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| Volume 6, Issue 3 |
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In This Issue:
 Make-or-break interview mistakes
Cursed by the ‘perfect’ colleague
Don’t bury your message
 High morale again pays off in stock market gains
Lending a hand
Bye-Bye Boomers?
Stepping up to supervision: Challenges and success factors
The 10 steps in developing a successful Performance Management Strategy
Romance a work
 Take responsibility for rising stars
When gender changes the negotiation
Managing social distance in "flat" companies
Oprah: A case study comes alive
 Small groups, Big ideas
Firms look to workers to help contain [health care] costs
 Where America’s good jobs will be
The boss and you
How we get fat
Ten diets that work
 Ouch! With sex injuries, love really hurts
The ethics squeeze
Preserving restless top performers
A Crowded space
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Make-or-Break Interview Mistakes
To get on HR's good side, avoid certain behaviors. A major faux pas, and your
name gets crossed off that list of potential candidates.
Some people go into human resources thinking that it's like social work. Here's a
news flash for anyone who thinks in those terms: If you're the kind of person who
wants to adopt every stray kitten and advise every needy person you meet, you may
want to find a different profession. The plain truth is that HR people have limits
on how supportive they can be. They can help employees only to the extent that
what's good for them is good for the company. They can help job candidates even
less because the HR person's job is to evaluate applicants -- and eliminate
from consideration those the company just doesn't need. A perfect example of the
limits of HR compassion involves the job seeker who needs professional advice.
Every HR person has stories about people who have come to interview in wildly
unsuitable attire, or who have said something so outrageous within the first
five minutes of the interview that the rest of the conversation was a waste.
As much as they may joke after the fact, most HR people -- myself
included -- dread these situations...
Read the article. Back to top
Cursed by a "Perfect" Colleague
Co-workers and bosses who blame everyone but themselves are a nightmare.
But there may be something you can do.
I was at a networking event the other evening, and got to chat with the
panelists -- all successful businesspeople -- after their discussion. One
of them was kidding another about a recent event where two of them had also
spoken on a panel. "I couldn't believe what you said when that woman on the
panel [a very well-known business and TV celebrity] was asked to share the
biggest mistake she had ever made in her career," said one speaker. "She
answered 'I've never made a mistake,' and you guffawed right in front of her!'"
That was a well-timed guffaw. Such an authentic, instant reaction to an
outrageous statement surely takes chutzpah, but can you imagine the nerve -- let's
go ahead and call it hubris -- that it takes to say to an audience of
experienced businesspeople, "I've never made a mistake"? Man, I wanted to have
been there that night. I wish, wish, wish I had been sitting on that panel, so
that I could have said to the poor woman, "How sad for you, to miss the
valuable learning experiences that our failures provide." LIMITED VOCABULARY.
We all know one of them, don't we -- those people who are Seldom in Error, and
Never in Doubt? They just don't make mistakes. If all the evidence in the world
says they made a misstep, they've got a ready answer to explain it away. It wasn't
my mistake -- you must be confused -- that's not what I said -- and so on. It's
bad to have one of these people for a co-worker. But it's really, really bad to
have one for a boss. The can't-fail businessperson is the one who isn't responsible
when something is late, missing, or incorrect. Your instructions weren't clear,
someone else was responsible, and that wasn't her understanding...
Read the article. Back to top
Don't Bury Your Message
Whether you're delivering a formal presentation or just pitching a client,
get to the important part before people tune out.
We have a term in journalism for the first paragraph of an article or the first
sentence of a broadcast script -- it's called the lead. In journalism classes,
we're taught not to bury the lead in the middle or end of the copy. The same
holds true for presentations. Give your audience a reason to listen right from
the start. Research shows that listeners tend to remember the first part of
a presentation and the end. If those parts are what stick, use them to your
advantage. I have been thinking about this topic recently because several of
my clients who give presentations were burying the most compelling content by
choosing a boring lead. Once we corrected the problem, their presentations
took on a completely different tone...
Read the article. Back to top
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High Morale Again Pays Off In Stock Market Gains
Facing Challenges
More than half of 600 hiring managers surveyed said it
was "just as challenging" to find qualified candidates
for jobs within their firms compared to 12 months ago.
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Strong employee morale once again paid off last year for employers with motivated work forces.
As in 2004, the stock prices of companies with high morale outperformed
similar companies in their same industries by 2 to 1, while the stock
prices of companies with medium or low morale lagged behind their industry
peers by greater than 1 to 1.The study was compiled by David Sirota, Louis
Mischkind, and Michael Meltzer, authors of 'The Enthusiastic Employee: How
Companies Profit By Giving Workers What They Want,' (Wharton School
Publishing/Pearson - www.enthusiasticemployee.com). The study focused on
24 publicly traded companies with a total of more than 750,000 employees
where morale was surveyed by the authors' firm, Sirota Survey Intelligence,
over the last 5 years. The stock prices of these 24 companies were compared
to the industry average stock prices for more than 5,500 other companies
in the same industries...
Read the article. Back to top
Lending a Hand
As more companies turn to outsourcing as a cost-effective way to deliver
results, human resource executives have a unique opportunity to demonstrate
HR’s strategic value to the organization and gain increased visibility for
the department.
In fact, HR is particularly well-suited to help manage outsourced
projects -- even those that have nothing whatsoever to do with human
resources -- thanks to its unique expertise in matters related to hiring,
employee communication and retention...
Read the article. Back to top
Bye-Bye Boomers?
It’s now a matter of time. The baby boomer generation—comprised of nearly 83
million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and getting ever-longer in
the tooth—will soon begin filtering out of the workforce.
The threat that has long been on the horizon is now knocking at the door:
Boomers will be leaving behind the jobs—including many C-level posts—they’ve
held for years, taking with them the wealth of experience and knowledge
they have accrued.Charged with filling those positions, companies will draw
on a pool of workers that, at least in terms of numbers, doesn’t seem capable
of replenishing the ranks. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a
labor force of 162 million in 2012, and anticipates the economy will require
165 million jobs. Those figures—accounting for factors such as outsourcing
and the hiring of newly arriving immigrants—don’t necessarily equal a shortage
of 3 million workers, but do pose questions for many U.S. companies. On the
whole, “employers simply can’t afford to see this generation retire en masse,”
says Roselyn Feinsod, principal at Towers Perrin HR Services in Stamford,
Conn., without witnessing significant effects on productivity, the ability to
serve customers and, ultimately, the bottom line. The good news for business is
that...
Read the article. Back to top
Stepping Up to Supervision: Challenges and Success Factors
Today's diverse and mobile workforce, constantly changing job duties and
increased organizational demands have raised the stakes for new supervisors,
reduced the margin for error and made the job of managing others far more
challenging.
Taking on new assignments, accomplishing work through others, shifting from
being a friend to being a leader--any one of these transitions is a
handful. Furthermore, rapid workplace changes often thrust brand new supervisors
and managers into positions of pivotal importance without allowing them time
to get acclimated. They often cannot count on busy colleagues to show them the
ropes, but are still expected to produce immediately. In fact, stepping up to
a supervisory position has become so challenging that many employees turn
down promotions or feel unprepared for their new responsibilities. For these
people, the difficulty of the job outweighs any excitement or pride they might
feel in being promoted. Both first-time and experienced supervisors face a set
of responsibilities they may not be prepared for--responsibilities that may in
fact be at odds with the abilities and attributes that got them promoted in the
first place. Three new realities in a tough market...
Read the article. Back to top
The 10 Key Steps In Developing An Effective Performance Management Strategy
In a recent issue of The Economist, the magazine points out that "Over the
next few years companies may well come to reassess the value of their HR
operations and decide that workforce planning and performance management have
become sources of competitive advantage... ."
Some would say that's already the case. For instance, the United
Kingdom's Northumberland Fire and Rescue Authority was praised on January 19,
2006, by government authorities for "making progress in achieving its
objectives through its proactive approach to community safety, supported
by improvements in its performance management framework to monitor core
outcomes." Officials went on to say that the Authority has driven down
deaths and injuries from fire to the lowest level in history. To offer more
evidence that an investment in performance management pays dividends, consider this...
Read the article. Back to top
Romance at Work
Love is in the air – and at work.
According to a romance-in-the-workplace-themed survey released by Randstad USA,
31 percent of employed U.S. adults believe it is appropriate to date a co-worker,
27 percent have kissed a co-worker, and two percent said they have sent
themselves flowers or a gift on Valentine’s Day. A total of 1,478 employed
U.S. adults were surveyed by Harris Interactive® for Randstad’s inaugural
monthly “Job Bites” survey on romance in the workplace...
Read the article. Back to top
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Take Responsibility for Rising Stars
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| Leadership succession and recruitment need the sharp attention of your
company's top executives and board. But who should be held accountable—and how? An excerpt from a
Harvard Business Review article by Jeffrey Cohn, Rakesh Khurana, and Laura Reeves. | |
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Many executives believe that leadership development is a job for the
HR department. This may be the single biggest misconception they can have.
As corporations have broken down work into manageable activities and then
consolidated capabilities into areas of expertise, employee-related activities
have typically fallen into HR's domain. The prevailing wisdom has been that if
HR took care of those often intangible "soft" issues, line managers and
executives would be free to focus on "hard" business issues and client interaction.
But at companies that are good at growing leaders...
Read the article. Back to top
When Gender Changes the Negotiation
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| Gender is not a good predictor of negotiation performance, but ambiguous situations can trigger different behaviors by men and women. Here is how to neutralize the differences and reduce inequities. From Negotiation. | |
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These differences can create huge inequities
over time.
Competitive negotiations
can act as gender triggers...
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The last few months have been trying for Maureen Park, the managing
director of a small portfolio management firm.
The firm's parent company, a large financial services concern, was performing
below forecasts, and morale among Park's understaffed, overworked team of
research analysts was low. To make matters worse, Park's two best analysts
both requested significant raises after their annual reviews. Both women
expressed their belief that they were earning substantially less than analysts
at comparable firms and probably less than lower-achieving members of
their firm—including a male colleague who had been lured away from a competitor.
Park went to bat for her star performers, though management had instructed her
to offer only cost-of-living raises. To her surprise...
Read the article. Back to top
Managing Social Distance in "Flat" Companies
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| Organizations may have become flatter, but leaders still need social distance in order to take the big-picture view. Here are ways to combine friendship with leadership. Excerpted from Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? | |
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Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism
A values-driven organization poses
unique risks for its leaders—in
particular, charges of hypocrisy
if the leaders make a mistake.
Sandra Cha of McGill University
and Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business
School discuss what to do when values backfire.
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The balance for any leader is forever changing
All leaders possess an inbuilt, maybe
hardwired preference
for either closeness or distance.
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The concept of social distance derives originally from the German born
sociologist Georg Simmel. Writing in the early twentieth century, Simmel conceived
of social distance as a complex interpretation of sociability, as forms of distance
in both a geometric and a metaphoric sense. In modern social science, it
has increasingly been seen as a measure of intimacy between groups and individuals.
In turn, the degree of intimacy directly affects the degree of influence that
one individual may have over another.
There are good reasons for believing that the skillful management of social distance
is becoming even more important for leaders. Hierarchies, for example, are
becoming flatter, partly for cost control reasons but mainly to increase speed
of response to customer desires and market changes. Hierarchies have always been
much more than structural devices. They have also been sources of meaning for people.
Moving through stable hierarchies gave the illusion of becoming more of a leader.
Indeed, the "lazy" senior executive relied on the crutch of hierarchy to
establish social distance, jealously guarding their status privileges as a
way of establishing their difference.
Those days are gone. Leaders now need distance to establish perspective, to
see the big things that may shape the future of the organization, and closeness,
to know what is really going on inside their business; and they cannot
rely on hierarchy to supply the former...
Read the article. Back to top
Oprah: A Case Study Comes Alive
| Writing a business case
on the icon of daytime television and chief executive
of a major media empire was challenge enough for
HBS professor Nancy Koehn and colleagues. Oprah
Winfrey's visit to campus to talk with graduating
students made it ample reward. | |
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I was interested in what it is about Oprah
that business leaders can learn from in the twenty-first century.
—Nancy Koehn
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The best and brightest executives in the world are common visitors to the
MBA classrooms at Harvard Business School, giving students a personal opportunity
to talk to the likes of Ann Fudge, Lou Gerstner, Meg Whitman, and Jack Welch.
Still, when Professor Nancy Koehn introduced her guest on the last day of class
this past spring, "everyone did a double take," Koehn recalls. Oprah Winfrey was
in the house.How the icon of daytime television and chief executive of a major
media empire came to HBS after three years of effort is a story in itself. And
what she told students brought them a unique perspective about leaders and
leadership in the twenty-first century. "I think she's a great bellwether for
the future of business," Koehn says. "Maybe she and her organization are on a
path that a lot of leaders and organizations are going to be on."...
Read the article. Back to top
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Small Groups, Big Ideas
"If someone has an idea for a new
product ... they have to find peers in the organization who will support the
idea and work with them."
--John Sawyer, University of Delaware
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W.L. Gore believes its egalitarian workforce philosophy--no titles,
workers collaborating in small teams--fuels creativity and innovation.
But as global expansion raises the need for more formalized practices,
can the company maintain itself?
manufacturing company W.L. Gore & Associates, the unconventional
workplace culture has become nearly as legendary as the company’s
weather-resistant Gore-Tex synthetic fabric is ubiquitous. There is the
story of the employee who told company founder Bill Gore that she had to
attend an outside meeting where hosts would expect her to have a job
title--a custom banished by Gore, who believed that such distinctions
stifled freedom, communication and creativity. He jokingly suggested that
she call herself "supreme commander." The employee reportedly liked it so
much she had business cards printed with that inscription.Over the years,
the Newark, Delaware, manufacturer has grabbed the lead in numerous markets
through technological breakthroughs. That strategy has been facilitated in
large part by Gore’s unorthodox workforce management practices, such as a
"flat lattice" organizational structure by which the company strives to
encourage creativity. "We work hard at maximizing individual potential,
maintaining an emphasis on product integrity and cultivating an environment
where creativity can flourish," says Terri Kelly, the company’s new president
and CEO. "A fundamental belief in our people and their abilities continues to
be the key to our success, even as we expand globally." In many ways, little
has changed during the history of the 48-year-old firm...
Read the article. Back to top
Firms Look To Workers To Help Contain [Health Care] Costs
A new survey finds that health care cost are still a source of stress for
employees and companies continue to explore cost management strategies.
Despite a deceleration in the annual rate of cost growth, health insurance
expenses continue to be a major source of stress for employers. That would
explain why company leaders say they are exploring several cost management
strategies to continue battling expenses, according to a forthcoming joint
survey by the National Business Group on Health and Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
The survey includes responses from 585 large employers from a cross section
of industries. The companies collectively employ 13 million workers. Complete
survey results will be released March 16. Companies have already taken measures
at the HR level to stem unnecessary spending, such as...
Read the article. Back to top
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Where America's Good Jobs Will Be
The American job-generation machine rolls on.
The country will create 19 million new payroll jobs in the decade to 2014,
according to projections by the U.S. Department of Labor, more than one new job
for every seven that now exist. But that doesn't mean they will be evenly spread
across the economy. So whether you are setting out on your career or looking to
take the next step up the ladder, you need to know where the jobs will be if you
want to take advantage...
Read the article. Back to top
The Boss And You
Write this down: Your boss isn't your best friend, a babysitter or an ogre.
If you're lucky, your boss is competent, a mentor interested in your advancement
and confident in your abilities. A good boss depends on you. The reward for
good work is challenging assignments in the future. In return, make your boss
look good to The Grand Pooh-Bahs who inhabit the executive suite and the corner
offices. If nothing else, boosting your boss will advance your career.
(See: "I Pledge Allegiance To My Company.")"The relationship with your boss
is a partnership," says Jane Boucher, author of How To Love The Job You Hate:
Job Satisfaction for the 21st Century. "It takes effort to built the relationship
and nurture it. You have to communicate well, avoid confrontations and
resolve differences in a positive way." That sounds simple enough, but many
employees get bogged down in small details and lose sight of what's important...
Read the article. Back to top
How We Get Fat
At one point in nearly everyone's life there comes a moment when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror or shop window and think, "Whoa, I gotta lose some weight."
It's not like it's a big surprise. Weight-gain is not a head cold or a boil
that magically appears overnight. Like muscle, it's something that increases
gradually with time and with your complete awareness and collaboration. Except,
of course, that building muscle is hard and takes lots of exercise, whereas
getting fat is pretty easy and requires no exercise at all...
Read the article. Back to top
Ten Diets That Work
There are two eternal truths about diets: One, if properly followed they
will result in weight loss; and two, most people will cheat.
Only an iron will, an in-house nutritionist or numbed taste buds can guarantee
a successful diet. But this isn't just a question of discipline. It's also
boredom, timing and preconditioning. For example, an athlete accustomed to
consuming large amounts of food will find it hard to reduce his or her caloric
intake when no longer in training. Even if the foods are tasty--the Atkins diet
actually encourages people to eat bacon and butter--people will hunger for
the forbidden. The reason is that many diets are too restrictive and are not
designed to be sustained over time. For example, go to a spa, drink lots of
water, go for hikes, do yoga, eat 1,000 calories a day and lose weight.
Within a short time of coming home, though, the weight that had been lost,
like the prodigal son, has now returned...
Read the article. Back to top
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Ouch! With sex injuries, love really hurts
The British erotic retail chain Ann Summers recently released a poll asking
people if they had ever been injured during sex. One in three said they hurt
themselves somewhat routinely, though the injuries were about what you might
expect: rug burns (to, ahem, the knees), muscle pulls, a conk on the noggin
from, say, banging into the headboard. But at Sexploration we hear stories,
sometimes from emergency room doctors in bars. By the third martini, the
stories often begin with, "You wouldn’t believe what I saw last night…" And
so I decided to call around to emergency rooms and ask sober ER docs about
the things they see, and, more importantly, what advice they might have based
on their experiences, not only how to avoid the damage, but how to handle the
delicate task of seeking help once the damage is done...
Read the article. Back to top
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The Ethics Squeeze
When business and ethics collide, HR is often caught in the middle.
Here's how some HR professionals have responded.
Bruce was still in his first month at a new job when he discovered that
his employer was hiring illegal immigrants. "Holy cow," he remembers telling
his wife. "I've gotten into a mess!" Bruce is one of several members of the
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) who responded to our invitation
to tell HR Magazine about ethical dilemmas they've encountered in the workplace.
To protect their privacy, we have used fictitious names and omitted specific
company information. When Bruce was recruited for the HR director position at
his former employer, he was initially excited. The job offered a substantial
salary increase, a car allowance, a very generous bonus plan and the possibility
of a future promotion—something not available at his previous company. He did,
however, have one qualm: He had heard rumors that the large Midwestern firm
hired undocumented immigrant workers. When Bruce asked about these rumors,
his interviewer admitted there had been a problem in the past, but assured him
"they had cleared that situation up and I should not be concerned."...
Read the article. Back to top
Preserving Restless Top Performers
Retaining Repatriates
Value and retain repatriates
by managing their expectations,
keeping communications open and
capitalizing on their expertise.
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Keep your top performers engaged so they don’t jump ship once job opportunities arise.
Ah, spring is just around the corner, and spring means new life and new
opportunities to all of us on this lovely planet: plants, animals—and those
top performers in your office who you just can’t live without. Have no doubt:
Survey after survey reveals that some 50 percent to 75 percent of employees say
they will leave their current companies once the job market starts heating up.
Members of your staff may be no exception this spring. How do you identify
subordinates who may be vulnerable to becoming “recruiters’ bait,” and, more
important, what can you do now to reinvigorate their loyalty to your company so
they don’t leave when temptation calls? First, remember that it’s not so much
employee satisfaction that’s at issue as much as employee engagement.
Keeping subordinates engaged in their work and providing feedback that makes
them feel like they make a true difference indirectly helps them build their
skill sets. In fact, the glue that binds someone to any company at any given
time is the learning curve. Help them to better themselves while benefiting
your company, and they’ll be both satisfied and engaged. No amount of money
will be able to entice them away...
Read the article. Back to top
A Crowded Space
A growing HRO market has attracted more new providers. What does it mean for HR?
While the overall marketplace for business process outsourcing (BPO) has been
somewhat tepid, the number of human resource outsourcing (HRO) deals—which is
a subset of BPO—has been a notable bright spot for the industry. That demand
has lured providers into the HRO space—so many, in fact, that competition for
business is heating up and may result in lower costs and improved service for
some HR clients...
Read the article. Back to top
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