August 30, 2005

Workers say they're falling behind
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:05 PM

According to a new survey undertaken by the AFL-CIO, workers in the US are not happy with the state of the economy and "fear their standard of living is declining":

Some 53 percent of the 805 workers surveyed said their income is not keeping up with rising health care and gasoline prices, and 70 percent said employers aren't giving them raises to keep up with the higher costs, the labor organization found.

Read the full article.

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August 26, 2005

Attracting and retaining key talent biggest issue
Posted by Kim Provencher at 5:53 PM

I was happy to come upon this article in Personnel Today Retaining Skilled Staff is Top of Executive Agenda. It seems companies have become so concerned about increasing revenue and acquiring new customers they have forgotten that their employees are the ones that make it happen. There's people behind those numbers and if those people don't feel valued and recognized, the likelihood of those numbers increasing diminishes. It takes a well-oiled people machine to help organizations meet their goals and HR plays an important role in making that engine run smoothly. Is your department doing enough to retain your company's skilled staff?

Workforce improvement issues dominated the top priorities, accounting for four in 10 of the most commonly cited concerns. The majority of respondents (35%) selected 'attracting and retaining skilled staff' as a top priority, followed by 33% who cited 'changing organisational cultural and employee attitudes'.

“The most powerful theme emerging this year is a strong and consistent focus on people,” said Peter Cheese, global managing partner of Accenture’s Human Performance practice.

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August 23, 2005

Managing Millennials
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:28 AM

First of all, what are "Millennials"? They are the next generation of young people coming along behind the Gen-X'ers, born (like my children) between 1980 and 2000. The older Millennials are now entering the workforce, whether for full- or part-time employment.

How different are they? From the Human Resources guide at our New York Times sister site About.com comes this article with eleven tips for managing Millennials:

Unlike the Gen-Xers and the Boomers, the Millennials have developed work characteristics and tendencies from doting parents, structured lives, and contact with diverse people. Millennials are used to working in teams and want to make friends with people at work. Millennials work well with diverse coworkers.

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August 22, 2005

Telecommuting - Good or Evil?
Posted by Jason Tuohey at 4:25 PM

Telecommuting has been a trendy work benefit ever since technology made it possible. But is it really effective? The Savvy Manager, Mary Helen Gillespie, argues that, no, it isn't.

Telecommuting poses a virtual workplace nightmare, including the twin evils of lower productivity with higher costs.

What do you think? The discussion has already started on the BostonWorks message board.

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August 19, 2005

Coaching being used more and more for top producers
Posted by Kim Provencher at 4:34 PM

I was encouraged to read this month's article in Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge called What an Executive Coach Can Do for You. As a career management professional meeting with HR folks all day the idea of coaching is often entertained for the more remedial cases or "fix its" as we call them. This article highlights that coaching is now being used more and more to support the "stars" and "high pots" in companies. It's being seen as an investment in an employee's bright future with the organization. The article looks at four things to consider when deciding whether or not to make the investment.

Coaching has evolved into the mainstream fast," says Michael Goldberg, president of Building Blocks Consulting (Manalapan, New Jersey), whose clients include New York Life and MetLife. "This is because there is a great demand in the workplace for immediate results, and coaching can help provide that." How? By providing feedback and guidance in real time, says Brian Underhill, a senior consultant at the Alliance for Strategic Leadership (Morgan Hill, California). "Coaching develops leaders in the context of their current jobs, without removing them from their day-to-day responsibilities."

At an even more basic level, many executives simply benefit from receiving any feedback at all. "As individuals advance to the executive level, development feedback becomes increasingly important, more infrequent, and more unreliable," notes Anna Maravelas, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based executive coach and founder of TheraRising. As a result, she says, "Many executives plateau in critical interpersonal and leadership skills."

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August 15, 2005

Offering sabbaticals to employees can be win-win
Posted by Kim Provencher at 3:40 PM

This week's article in the Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal.com entitled Sabbaticals Can Be The Pause That Refreshes discusses that giving veteran employees long leaves from work can actually be a way to motivate and retain key talent. Companies that offer sabbaticals as a benefit have realized that time off is just as valuable to employees as salary increases. It allows them the opportunity to "regenerate" before they burnout and leave or even worse, burnout and stay.

Sabbaticals became more common during the 1990s dot-com boom, when many employers were tripping over one another to woo and keep talent, says John Bremen, a practice leader in compensation at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a Washington D.C., human-resources consulting firm. The idea faded during the subsequent economic downturn, but it is returning again, especially at creative companies that rely on their employees to generate ideas. Publishing, high technology, advertising and consulting companies are more sabbatical-friendly than manufacturing or finance firms, for example.

The extra work sabbaticals require is worth it, says Mr. Hill, now director of merchandising for global footwear at Nike. Employees come back more energized -- and loyal. "You're pretty grateful to a company that will give you that opportunity," he says.

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Thinking Faster
Posted by Jason Butler at 9:00 AM

Fabulous new blog: Thinking Faster.

Jeffrey Phillips writes excellent essays on managing people and projects. Instant addition to NetNewswire.

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August 10, 2005

Read all About it
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:19 AM

Our parent company, The New York Times, just bought a stake in Indeed.com, the top jobs aggregator website. And last year they acquired About.com, the highly popular (20 million visitors/month) content site whose hallmark is personal guides to a broad range of subjects.

Among the areas you may want to check out are Human Resources (guide: Susan Heathfield), which includes a special section devoted specifically to Recruiting and Staffing. Here's a piece to get you started: "Recruiting Stars: Top Ten Ways to Get Great Candidates".

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Getting them out of their current organization
Posted by Jason Butler at 7:20 AM

Michael Homula at ERE writes an excellent article about the overlooked art of getting your candidates out of their existing employer's grasp.

World-class recruiters know that getting the right offer extended and accepted is not the end of the search. World-class recruiters also understand that to capitalize on their investment of time and effort, they need to make sure the talent actually starts. This means they have to work a bit harder and coach the talent on how to give notice.

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August 8, 2005

The nine reasons we don't do what we should
Posted by Jason Butler at 5:05 PM

You should read Dave Pollard's "How to Change the World" blog. While it's not strictly focused on HR, he hits the topic often, and with a perspective I seldom see on my trips around the web.

In this post, he synthesizes the nine reasons we don't do what we should. I'm sure when you look at them, you'll see the ones to which you're most prone. And then, what to do about them:

How do we overcome these obstacles to doing what we should do? For the most part, the answers are pretty obvious once we recognize which of the nine reasons are in play. Lack of knowledge (#3) requires more research, more sharing of information. Trying to do too much alone (#4) requires learning to collaborate, and to delegate. Trying to do too much (#5) requires learning to say no, and to focus on doing one or two things really well. Lack of energy (#7) requires some introspection as to the cause -- physical (in which case the solution may be improvements to diet or exercise) or emotional (in which case meditation or a life change may be in order). Lack of reward (#8) requires being good to ourselves, and to others, in balance. Trying to do the impossible (#9) requires some navel-gazing, and either stopping trying to do it (which may require some candid discussion with others who may have put it on our list), or changing it (or our lives) in some significant way so that it becomes possible, or recognizing it is just a dream and focusing energies on other, attainable things, until and unless circumstances dramatically change.

My worst trait is #5, trying to do too much, period. I'm always attracted by shiny things and possibilities. Unfortunately, especially now, especially online, everything is possible. I have a notebook of ideas (and URLs) stashed at home, ideas I need to stop thinking about as I try to do my actual job.

I may integrate these types of questions into my interviewing arsenal. In the same way my team needs some E's to balance my flaming INTJ, we need to ensure not all our people have the exact same blind spot.

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New York Times Co. acquires interest in Indeed
Posted by Jason Butler at 1:32 PM

New York Times Co. acquired interest in Indeed.

"We are pleased to join Union Square Ventures and Allen & Company in backing Indeed, an innovative new firm that provides compelling job search capabilities to Internet users," said Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president, digital operations. "The Times Company has strong help-wanted franchises in print and online, and we believe it is important to invest in new technologies and services in this advertising category."

Indeed is the most comprehensive search engine for jobs, adding over 110,000 new jobs per day - more than any other job search engine. Indeed includes jobs from over 1,000 unique sources, encompassing company career pages, major and niche job boards, national and regional newspapers, and hundreds of associations. Indeed indexes all new jobs from each source every day, making it the freshest and most accurate source of jobs on the Web.

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Top talent still a top priority
Posted by Jason Tuohey at 8:55 AM

Sunday's BostonWorks section noted a recent study emphasizing the importance executives place on attracting and retaining top-notch talent. From the article:

A majority of the respondents - 35 percent - said a key focus this year would be finding and keeping talented workers.

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August 6, 2005

Jobs up in July - implications for recruiters?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:26 PM

Well, this is good news: the economy added more than 200,000 jobs in July, a very healthy figure. In fact the overall report from the Department of Labor was so good that an economist, no less, waxed nearly poetic:

''The economy has hit its cruising speed," said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. ''The sun's shining; the top's down; and we're rolling merrily along with an open road ahead."

Yesterday's employment report confirms the view that the US expansion is entrenched and gaining momentum. In recent weeks, economic data has shown incomes growing, business and consumer spending rising, and the economy expanding at an above average rate.

Great news for job seekers - but what are the implications for recruiters? Not hard to figure out: more job openings means more choice for job seekers - and more competition among recruiters for candidates.

What steps are you taking to land the best employees you can find? And what are you doing to retain those already on board? In a strong and growing economy, workers have more options and are less likely to put up with situations that do not meet their needs.

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August 5, 2005

Finding, nurturing and developing talent is key to business success for HR professionals
Posted by Kim Provencher at 10:13 AM

As an HR professional, do you view your department as the caretaker of your company's largest investment - your people? Do you understand how people serve your corporate objectives? If so, what are you doing to find, nurture and development them? According to Fast Company, magazine, many business executives and for that matter employees, have had it with HR because they feel they lack the business acumen needed in today's knowledge economy. They don't seem to "get" that companies that have the best talent win. Instead they are more concerned with policies and procedures, standardization and uniformity. They pursue one-size-fits all because it's easier. Sure it's partly due to compliance, but most HR folks fear if they make an exception for the good of a valuable employee and, therefore, the good of the business, the floodgates will open. Take a look at this months's article called, Why We Hate HR. It's pretty harsh, but makes some valid points.

Making exceptions should be exactly what human resources does, all the time -- not because it's nice for employees, but because it drives the business. Employers keep their best people by acknowledging and rewarding their distinctive performance, not by treating them the same as everyone else. "If I'm running a business, I can tell you who's really helping to drive the business forward," says Dennis Ackley, an employee communication consultant. "HR should have the same view. We should send the message that we value our high-performing employees and we're focused on rewarding and retaining them."

Instead, human-resources departments benchmark salaries, function by function and job by job, against industry standards, keeping pay -- even that of the stars -- within a narrow band determined by competitors. They bounce performance appraisals back to managers who rate their employees too highly, unwilling to acknowledge accomplishments that would merit much more than the 4% companywide increase.

Human resources, in other words, forfeits long-term value for short-term cost efficiency. A simple test: Who does your company's vice president of human resources report to? If it's the CFO -- and chances are good it is -- then HR is headed in the wrong direction. "That's a model that cannot work," says one top HR exec who has been there. "A financial person is concerned with taking money out of the organization. HR should be concerned with putting investments in."

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August 2, 2005

The reading list -- August 2005 edition
Posted by Jason Butler at 4:43 PM

As promised, here's the list of blogs I read each day, in random(ish) order:

The Job Blog (of course)
Hiring Technical People
The Monster Blog
Stone
Recruiting.com
CareerXRoads
Leadership Now
Recruiting Revolution
The Fourth Estate
Future Tense
Blue Sky Resumes blog
HR Marketer.com blog
Changing Reality on the Net
Technical Careers at Microsoft
Jobster Blog
JobThread Blog
Resourcing Strategies
Work-Related Blogs and News
Jobseeker's Revenge
ERE Blog Network
Online Recruitment Blog

A couple of lessons out of this:

1) If you don't have an RSS feed for your writing, you don't exist.

2) If you have a full-text feed, I'll read pretty much everything you write. Also, when I do searches over "My World," you're more likely to show up.

3) If you only have a partial-text feed for your writing, your chance of getting attention drops to about 20%

If there's something you think I should *really* read, the best way to get it to me is to tag it "for:jpbutler" on del.icio.us. Those links show up at the top of my newsreader. Emailing me will work, but legitimate emails are sometimes lost in the spam avalanche (spamalanche).

p.s., We're figuring out ways to get comments up and running. The comment-spam demons are relentless.

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August 1, 2005

In good company
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:13 PM

We're not the only ones jawing away online about the workplace. Turns out, as US News reports, that more and more CEOs and high-level execs have taken to blogging as well:

What's driving these busy executives to carve hours out of their busy week to cast their views into the sometimes hostile world of Web logs? Partly it's the appeal of a bully pulpit to promote their views, unfiltered by the media. Partly it's the desire to create a new kind of dialogue with customers, industry observers, and employees. And partly it's the hope of crafting a more human face and voice for the company.

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