. Businesses appear and disappear at a dizzying pace. So do the jobs they offer. People no longer expect to spend their entire career with the same company. Read more…

Rewards & Recognition

The 10 Big Myths of Employee Rewards and Recognition

Photo illustration by Dreamstime

I’m honored to have an article included in the December issue of Canadian HR Reporter in which I debunk 10 recognition and reward myths.

  1. Employee recognition is best given at an annual awards show.
  2. Cash is the best reward.
  3. Employee salaries should be reward enough. Read more…
TLNT Events

Business Success & Engagement? You’ll Hear More About It at Transform

Illustration by istockphoto.com

I get lots of white papers and case studies in the course of a month, and a couple of days ago I got one titled, “Does Engagement Really Drive Results?”

That’s a pretty hot topic, and not surprisingly, it was co-authored by Laurie Bassi, author of Good Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era, and one of the scheduled speakers at our first ever TLNT Transform conference that will be taking place in Austin, Texas on Feb. 27-28.

“Smart organizations,” Laurie asks in the white paper, “are beginning to ask what’s beyond employee engagement. Is there a more powerful way of analyzing and optimizing the human drivers of your organization’s business results?”

Those are great questions for any talent manager to be asking, and my sense is that Laurie will be giving her perspective on them when she speaks at the Transform conference later this month. Read more…

Leadership, Talent Management

Building Creative Hot Spots: It’s Where HR and Innovation Meet

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By Susan R. Meisinger

If you Google the words “leadership, innovation, growth” you’ll get about 50 million hits, give or take a few million.

There are links to scholarly journals, business magazines, management books, leadership books, conferences, and seminars — all of which try to explain how to do it: how to be a great leader who creates a culture of innovation which drives an organization’s growth.

Many of the links are to consultants who have their own proprietary approach that they assert will help leaders and organizations put into place processes that will build an innovative culture in a disciplined way, leading to growth and profitability. Still more links are to company websites, which proclaim that this is what they do best: they have the secret sauce and have the perfect recipe for a company that’s more innovative than its competitors.

But there’s a dirty little secret that leaders don’t like to share. Read more…

HR Insights, HR Management

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

Bounty

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…

HR News & Trends

Facebook Files For a $5 Billion Plus IPO

Facebook

Facebook finally did today what everyone expected: It filed for an IPO.

In the paperwork submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook said it expects to raise $5 billion from the public sale of its stock. That’s based on the registration fee it paid. The New York Times says it could end up raising much more.

Facebook reported in its S-1 filing that it earned $1 billion on revenue of $3.7 billion, most of it coming from advertising. It reported having 845 million monthly active users as of the end of the year, a 39 percent increase over the year before. In the U.S., Facebook saw a 16 percent bump over 2010, ending last year with 161 million monthly average users, or about half the country’s total population. Read more…