SHRM Blog

Work-Life Balance Starts with HR

I saw Jack Welch speak at the 2009 Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference in New Orleans. Welch delivered the opening speech for the conference and completely dissed the idea of work-life balance for women in corporate America.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Welch told the audience, "There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences."

Welch said, "We'd love to have more women moving up faster, but they've got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one."...

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HireHonor: Making a Difference in Veteran Hiring in America

During the month of November, the U.S. traditionally celebrates Veterans Day, focusing attention on those who have served our country through military service. It is a time to reflect not only on their contributions but also on their post-service needs, which have evolved over the years. One key challenge today, for example, is how to successfully seek employment after service.

Veterans represent an elite and diverse talent pool available for hire. Most veterans possess transferrable skills, professional discipline and positive attributes identifiable in today’s evolving workforce. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, by hiring veterans,...

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The Multi-Generational Workplace (Part 2)

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

The makeup of formal – and informal - organizations has always mirrored that of society as a whole. As societal demographics shift, organizations have no choice but to consume the transformation.  A “failure to respond to the demographic changes of society will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the modern organization to meet employee needs and productively move forward.” This will leave the organization unprepared to compete – for talent or in the marketplace - eventually leading to its demise.  We are confident that businesses...

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Social Recruiting: Three Lessons Learned from the Trenches

When it comes to using social media websites for recruiting - what we call social recruiting - how far is too far? Beyond learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the proverbial envelope too far. And hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools built into applicant tracking software to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.

3 Lessons Learned from the Trenches

Some people are experiencing...

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Influential Leadership & my SHRM Conference Keynote

Late November, I had the privilege of delivering the luncheon keynote address to the 1,000 volunteer leaders gathering in Washington, D.C., for the annual Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) Leadership Conference.

It was a fitting conclusion to my conference keynote schedule for the year and marked my 12th engagement in partnership with SHRM this calendar year.  My relationship with this Association has provided me an opportunity to address thousands of their members, attend keynotes, breakouts, workshops, round tables and take an active role in the ongoing conversation about the future of...

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Workplace Flexibility: What are YOU doing?

Workplace flexibility initiatives are moving more workers out of cubicles and into home offices. This can represent meaningful cost savings for companies, reduced stress for employees and higher productivity. The challenge for management is to keep these isolated employees working well together. 

How are you devising ways to make isolated employees feel connected?

We want to hear from you! Share your stories in the comments section below.  We’ll feature the most interesting and instructional ones on Next

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SHRM: December LINE Report

The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) Report predicts that hiring expectations in both the service and manufacturing sectors will decrease slightly compared with a year ago.

Similar to past months, human resource professionals reported continued difficulty with recruiting in November. In the manufacturing sector, a net 13.5 percent of HR managers reported difficulty, compared with 8.3 a year ago. In the service sector, a net .3 percent of respondents reported more difficulty recruiting, demonstrating a 2.7 percent increase from November...

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Executive Book Club: November 2011

At Motorola, Inc., designers, engineers, and manufacturing experts are linked in a single production function that spans Chicago, Frankfurt, Singapore, and Beijing. This work takes advantage of the most qualified talent in the world and continues literally around the clock. In terms of innovation and accelerated speed-to-market, the old ways of working simply cannot compete.

We are quickly moving toward a kind of "virtual workplace" – a world in which networks of people work in new ways, assisted by technology and freed from the traditional limitations of time...

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Four Creative Ways to Start Your Day

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 are the tenacious type, it’s hard to set a problem aside. You just keep banging your head into it until you defeat the...

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What is global leadership anyway?

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. 

During a recent networking event, a few of my senior human resources professional colleagues asserted that it is the domain of the expatriate, globetrotting executives, or those with “global” something in their titles. Despite the fact...

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