Articles tagged 'Management'

HR Management, Leadership

Agile or Disengaged? How to Avoid Managing by Exception

by on Jun 18, 2013, 9:12 AM  |  No comments yet
© HP_Photo - Fotolia.com

“Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” — Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State.

In recent years, I’ve observed the increasing popularity of “management by exception” in business.

This concept basically boils down to leaders making decisions and assessing performance based on significant deviations from a project’s goals, while otherwise ignoring its daily execution.

Leaders who practice it don’t want to be bothered unless something goes seriously wrong. But there’s a difference being agile and being disengaged. Read more…

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Talent Management

5 Surefire Ways to Successfully Disengage Your Workforce

by on Jun 18, 2013, 7:00 AM  |  2 Comments
disengaged-workers

We read a lot about how to engage employees.

However, the reality is that engagement is a choice. The best we can do is create an environment in which employees can choose to be engaged.

So, does the opposite hold true? Can our actions cause disengagement to occur? Our employee survey research shows a clear and resounding “YES!” Read more…

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HR News & Trends

SHRM Chicago 2: Inspiring a Workforce, 1 Pair of Shoes at a Time

by on Jun 17, 2013, 12:40 PM  |  No comments yet
Blake-Mycoskie

One thing you learn pretty quickly after attending a few SHRM annual conferences is this: the inspirational speakers usually appear near the end of things, usually on Day 3 and 4.

As so many things going on here at SHRM 2013 in Chicago, that’s not the case this year.

Keynote speaker Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes, moved the conference’s inspirational quotient up a few notches by relating the story of how he accidentally became, A) an entrepreneur; and, B) a philanthropist who figured out that weaving charitable giving into a business model is a recipe for success. Read more…

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Talent Management

Are Your Talent Management Programs Simply Popularity Contests?

by on Jun 17, 2013, 7:00 AM  |  No comments yet
retaining_talent

Leafing through a recent HR Magazine, I noticed (well, couldn’t miss) a full page advertisement for employee recognition programs.

Nothing unusual about that, right? It is a compelling ad, in that there is 25 percent of a face – an amalgamation of the Terminator and Men in Black – next to the words “employee recognition helps your team feel like Hollywood Heavyweights … whether to get a 24-hour personal bodyguard will be up to them.”

The premise is that these are your star performers that you are recognizing. Quite an innovative ad. Perhaps an outstanding program; I don’t know. Read more…

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HR News & Trends

Weekly Wrap: Survey Finds 1/4 of Bosses Just Want Workers to Go – Now

by on Jun 14, 2013, 12:10 PM  |  No comments yet
Illustration by istockphoto.com

It should be no big surprise that there are employees in this world who fall out of favor with their boss.

It should also come as no great surprise that frequently, the boss would like such employees to take a hike and go ply their trade somewhere else — usually as soon as possible.

So, that’s why the only really surprising thing about this latest CareerBuilder survey about boss-employee relationships is that it found that only “27 percent of bosses have a current direct report that they would like to see leave their company.”

What? Only 27 percent? That’s it? Geez, I’ve worked for people who seemingly would have liked to see 90 percent of the people working for them take a hike. Read more…

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HR Basics, HR Insights

Just in Case You Were Wondering, Here’s Why HR Exists

by on Jun 13, 2013, 10:25 AM  |  3 Comments
From istockphoto.com

HR gets a bad rap for being too administrative and too pro-employee.

That’s a legitimate complaint, but I wonder: What the hell did you expect?

The history of Human Resources

The entire HR function exists because employees were tough to manage. Unions were busy. Pesky women and minorities wanted equal protection under the law. Read more…

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HR Insights

Why a 93% Employment Rate is Pretty Damn Good

by on Jun 13, 2013, 9:12 AM  |  2 Comments
93percent

I don’t know about you, but I think having a 93 percent employment rate is pretty damn good!

Take this little test:

  1. Pick any profession or trade – even unskilled positions.
  2. Bring in 100 currently employed people within a specific position you choose. Read more…
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Talent Management

Show Me the Money: The Bottom Line Impact of Employee Engagement

by on Jun 11, 2013, 10:25 AM  |  4 Comments
showmethemoney1

Employee engagement seems to be the buzzword constantly reverberating throughout the global HR arena. But is it legitimate?

I mean, really, does it matter if employees are engaged? Are organizations with engaged employees any better off?

And I’m not talking about employees being better off emotionally (no one cares about that). I mean does the company have a stronger financial performance and operational efficiency with engaged employees? If not, then employee engagement is just another time-wasting hoax for executives to deal with until the HR department comes up with a bigger-and-better distraction to throw their way. Read more…

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Talent Management

5 Great Things You Can Learn by Working For Bad Bosses

by on Jun 11, 2013, 7:07 AM  |  1 comment
123RF Stock Photo

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

Most articles about bad bosses say that the best thing you can learn from them is how not to manage employees. Can’t disagree with that!

But aside from that, there are some other things you can learn from a bad boss that you can’t learn from a good boss.

Tim Sackett wrote a post about some of them here at TLNT. Here’s what he says: Read more…

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HR Insights

Following Your Career GPS: Recalculating to Keep Yourself on Track

by on Jun 10, 2013, 10:25 AM  |  No comments yet
123RF Stock Photo

Recalculating, make a right at the next light. Recalculating, make a left at the next intersection.

With GPS in a car, there is no need to get lost anymore. I now live in Saudi Arabia, and of all the items that I brought over, my Google Maps app is something I never leave the house without.

Try following direction and the entire street markings are in Arabic. So if I am looking for Exit 8 this is how the signs look: ٨مخرج

Sometimes, our careers can be like traveling in a foreign country. We get lost, we make the wrong turn, and sometimes end up in a destination that is far from our original target. Read more…

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