SHRM Blog

I am just back from the SXSW Interactive Conference where I spent time with tens of thousands of geeks, nerds, dorks, and techie wizards. Not everyone at the conference was a Gen Y hipster — although it felt that way. I was tremendously fortunate to meet amazing men and women of all ages who had impressive resumes and interesting stories.

The one unifying theme? Everyone in attendance was passionate about technology, mobile devices and digital media.

It was a fun scene. I couldn’t help but think that the next great leader in Human Resources might be found...

The Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge, Part Two of the Harvard Business Review/McKindsey M-Prize for Management Innovation, seeks to advance progress on making organizations genuinely fit for human beings—more inspiring, open, and free. Management innovators from around the world in every realm of endeavor were invited to share the most progressive practices and disruptive ideas around. After receiving an abundance of big ideas and game-changing initiatives and experiences from management innovators in all kinds of organizations worldwide, seven finalists were selected. We are proud to announce that We.org:The Freedom to Choose, by Dan Bean, Robert Musson and Chermaine Li,...

Quite often, including here at We Know Next, when the term “flexibility” is used with respect to the workplace, it’s often in the discussion of worklife balance initiatives that serve as benefits to the employer and employee.  In this arena, we think about telework, co-working, ROWE, and other employer-supported program to give employees more control over how, when and where they work.  Having a flexible workplace is now viewed as something that smart companies do in order to support their culture, increase employee engagement and loyalty, and ultimately drive business success.

But flexibility, as an attribute of a...

Many organizations have migrated toward telecommuting and virtual work due to rising travel costs, a global customer base, and the dispersion of talent. While numerous organizations have made significant investments in virtual teams and the technology to support them, a surprising number of virtual teams are not successful.

OnPoint Consulting surveyed 48 virtual teams across industries and found that specific characteristics are required to lead and work effectively on virtual teams. Unfortunately, many organizations do not put as much thought as they should into their team leader decisions. In fact, we often hear stories about team leaders who...