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Washingtonian magazine has selected the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) for its 2013 list of 50 Great Places to Work in the Washington, D.C., area.

“We are thrilled to be named one of the Washington area’s top employers,” said Henry G. “Hank” Jackson, SHRM president and CEO. “SHRM educates HR professionals and employers on workplace best practices. So we are gratified for the recognition that SHRM ‘walks the talk.’ ”

Today we’re going to look at leadership, how it can fail, and how it can succeed. When we look at the leaders at the top of the organizational chart, we usually don’t think of them as the worst leadership examples in the organization. However, recent data has shown that to be the case.

The Arizona Republic’s recent strategy to move its community reporters out of the office, suggesting they hunker down with company-provided laptops at local coffee shops and fast-food restaurants with free Wi-Fi, is becoming the norm for other employers, according to Kelly Walsh, PHR, a 20-year human resources professional.

For the past six years, my Thanksgiving Day routine has gone something like this: get coffee at Starbucks, grab breakfast at McDonalds for the kids, fill the tank at the Shell gas station, buy a pack of Trident and hit the road to spend a perfect day with family. These businesses had real live people working there. I am curious as to why we are so mad when retailers decide to start their “Black Friday” sales on Thanksgiving evening.  With so many other industries open on this day, why are we mad at retail?

If you're like most employees and managers, you dread the annual performance review. It's outdated and frozen in time. It's a relic of the way business used to work and doesn't capitalize on the way business works today. Can it be saved?

In leading organizations, managing diversity is no longer limited to increasing representation of a certain identity group and building equality. Rather, both the definition and the focus have expanded to include not only the workplace, but also the workforce, the marketplace, the community and suppliers. An increasing number of organizations are adopting diversity and inclusion strategies, not only for ethical and legal reasons, but also because it positions them to be more competitive.

Don’t you hate it when you don’t know what to wear to work, your fake eyeball falls out of its socket or your fave football team loses? It’s enough to make you call in sick—and some people have, using those very excuses, according to CareerBuilder’s national online survey.

Among the most outrageous excuses for taking a sick day that CareerBuilder reported:

*A swarm of bees surrounded the employee’s vehicle, preventing him from getting into it.

On November 13, @weknownext chatted with Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane about "HR Technology - Implementation and Adoption."

In case you missed it, here are all the great tweets from the chat:

As U.S. employers continue to grapple with the surge in wage and hour lawsuits, class-actions charging exempt-status misclassification—often brought by former employees—are a growing concern, finds a survey report by labor law firm Littler Mendelson P.C.

My post title is missing its normal, and grammatically incorrect, double exclamation points ( !! ) for a reason this week. I had the most amazing experience and just had to share it with you !! (oops, there they are)

Steady Hiring and Few Layoffs Expected in November

 In November, the pace of hiring in manufacturing and
services will rise compared with a year ago, according
to the Society for Human Resource Management’s
(SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment
(LINE) survey for November 2013.

Health flexible spending accounts (FSAs) are becoming more flexible. New federal guidance permits employers to allow workers to carry over unused amounts of up to $500 for expenses in the next year and still contribute up to $2,500 annually.

Human resource leaders at Amadori decided in 2008 that the large Italian-food company needed to add emotional intelligence to its leadership culture. The following year the McDonald’s supplier teamed with emotional-intelligence consulting organization Six Seconds to help managers develop stronger people skills and insights, an effort later expanded to others in the company’s plants.

Gallup released it's "State of the Global Business" report for 2013. The results are unbelievable.

According to Gallup:

1. Worldwide, only 13% of Employees are Engaged at work. 
2. The Actively Disengaged outnumber the Engaged 2 to 1 in the workplace.

So, if 2 of every 10 of your employees are engaged you are an above average organization?

More people hate their job than those who love it?

Are you willing to accept that?

...because I'm not!

Beer maker says companies should stick with what makes them great

NEW YORK-If your organization’s culture works, don’t compromise it when expanding to different countries and even to different regions within the same country, said Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev).

When the Forrester Research on groundswells came out a few years ago, many in the social media business saw an opportunity to have real conversations about advocacy marketing. That conversation was limited to marketers, and only just now are we seeing the groundswell concept reaching talent management.

According to a recent poll, 73‑percent of workers value flexibility in looking for a job (or staying in a job).

Employers, in their self-interest, need to help employees with work life challenges.  But that is easier said than done.

This blog addresses some of the rarely discussed issues when it comes to work-life challenges.

1.   Nomenclature

SAN FRANCISCO—When a woman at a large Denver-based dialysis company told those attending the 2013 Workflex Conference that she does her job almost exclusively from her California home, the next words out of her mouth said a lot about lingering attitudes toward flexible work schedules.

Generation Y, those born between approximately 1978 and 2000, currently number 76 million in the U.S workforce today (Financial Post). By 2016 they will be 100 million strong (Genup). This group, also called the millennial generation, are stirring things up in the workforce.