Ten recruiting practices to nuke Which of these recruiting techniques do you use and which procedures have you already replaced?
Special Report on Background Checking-Burden of Proof There is little to no data (empirical evidence) to support the theory that the workplace is safer with current screening and hiring practices that use background checks.
Could your organization be driving away its next tier of management via an outdated and hostile recruiting system? Chances are, it is.
Downturn notwithstanding, employers are screaming for talented people. Yet you have only to review any large employer's recruiting process (and those of many smaller shops) to see a mind-numbing list of requirements, protocols, and hoops for job-seekers to jump through. Think that the smartest and most marketable
candidates will take their brains and abilities elsewhere? Of course they will. They'll turn to consulting or find homes at nimble startups. Check out our list of the 10 most obnoxious, profit-killing recruiting practices...
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Like brothers and sisters at a family reunion, coworkers tend to fall into intragroup behavior patterns, melding into a smoothly functioning yet uncreative team.
I used to witness a strange metamorphosis every year in the early fall. The tall, granite-faced men I knew as my uncles and the tall, granite-faced women I knew as my aunts would lose their adult identities and become, once again, a community of siblings. The executive, the bookkeeper, the nurse, and so on would arrive at
each annual reunion in western Massachusetts and become instead the eldest, the second-born, the third-born, all the way down to the baby, readopting the well-worn patterns of interaction that had seen them through their mother's death and a lot of other tough times in their Cambridge triple-decker. For me it was both
eerie and fascinating, and it gave me a lifelong appreciation for the power of sibling behavioral patterns. Our place in the birth order seems to affect so many things-the jobs we do, for example. Talk to your colleagues, the ones who perform the same work, and see if they didn't come from approximately the same place in
the birth order as you. It's uncanny. But it doesn't take an entire childhood for a group's dynamics to get locked in. It can happen quickly...
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As the economy rebounds, you may be looking closely at ex-employees who departed on good terms.
Rehiring can slash your job-search time and reduce (or eliminate) training and onboarding costs. About 40% of employers expect to rehire workers this year, according to a survey by consulting firm OI...
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It is remarkable that a seemingly simple, one-page form-the Form I-9-can cause so many headaches. But who ever said a government form was easy, much less an immigration-related form.
A quick primer: The Employment Eligibility Verification form is meant, as its title describes, to verify the employment eligibility of an employee through his or her identity and work authorization documents. The form must be completed and maintained for all employees (citizens and noncitizens), and employers must have an I-9
for all employees hired after Nov. 6, 1986. Completion of the Form I-9 is mandatory, unlike participation in the E-Verify program, which is only mandatory in certain situations (e.g., federal contractors or Arizona employers). Here are the most common mistakes employers make:...
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In this tight employment market, just doing your job isn't enough. (Workplace superstars have always known that.)
It's also a myth that good work makes a good career. So, what does make a good career? Good office politics. Here are four ways that career columnist Penelope Trunk recommends that you use office politics in building your career:...
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It's a serious mistake to wrongly classify employees as exempt when they should be designated as hourly workers eligible for overtime.
Such cases can easily snowball if one or two misclassified employees file a class-action lawsuit claiming to represent everyone else who shares their classification. A case that should have cost just a few thousand dollars in back overtime pay can quickly grow into a multimillion-dollar claim. Be especially wary of one of
the most common errors:...
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"I just have a good feeling about this one."
Relying on subjective factors such as interview skills and personality is not the best way to pinpoint successful job candidates. Yet a new study shows that's the way many-in fact, most-of hiring decisions are made...
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Anything less than a completely honest performance appraisal will only cheat the employee out of personal development, plus it could set the stage for a discrimination lawsuit.
Here are eight important do's and don'ts: 1. DON'T fall prey to 'halo effect'...
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Best HR ideas for 2010 Looking for new ideas for HR to explore? Here is a list of what new techniques are being tried now.
In their second annual competition aimed at recognizing HR programs and initiatives that make a difference for the profession and the workforce in a very unique way, the editors of HRE announce their choices of the most noteworthy ideas launched in 2009.
The editors of HRE announce their choices of the most noteworthy ideas launched last year that bettered HR functions and services in new and different ways. It's nice to know that, even in a tough economic year, the creative juices in corporate America have been flowing. Now in its second year, Human Resource Executive
®'s Best HR Ideas competition -- which looked at ideas launched in 2009 for this year's contest -- yielded some promising signs...
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Women are still being denied their fair share of top leadership positions in the corporate world, but when women are pushed too far, too fast, it may harm an organization's bottom line. Companies should create transition processes that promote success.
If recent studies are any indication, and experts say they are, there are still significant barriers in place keeping women from acquiring and maintaining top leadership positions, both in corporate America and abroad. But, as important as promoting gender parity in the workforce is, it is also important to make sure women
succeed in leadership roles. A year-long series last year in the International Herald Tribune suggests women are often catapulted to corporate leadership and board positions before they're trained and experienced enough. "The Female Factor" took a look at the number of women serving on boards of directors in Norway in
light of a law passed eight years ago by the Norwegian parliament requiring that women comprise 40 percent of all companies' corporate boards. Companies actually performed, on average, 20 percent less effectively after adopting the quotas, according to that report. Jackie Greaner, North American practice leader
for talent management and organization alignment for New York-based Towers Watson, gives some credence to those findings, but stresses it's not so much women aren't ready yet; it's that too few companies are handling their transitions into C-suite and board-of-directors positions well...
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Stress Management How managing stress affects your employees and your bottom line.
Instilling a sense of fun in the workplace builds loyalty, boosts output.
Having a bad day or week? Looking for a way to relieve your frustrations and lighten things up a little? Humor may be a good antidote. As children, we were all more spontaneous and playful. Laughter and having fun was what we did every day. What happened? As we grew up, the pressures on us to go to college, earn good
money and raise a family became all-encompassing, and many of us forgot how to laugh and have fun. Who would you rather spend time with? Someone who sees the humor in life or a pessimistic person who is always complaining? In the workplace, working with other employees who are more light-hearted makes a big
difference in how we view our jobs and the quality of the work we do. Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach has studied fun at work for years. He's discovered that people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision-makers and get along better with co-workers. They also have fewer
absent, late and...
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Employers recognize that incentives can be powerful tools to nudge their employees to participate in health promotion programming. However, finding the right incentive can be challenging.
The incentive debate whirls in questions: How much? How often? When? For what? The answers to these questions lie within the local and company culture, the socioeconomic strata and the company's ability to sustain the incentive. It has been assumed that cash is the best and most universal motivator. While cash
may be effective in motivating someone to take the initial step toward risk modification, data now suggest behavior change and risk modification degrades when the incentive is removed. Further, ongoing cash rewards for health are just not financially sustainable. To be a catalyst for healthy behavior change, employers need
to adopt bold, creative participation strategies that foster intrinsic motives in employees for managing their own health, which in turn can reduce costs and boost productivity...
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Life is not an open (Face)book Using social networking sites to screen job candidates can be risky. Don't drop your other methods and risk legal entanglements.
Social networks and other online media offer a seemingly easy way to weed out poor candidates. But when brand image, legal liability and top talent are at stake, there is no substitute for solid employee screening practices.
It's a hard reality every hiring manager these days knows well: More people are vying for fewer jobs. Applicants pad their resumes even during economic booms, so the temptation to embellish one's experience, abilities and credentials - and downplay drug charges or other criminal history - is even greater now.
Background screening has never been more critical, but the methods used are particularly important in this digital age. Some screening methods could expose an organization to legal liability, lost business or brand damage...
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[HRs] life after layoffs Know how to handle these tricky situations to stay out of legal troubles and keep moral from plummeting.
A February 2008 study from Right Management found more than 50 percent of North American employees have changed jobs because of downsizing or restructuring.
Whichever process is on-task, separating employees can be an anxiety-filled experience for the people being let go and the talent managers delivering the news. Further, the decision to downsize is fraught with potential legal, public relations and business consequences. The challenge for talent managers is to handle the
process appropriately for those who need to be let go, while holding on to talented and high-potential employees. Whether planning for a restructure or reducing the workforce, talent managers have three considerations:..
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The world is flat. At least in the business area, it is.
In this flat world, talent management has much in common with traditional supply chain management, specifically a focus on interconnected networks, efficiency and performance. Welcome to the strategic supply chain business. This is what talent management in a flatter world has become. Traditional supply chain
management involves a network of interconnected processes engaged in the provision of products and services. These processes span movement of materials, work-in-process inventory and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption. The objective is to create value, build competitive advantage, satisfy
customers and optimize performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Talent management, however, often involves...
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If accountants ran HR... Take a look at how HR and accounting departments are different and how they can help each other.
Why do so few people understand the fundamental importance of a healthy bottom line?
Every company needs to earn more money than it spends (even non-profits need to produce "net capital"). It sounds simple enough, right? Accountants understand to improve the bottom line a business must do one of two things: 1) increase top line revenue; or, 2) reduce expenses. And to produce the largest and fastest
positive impact, every business should try to do both. Nothing new here. So, why isn't this equation more infused into the DNA of every organization? For a company to achieve its full profit potential, its subunits (departments, divisions, geographical locations, etc.) should each contribute to the whole by performing well via
their own subset profit and loss (P&L) statements. Taken to its natural extension, this thinking would suggest...
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These days, some of the most respected businesses in the world are finding themselves pilloried on the Internet by their own employees. Websites such as Glassdoor.com carry posts calling one Fortune 500 "the most abusive company I ever worked for," and another a place where workers will be "kicked like a dog." Hundreds of other companies are being skewered in the same way.
The question, of course, is what to do about it. It's more than a matter of damage control. Trying to repair the harm to internal morale, recruitment efforts, and corporate reputations after the fact is not as effective as preventing the damage in the first place. That is especially true because the
practice of airing dirty corporate laundry online isn't likely to go away. Like sites that rate products, politicians, professors, hotels, charities, and so many other facets of our lives, these online forums can be expected to spread and morph. More outlets such as IHateDell.net, which has a section for
employees to air grievances, are sure to emerge. The focus for employers, then, should be on identifying potential sources of employee dissatisfaction and resolving them before they escalate into embarrassing diatribes about abusive managers and impossible work demands anyone can read with the click of
a mouse. After all, if you're hearing about problems in your work environment on the Web before uncovering and addressing them internally, something is amiss. Managers, trainers, and HR personnel should continually...
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