Every week I like to highlight a resource that I feel will add value to your life at work and improve your professional effectiveness. This week I'd like to shine the spotlight on a great networking and social media resource.
The Resource: The Society For Human Resources' Facebook Page
What it is: If you are not familiar with a Facebook Fan Page, it is a place on Facebook where fans of an organization, club, group, or other entity can come together to interact with that organization and other individuals who are also fans.
Why You Should Be a Fan: Facebook Fan Pages are a great place to get breaking news, information, and announcements from an organization. It is also a great place to share your thoughts, ideas, and industry insights with like-minded people who share similar interests and passions with you.
SHRM's Facebook Page is no exception. With nearly 8,000 Fans, it enjoys a large following of HR and talent management professionals who are active in their trade and looking to progress the human resources profession to new heights.
Given Facebook's collaborative and interactive nature, there is also a wealth of networking opportunities to connect with other HR professionals in your home region and form new friendships and relationships online.
One can't ignore the recruiting potential SHRM's Page offers either. A quick browsing through the SHRM wall and you'll find multiple HR pros seeking employment and the opportunity to put their skills to work. Post a link to a job opportunity in your organization and you're bound to get multiply replies from potentially qualified candidates.
I also like visiting the SHRM Fan page to find new information and resources about the HR and talent management field. People often post links to online articles, research reports, or blog posts they find interesting and insightful, so it serves as a great resource for expanding your knowledge base and adding to your online reading list.
Of course, you'll also be able to keep up with all the latest happening at SHRM on its Fan Page. SHRM regularly posts its upcoming events and also shares resources to help those in human resource management be the best they can at their profession.
Head over and check out SHRM's Facebook Page for yourself and become a Fan today!
Happy Monday! Here are five choice blog posts to get your week off to a great start:
Eva Rykr, HRM Today: 10 Reasons for Executive Failure - Eva shares 10 possible reasons for executive failure.
David Zinger Employee Engagement: Advice For Managers: Free E-Book - David and the fine folks with the Employee Engagement Network have made an excellent E-Book available free for download. Check it out - lots of great employee engagement material!
Tom Foster, Management Skills Blog: First Part of Accountability - Tom examines the first critical part of holding others accountable: defining specific performance expectations.
Drea Knufken, Business Pundit: The 10 Best Collaborative Web Tools for Business - Drea has compiled a nice list of collaborative web tools that businesses can use to improve communication and productivity within their workforce.
Bill Sternbergh and Sloan R. Weitzel, Center For Creative Leadership: Setting Goals? Start With Your Values - Wondering where to start when it comes to setting meaningful goals? Bill and Sloan suggest you start by taking a good look at your organization's values.
Every Friday I like to share with you a resource that I feel will help you to Maximize Possibility in your professional life and improve your performance at work. This week I've got a great daily newsletter that will keep you on top your human resources and talent management game.
The Resource: HR Daily Advisor from Business and Legal Reports (BLR)
What it is: As its name indicates, the HR Daily Advisor is a daily newsletter that features one HR tip, news article, compliance update, or other tidbit of useful information suitable for the busy human resources professional.
Why You Should Check it Out: I've been receiving BLR's HR Daily Advisor newsletter for a couple of years now, and really appreciate its easy to digest format that can quickly be read in five minutes or less. It's a great way to hone your skills each day without devoting hours of scarce time and resources.
The quality of content is generally quite good and features writings and reports from respected industry analysts, attorneys, journalists, and other HR professionals. Best of all it's 100% free!
BLR's daily newsletters are also archived on its website, so you always have access to past reports and information should you need to reference them. There is also a wealth of other resources available on the HR Daily Advisor website including white papers, training event calendars, and great articles on hiring, recruiting, writing job descriptions, employee training, and more.
In addition to its HR Daily Advisor, BLR also offers Daily Advisor newsletters on other topics such as hiring, compensation, training, FLSA, compliance, and other topics of interest to today's HR professional.
Head over and check out the HR Daily Advisor today and equip yourself with another resource to help Maximize Possibility in your organization!
I like to start every week by pointing you to my choices for the top five talent management, leadership development, and human resource management blog posts from the past week. Below are my top five picks for the week of January 11th - 17th, 2010.
Vincent Ferrari, Know HR: Time to Replace the Squeaky Wheels - Vincent is tired of the old business practice of "greasing the squeaky wheel" and implores you to change the squeaky wheels in your organization in exchange for employees who work hard, produce results, and do it with a positive attitude.
Kevin Oaks, I4CP Trendwatcher: The Five Domains of High Performance - It's no secret that we love studying the lives and habits of successful people, but what about successful organization? Kevin and the folks at the Institute for Corporate Productivity take a look at the five common elements of high performing organizations.
Gautam Ghosh, Gautam on Organizations 2.0: Thinking About Social Employee Relationship Management- Gautam wants to introduce you to the fresh concept of social employee relationship management (social ERM) and shares some ideas about what it can do.
Jennifer Lee, Fistful of Talent: The Conan/Leno Debacle? A Giant Lesson in What Not to do with Talent - The whole Jay Leno / Conan O'brien saga is fascinating to say the least. Jennifer breaks down the business management lessons we can learn from NBC's late night "Debacle".
Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer's Law Blog: Congress's 2010 Employment Law Agenda - Jon cues us in to congress's pending employment law agenda as we approach another important mid-term election in November.
I'm going to take a break from the usual format for my weekly Possibility Maximizer and focus on something much more important and pressing at the moment: helping Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake it suffered this past week.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has just suffered one of the worst natural disasters anyone has seen in the last 100 years. It's hard to imagine how it will ever be able to return to "normal" without our help.
I literally feel sick as I watch the news coverage of this disaster and witness all the pain, suffering, and despair this undeserving country is experiencing right now. It's absolutely awful and Haiti desperately needs all the help it can get.
Below is a list of relief funds that are set up to help the people of Haiti survive the trying times that are in front of them. Please consider making a personal donation or organizing an effort in your organization to raise funds for relief and recovery.
UNICEF
CARE
Red Cross
Direct Relief International
World Food Programme
Mercy Corps
Save the Children
Doctors Without Borders
The International Rescue Committee
Partners in Health
Yele Haiti
With all the great posts hitting the Blogosphere this past week on the topics of leadership development, talent management, and human resource management, I would like to point you to five blog posts that I consider to be the best of the best for the first full week of 2010.
Dan McCarthy, Great Leadership: Top 12 Development Goals for Leaders - Have you created an personal improvement plan for 2010 yet? Dan has a great list of development goals to consider focusing on this coming year, along with great links to selected blog posts to get you started.
Penelope Trunk, Brazen Careerist: How to Make Yourself More Likeable- I've often cheered the importance of being likeable to your success in the workplace and in life in general. Penelope gets it too and serves up five tips for making yourself more likeable.
Steve Roesler, All Things Workplace: Leadership: Actually, it is About You - Steve nicely dispels the common thought that great leadership is about being selfless and focusing solely on others. This is a great post that may very well refrain the way you approach leading others.
John Agno's Leadership Blog: Power of Respect in Leadership - John takes a look at how seemingly small gestures of respect for others can make a big difference in one's effectiveness and success as a leader.
David Maister's Blog: Farewell and Thanks - After 30 years of learning and sharing with others, David is answering the call of retirement. Thanks for all the great lessons, David.
Every week I like to share a resource that I feel will help you Maximize Possibility in your organization and your life at work. It's been a while since I've featured a book, so this week I would like to share one that has made a great impact on my life.
The Resource: Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When The Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
What it is About: This book dispels the notion that "crucial conversations" only take place between high powered political officials and business executives on topics that shape the course of a nation or an organization.
While these can certainly be very important discussions, Crucial Conversations focuses rather on the everyday interactions we have with co-workers, bosses, friends, and loved ones on subject matters that can greatly impact the relationships we have with these individuals. Through a methodical system outlined in the book, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler help us to better approach these conversations and make the most of our relationships with others.
Why You Should Read This Book: Let me start of by saying that this book has had a profoundly positive impact on the relationships I have with nearly everyone in my life. It has helped me to recognize situations where conversations are about to, or have already turned "crucial" and taught me how to approach these discussions in the most productive and healthy way possible.
The authors of this book have studied interpersonal communication for years and their expertise on this subject matter is clearly evident in their writing. I think it also helps a great deal that the book is a collaborative work that doesn't rely on just one person's opinions on such an important topic.
Their methodical, step by step approach to handling the crucial conversations of everyday life is easy to follow and more importantly, easy to implement into everyday life when one has made the commitment to improve their communication with others. I found it refreshing to read a book that makes the transition from theory into practice so straightforward and often find myself reading the chapter summaries to reinforce the powerful lessons I've learned in this book.
If my endorsement isn't enough to convince you that this book is worth the time to read, Stephen Covey also gives his endorsement in the book's foreword which is a clear indication of the high quality of content this book contains.
Bottom line, interpersonal relationships matter and research has shown that those who are most effective in maintaining positive relationships with others enjoy the most success in life - be it professionally or personally.
Put this book on your immediate reading list- I promise you won't be disappointed!
For the record, I cannot stand generalizations. They do not tell the story the way it really is.
I have always admired the potential power of the HR department. It is the single department that has the potential to add or destroy tremendous value. Unfortunately, much of that created or destroyed value is hidden. It is the type of value that one cannot always quantify on the balance sheet but it is there. After all... How does one quantify strong employee morale vs. low employee morale?
I am frustrated...
Over the years in working with the HR departments of hundreds of companies, we have worked with some of the most brilliant minds in HR as well as some of the most inept, unprofessional types you can imagine. "Generally" - HR types come in two "categories" and typically have something in common with their peers:
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The strategic HR "types" get it. They usually use pre-employement personality assessments. Strategic HR professionals are "seekers" - they seek a better way of doing everything.
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The non-strategic HR "types" do not get it. Non-strategic HR types typically do not use pre-employment personality assessments. They instead trust their instincts, intuition, and biases. Non-strategic HR people are "guardians of the status quo" - they seek to protect the way things have always been done.
Is there a "rhyme or reason" to the type or size of organization and the level of "get it" or "strategic level" of the HR professional and/or team? No, there is not.
We have seen some of the biggest organizations with amazing HR teams who are incredibly strategic as well as small companies. On the other hand, we have seen significant-sized organizations with HR departments that leave me shaking my head wondering how they stay in business with their HR and talent management practices.
I am absolutely convinced that there are HR professionals and departments whose real mission is to protect their status quo - not add value to the mission of the organization. There are HR departments out there who do not use pre-employment personality profile assessments because they are "pretty good" at interviewing people - they have a good "nose" for talent. They apparently are not biased in any way.
Recently, we experienced yet another situation where HR shot down the pre-employment screening solution we have demonstrated time and time again that it adds serious value, is EEOC compliant, and relatively simple to implement. As usual, we did our homework. We sample-assessed more than a dozen high performers as well as more than a dozen low performers.
The predictability was clearly there. It was beyond obvious. Our personality profile solution CLEARLY demonstrated predictive talent selection value.
Yet, they sent us the bad news. It sounded something like the following...
"With 2010 budgets wrapped up, we realize we have some very tough times ahead of us. We will not be moving forward with candidate assessments this year."
Excuse me?
Alright. I hereby give permission to anyone that would like to call me and save me money. Please call any time. I love to save money.
If you have a way to help me make money - even better yet. Call me day or night. I am all ears.
Here is the punchline... We had not even discussed price and they decided not to proceed...
What? Huh?
Think about it strategically. The math is actually quite simple... The facts are indisputable.
Selecting the wrong talent is costly - We did our homework here as well. Not only did we show the predictability of our assessments, we helped our HR contact understand the true cost of their talent mismanagement problem. It was quite significant to say the least. It was as we sometimes call it, a "no brainer". They agreed that they had to do something to improve their hiring process.
Studies suggest that validated assessments are better predictors of future performance than interviews alone. Human beings are inherently biased. I have never met a human being that can consistently beat our assessment system.
Reduce expenses / maximize margins - We are facing tough economic times where, as always, one must watch expenses and maximize margins. Therefore as long as the return on investment of the improved productivity and reduced employee turnover is higher than the assessment investment, make it happen.
Better Talent or Job Fit leads to improved margins, reduced turnover costs. Who does not want to make more money and reduce employee turnover costs?
What is one to assume when an HR professional is given pre-employment assessment data that demonstrates without a doubt that predictability is clear and yet they decide their budget cannot handle the investment?
Yes, I know. It makes me wonder too.
I believe I know what the problem really was. I believe this particular HR department was scared. They were scared that their "zone of control" would be threatened. Some HR people really enjoy their power - their ability to sit high on the "throne of judgement" during the interview process. To bring in an impartial, statistically-validated pre-employment assessment tool that actually did a better job then they do?
We cannot have that.
Welcome to a new year and new decade! Before forging ahead too far into 2010, I'd like to pause for one last minute and reflect on the year that was 2009. Below is a selection of "best-of" posts I've enjoyed reading recently from the bloggers I regularly follow. Lot's of great stuff here... enjoy!
Fast Company.com: Fastcompany.com's 10 Most Read Stories of 2009
John Hunter, Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: 2009 Annual Management Blog Review
Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership: Blogs Looking Backwards, Blogs Looking Forward
Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer's Law Blog: Top 10 Labor & Employment Law Stories of 2009
Fistful of Talent: FOT's 2009 Retrospective - The Best of the Blogosphere
Bob Sutton, Work Matters: Work Matters: The Best of 2009
Business Pundit: The Best of Business Pundit 2009
Kelly Dingee, Fistful of Talent: Lessons Learned from One Sourcer in 2009
Julie Ferguson, HR Cafe: 2009 Year in Review
John Agno, The Leadership Blog: Top 10 Leadership Tips of the Decade
Rob Moss, Personnel Today: Top 30 Articles of 2009
Business Pundit: The 75 Best Business Blogs of 2009
Mary Lorenz, The Hiring Site: Top 10 Workplace Trends of 2009
Happy 2010! I've got a great blog I'd like to share with you this week to help you get the New Year off to a great start... Enjoy!
The Resource: David Zinger's Employee Engagement Blog
What it Covers: David's blog is devoted to covering the latest trends in employee engagement and providing tips and best practices for improving the engagement level of the employees in your team or organization.
Why You Should Add it to Your Reading List: David Zinger is a global leader in the field of employee engagement. He is a very active blogger, posting daily, and covers this important topic with a voracious appetite.
You'll find a wealth of great ideas for better engaging with your employee team members on his blog and I think you will also appreciate all the great links and "employee engagement Zingers" that David regularly provides.
Another good reason to check out David Zinger's Employee Engagement Blog is because engagement really matters. It is an important business issue and is much more than a buzzword or short term fad. Engaged employees produce more and have a greater bottom line impact than those who are not actively engaged with their work.
To me that's as good of reason as any to check out David's blogand make the resolution to improve the level of employee engagement with your team in 2010!
