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| Volume 8, Best of 2008 |
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In This Best of 2008 Issue:
 20 'silver bullet' interview questions that ID great job applicants
25 good interview questions ... and 8 to avoid
New interview question: 'What's your favorite color?'
10 ways to help ease employees' pain at the pump
The 7 Most Dangerous Errors in Employee Handbooks
New president, new congress: 5 employment laws could reshape HR
Simple ways to salvage 'Below-Standard' employees
6 Best-Practice Tips From America's Top HR Departments
9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict
17 questions to determine if workers are fully engaged
Time to pay attention: the next work/Life benefit?
 Six good things that happen to HR pros during recessions
 The 7 toughest questions (and how to handle them)
 Your boss is a monkey
 The HR [professionals] personality
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20 'silver bullet' interview questions that ID great job applicants
Interview questions come in all flavors. Sometimes they’re straightforward, sometimes they're tricky and sometimes they’re just plain weird-"If you were an animal, what kind would you be?" But the best interview questions focus on what
applicants know how to do. Here are 20 questions you can use to elicit the information you need to pick the right person for the job...
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25 good interview questions ... and 8 to avoid
When preparing to interview job candidates, it’s important for supervisors to plan out their lines of questioning.
Decide which skills are most important for that position, then focus your questions on assessing those skills. Here are some sample questions to work from:
Employment history
1. If you had to evaluate your performance in your present job on a scale of ...
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New interview question: 'What's your favorite color?'
What do the colors people choose say about their suitability for a certain career?
CareerBuilder just unveiled a...
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10 ways to help ease employees' pain at the pump
Nearly a third of HR pros in a recent survey reported knowing at least one employee who quit in the past year because the high price of gas made the commute too expensive.
Some organizations are addressing the driving dilemma—and revving up their retention programs—by pushing telework and shorter workweeks. But other employers take an even more direct approach: paying for employees’ gas...
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The 7 most dangerous errors in employee handbooks
An employee handbook can be the foundation of employee performance and a shield against lawsuits ... or it can be a ticking time bomb that confuses employees and strips away your legal defenses.
It all depends on how well it's written and put to use. Too often, handbooks are inconsistent with the way business is actually conducted, or they mistakenly imply that workers have certain rights. Example: Say your progressive discipline policy
suggests that employees will be fired only for good cause. Such language can erase an employee's "at will" status and wipe away your right to fire the employee for any reason—or no reason at all. Even a statement about an initial "probationary period"
can suggest that workers are virtually guaranteed continued employment after a certain period of time. Here are the seven most common handbook mistakes to avoid:...
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New president, new congress: 5 employment laws could reshape HR
When Barack Obama takes office in January, get ready for the most sweeping employment-law changes the HR world has seen in years.
Attorney Mike Fox recently briefed HR pros on what to expect, possibly even in the first 100 days of the Obama administration. Here’s how to prepare...
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Simple ways to salvage 'below-standard' employees
Every manager faces employees who exhibit below-standard performance.
These aren’t terrible employees who should be shown the door, but they’re not achieving the quality or quantity of work they’re capable of. Unless the performance issue is addressed directly, it’ll only get worse. Too many managers try
to deal with such employees by sending subtle signals. Not smart. According to an OnPoint Consulting report, here are the five best ways to give below-standard workers a performance boost...
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6 best-practice tips from America's top HR departments
Even if your HR department has only two or three employees, it can still incorporate some of the best approaches to HR management used in the country’s top HR departments.
“You don’t have to be well-funded to focus on what’s good for your employees or the right thing for your business,” says Charles Tharp, co-director of the HR management department at Rutgers University. Tharp and other industry experts cite GE,
Coca-Cola, IBM, Google and PepsiCo as five of the top HR departments. They share some basic approaches to HR that can benefit much smaller departments, including:...
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9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict
Conflict happens in all corners of the workplace. But if issues aren't settled, bad things can happen: Good people quit, morale can plummet and, sometimes, violence can erupt. But you don't need to become a certified mediator to settle disputes.
You just need to understand some basics about human behavior, practice the fine art of paying attention and offer yourself as a neutral party who wants to resolve the problem. Whether you're a manager or not, you're forced into the situation of having
to negotiate conflicts between co-workers, customers and even friends and family. Here are nine insights and tricks of the trade...
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17 questions to determine if workers are fully engaged
Don’t think you can pick out disengaged workers from a lineup.
Employees usually check out mentally long before you spot any obvious performance drop-off. Find out whether your employees are fully engaged in their work by asking them these 17 questions. Plus, read seven tips for keeping your staff passionate about their jobs...
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Time to pay attention: the next work/Life benefit?
The average worker spends about two hours every day dealing with unnecessary interruptions, ranging from e-mails to instant messages to phone calls to visits from co-workers. Those interruptions cost businesses $590 billion a year in lost
productivity. HR professionals can help solve this problem at any organization. In fact, it could be the latest work/life benefit: time to pay attention...
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Six good things that happen to HR pros during recessions
Kris Dunn is vice president of human resources for SourceMedical in Birmingham, Alabama.
[Seriously though, my HR brethren, did you hear the news? Home Depot just threw a fastball at your head, announcing the layoff of more than 1,000 HR professionals. When’s the last time you heard of a triple-digit HR layoff, much less
one that rang up more than a thousand displaced human capitalists? The simple answer is, you haven’t—which should give you pause. There is good news and bad news related to the role of the HR manager/director during an economic slowdown. Let’s get the bad
news out of the way first. If your company has to cut headcount, you’ll more than likely be front and center in delivering the news. That’s a tough spot, and most of us have been there. On the plus side, you likely have the best skill set to handle this
task in a way that treats employees with what they deserve—class and respect. Now, let’s focus on the good news. There’s an opportunity in every crisis, and this one is
no different. You just have to squint to see it. With that in mind, here’s my list of Six Good Things That Happen to HR Pros During Recessions...]
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The 7 toughest questions (and how to handle them)
Managesmarter Classic: In the professional world, tough questions are as fundamental as paper clips and staples.
Starting with the employment interview and ranging through staff meetings, management reviews, informal briefings and formal presentations, almost every business encounter has the potential to draw dangerous crossfire. And in many circles, inquisitorial
grilling is as much a part of the business ritual as a handshake to seal a deal. Why do business people ask tough questions? Because they are mean-spirited? Perhaps. Because they want to test your mettle? Maybe. More likely it's because when you make a
presentation, you assume the role of a solicitor. In that role, you ask those you solicit (i.e., opposite parties, target audiences) to change. Most people are resistant to change and so they kick the tires. You are the tires. How then to avoid
damage from the kicks? How do you survive slings and arrows unleashed? How do you handle tough questions in the line of fire? The savage seven During my 40 years in the communication trade, which has ranged from control rooms in the CBS Broadcast Center
in Manhattan to the boardrooms of some of America's most prestigious corporations, I have heard — and have asked — tens of thousands of tough questions. But all of them
can be distilled into just seven types. [Here they are and here's how to handle them...]
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Your boss is a monkey
"Managing up" using the tricks of exotic-animal training.
Exotic-animal trainers need a great poker face. Let's say you're a trainer, and one day, a beluga whale spits a mouthful of cold water at you. Your first instinct will be to shriek or jump or curse, but any reaction will probably reinforce the
spitting. If you react, that whale will own you, and you'll be a Spit Bull's-eye for the rest of your life. Instead, you must ignore it and appear unfazed, expressionless -- a training technique called "least-reinforcing scenario," or LRS. The writer Amy
Sutherland studied animal trainers who could teach whales not to spit, dolphins to jump through hoops, and monkeys to ride skateboards. One day, it hit her: What if she used those techniques on her husband? This epiphany led her to write her witty and
engaging new book, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage. Shamu proves that behavioral training works on whales and husbands. But let's apply Sutherland's
approach to another irritable mammal: your boss. Maybe you should start treating him or her like an exotic animal. Say your boss is a yeller...
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The HR [professionals] personality
Data compiled exclusively for HRE suggests that while HR leaders share many personality traits with others in the C-suite, there are some key differences that could impact your effectiveness.
ertainly, career experience, skills and competencies are important components. But what about personality -- could that be a factor as well? Could one's inclinations and preferences, one's natural comfort level with certain activities, play a role in
the job of HR? Human Resource Executive® ventured to find that out by asking several leading assessment firms to take a look at the similarities and differences between the personalities of HR executives and leaders of other business functions, such as
sales, marketing, finance and operations. At our request, the firms pulled data from thousands of personality tests given to HR executives -- mostly vice presidents and above -- over a number of years. The results might surprise you. Although the
assessment firms all use different methods to look at personality, their findings were remarkably similar. In most -- though not all -- ways, HR executives and other executives are very much alike, according to the data. For example, they're equally
good at thinking strategically. But it's where the two groups diverge that the real difference becomes apparent. HR executives score much higher in traits such as...
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