Each year, we feel somewhat like the grumpy HR Grinch, ready to shut down your rollicking good time this holiday season. You know, the anything goes office party where your employees leave their inhibitions at the door. The celebratory occasion that provides months of post party gossip. However, we know…
2009 will go down as a year to remember but for many businesses the memories may be painful ones. As we move from depths of the recession into the glimmer of a recovery we have an opportunity to reflect on valuable HR lessons learned and use those lessons to become…
“Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies…” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media Social media has expanded exponentially in recent years, leaving many businesses and their employees in uncharted territory. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Instant Messaging… and countless others means of humans interacting electronically. People are interacting…
“Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.” Robert K. Cooper. Ph.D. As Human Resource professionals we experience firsthand the complexities and challenges of managing people in organizations each day. We…
We are watching the health care reform debate with keen interest. Not from a political perspective, although like most Americans we have personal opinions and preferences, but from an HR perspective. Ours is a pragmatic view gained from more than twenty years on the front lines in HR helping businesses…
Sometimes an employer’s best intentions will lead decisions or actions which unintentionally violate an employee’s rights and can even lead to discrimination charges. We regularly see this happen when an employee returns from leave or notifies their employer of a pregnancy or other medical issue. Often the employer, either out…
There have already been countless laundry lists published of the HR tasks generated by the new economic stimulus package. HR departments everywhere are scrambling to make the nuts and bolts changes needed to comply. Rather than focusing solely on the new tasks generated by the stimulus package it may be…
Several months ago I wrote about the stresses employees may face during an economic downturn. Little did we know then just how much more dire the economic news would become. During these bumpy economic times employees and managers may be faced with complex HR challenges that require careful management to…
For many companies business is down and costs are up. As a manager you may be spending hours crunching the numbers to figure out where you can cut expenses and how much you can raise your prices without losing your customers. The last thing you are prepared for is employees…
Say the word “coach” and virtually everyone will form a mental picture. It may conjure up an image of little league, your days as a high school athlete, the debate team or even the trainer you hired to help you get into shape. Most of us have been coached at…
