SHRM Blog

Eat. Sleep. Do HR.

Hey HR folks!  Is the first word that comes out of your mouth when you head into work – “Ugh!”  Seriously, does the dawning of a new day in your corner of the HR universe generate excitement and anticipation, or drudgery and a loathsome feeling?

The answer most people reading this would say – “It depends on the day!”

You know, that’s fair.  The question you have to ask youself is: What mood or tone do you regularly set as an HR pro? As a department?  Do people like interacting with you, or do they do the...

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What's Your Culture Really Like? Ask the New Guy From Out of Town

Company Culture, Employer Brand, Employer Value Proposition - there's been much written and spoken about these ideas and concepts in the last few years and for the most part a general acceptance has emerged that organizational leaders need to be very aware of internal culture, and its effects on morale, engagement, productivity and performance.

While most HR and Talent pros 'get' that culture is important, and some even taking more proactive steps to promote their unique culture (mostly it seems through enhanced 'cultural fit' recruiting practices), there also seems to be quite a bit less written about revealing...

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Why Collective Leadership is Needed When Addressing Diversity and Inclusion in the Work Place

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is one of the most critical and challenging issues faced by HR professionals today.  Most large Fortune 500 companies (for example Microsoft and Ernst and Young) have extensive diversity messages on their websites and dedicate tremendous time and effort to building a diverse team that more closely reflects the makeup of he world.  

That said, continuing to move the needle on work place diversity is going to require a collective effort from leaders of companies big and small to tackle the systemic issues that limit meaningful diversity change in various industries....

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Facebook Photos from a Mexican Vacation Foil an Employee's FMLA Claims

I have three kids, ages three and under. So a vacation for me is the half hour of quiet time I get in the bathroom every morning.

It's not like the old days.

I remember Spring Break '97 in the Bahamas. Sun, beach, water sports, and a couple of adult beverages.

It was kinda like the Mexican vacation that Carol Lineberry, a former employee of Detroit Medical Center, took back in 2011. These pictures she posted on Facebook -- we didn't have Facebook back in the day, so I'll deny everything. EVERYTHING! -- show that...

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Effective Leaders Know They Don't Have All The Answers

There are a lot of components to leadership. The characteristics that go into making an effective leader are vast. If I asked for a list, I bet I would get pages and pages. We look for a lot in our leaders.

One of the traits that I really value in a leader is their willingness to admit they don’t always have the answer. I believe that the best leaders aren’t those that feel they know everything, but those who know how to leverage the people and processes around them to find the answer. I talked about a piece...

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Working Through Retirement

“Retirement is for sissies” reads the tagline on former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new movie. In the “Governator’s” latest go-round as an action hero—“The Last Stand”—he plays a long-in-the-tooth sheriff charged with stopping a drug kingpin from reaching the Mexican border.

The premise is pure Hollywood, but the message—staying on the job despite advancing in age—is quite appropriate for those making up today’s labor force. The Baby Boom generation will move entirely into the 55-and-older age group by 2020, increasing to 25.2 percent of the country’s total workforce, up from 19.5 percent in 2010, according to the U.S....

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You're the Love of My Life

Imagine coming to work and receiving, on your desk, a card from your boss that says:

"You’re my everything, all the time, forever, but especially on this Valentine’s Day."

"Tell me your Dreams of us being together forever… and I’ll tell you my dreams about yours coming true. Happy Valentine’s Day!"

"It’s Valentine’s Day… a day of love… the very special day we set aside for wishing things in a very special way."

"I am yours and you are mine, and that’s why you get this Valentine."

"I’m not Cupid, but I’ll hit your...

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The Leadership Collective

Remember when companies were run as dictatorships? We simply cannot do that anymore. There are too many people in too many places with too much work to be done. Nowadays, one man or woman cannot run a start-up -- let alone a global corporation.

In the past, while formulating an employee engagement strategy I would often hear, "The CEO wants it that way, so that's the way we are going to do it." Today, the CEO-centric program may be the very thing that drives tomorrow's talent away.

So now what do we do? Raising commissions is not enough....

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Reimagining HR: Why We Must Think Differently in 2013

When interviewing candidates for a new Head of HR position at HireVue, I had a simple question for each applicant: If you could have a clean slate and start the talent acquisition process totally anew, what would you do? Surprisingly, the majority of candidates were unable to provide a good answer. Most just talked about doing things the old way, but using new tools.

Unfortunately, this way of thinking, where we look to adapt the latest technologies to our existing processes without making fundamental changes, is prevalent throughout the HR profession. However, new technology can only do so...

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