Archive

1. A strategy from Hemingway

The Hemingway Bridge

In order to avoid starting a new day with a cold, blank piece of paper, Ernest Hemingway ended his day by writing the first paragraph of a new chapter. During the evening, he considered where the paragraph might go. In the morning, he was ready to go.

Tomorrow’s great start begins today. End today by starting tomorrow.

2. Sleep on it

If you have read anything about leadership in the last 10 years, the case for leadership at all levels of an organization is clear.  Executives, managers, and employees must all use personal leadership skills in their various functions and departments to accomplish goals and build relationships along the way.  Curiously, though, we are hesitant to widely embrace the notion of global leadership. 

The growth of mobile technology is simply staggering. According to mobiThinking, there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that translates to 77% of the world's population.) By 2014, it's expected that mobile will overtake the PC as the most popular way to access the web. People are using mobile technologies for commerce, entertainment, and productivity.

The Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) anomalous and vague requirements are forcing employers to impose precautionary workplace policies that are overly restrictive and out of step with modern work habits, according to a Nov. 3, 2011, report based on a survey conducted by the HR Policy Association.

The survey, to which 155 HR chiefs responded, found that companies implemented a number of restrictions on nonexempt employees because of the law, such as restrictions on:

The workplace lunch break isn’t much of a break for more than one-third of workers, according to a new survey that suggests that performance and productivity pressures are prompting those employees to eat at their desk.

The findings are from an online poll from Right Management, a subsidiary of Manpower Group, of 750 North American workers conducted in July and August 2011.

An HR Bartender reader has asked this question:

As an HR professional, I have the opportunity for a promotion to HR Manager. In your opinion, would going for a Master’s degree or getting PHR certified be more beneficial for my career?

This is part one of a series of SHRM Poll findings on how the economic recession is impacting employers in the U.S. In the current labor market, over one-half (52%) of employers reported difficulty recruiting for specific jobs that are open in their organization. This research examines what types of basic knowledge and applied skill gaps employers are experiencing with job applicants, as well as which job categories have been difficult to fill.

Flexible work policies are an economic imperative for American families as well as companies, said Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

“It’s not a perk. It’s not a corporate giveaway. It’s a hard-core economic, competitive, bottom-line issue that’s important for all workers up and down the wage scale,” Tchen told several hundred HR professionals gathered in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 9, 2011, for the Work-Life Focus: 2012 and Beyond conference, sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Families and Work Institute.

Note: This series is based on the paper My Generation.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.  - George Orwell

Employers need to step up and rally around the nation’s military community by enhancing efforts to attract, recruit, support and retain veterans and their families in a proactive manner so all can better meet their responsibilities at home and at work.

I’m captivated by infographics.  They, in my mind are the preferred alternative to boring reports and bullet-filled craptastic powerpoint presentations.  For me an infographic is a great way to explain a point of view or organize a group of interesting facts and data points designed to please the eye.  Kind of like how social media is the new alternative to email.

What makes people happy? Many people, including HR professionals, spend their lives trying to find the answer.

But their brains play tricks on them when they try to imagine what the future holds, said Harvard University psychology professor Dan Gilbert, who gave the closing address Nov. 10, 2011, at the Work-Life Focus: 2012 and Beyond conference held in Washington, D.C.

Last week’s blog post bemoaned the lack of strategic discipline in today’s world of business. I posed three simple strategic questions that on the surface appear easy to answer.

Supervisors find creative ways to engage remote employees 

What’s the biggest obstacle to telework? It’s not technology.

It’s management.

So some human resource professionals say they’ve begun to tie management acceptance of telework directly to managers’ performance evaluations and pay. Having managers telework has helped as well.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down.  No matter what he did, Sisyphus could not get to the top of the hill.

We can all feel Sisyphus’ pain as HR and other executives.  We are constantly rolling up against regulatory boulders, plaintiffs’ lawyers and labor unions marketed by the NLRB.

But Sisyphus had it easy in one respect.  He did not have to worry about the FLSA.

We are in the middle of a wage and hour revolution.  More specifically:

While some employers fear the challenges of hiring employees with post-traumatic stress disorder, simple accommodations can improve the chance of success.  

During his combat tour in Iraq, Richard Martin was nearly killed by a rocket that exploded 20 feet away. The guy in front of him wasn’t so lucky.

“The rocket hit the ground in front of me, and it blew off both of his legs,” Martin recalls.

By Shirley Davis and Lisa Horn, Co-Project Directors, SHRM’s Workplace Flexibility Initiative

U.S. starting salaries for white collar professionals will increase an average of 3.4 percent in 2012, according to a forecast by staffing firm Robert Half International. Technology positions are projected to see the largest gains among all fields researched, with an anticipated 4.5 percent increase in base compensation. Accounting and finance professionals can expect starting salaries to rise an average of 3.5 percent, according to the research.

The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report expects that job growth will be limited in November, as job creation slows and job cuts rise in both the manufacturing and service sectors.

Executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls to speak; new conference by SHRM and FWI to share best practices and research on workplace flexibility 

This survey examines hiring and recruiting trends across a six-month spectrum. The results for the fourth quarter of 2011 show that while jobs are being created at some companies, the pace will slacken as the end of the year approaches, and some employers are still struggling to find workers with skills that match their available positions.