HRGuru

Great companies maintain their competitive advantage by almost unfailingly “getting the right people on the bus”. The first link in the chain is sourcing. Top sourcing and recruiting professionals implement and even invent “next” practices but they also have a solid grasp on the fundamentals. They are forecasters, strategic planners, savvy marketers, analysts and futurists. A profile of today’s top sourcing ...

Earlier this week, we presented six reasons why companies do drug testing in the workplace. Today, we offer an opposing viewpoint. We suggest that you read both articles, should you be considering a drug testing program. Although there are very good reasons to incorporate drug testing in a drug abuse prevention program, there are also good reasons to not include drug ...

Three waves of change are converging worldwide to create a talent tsunami in the workforce, shifting power from the employer to the talented individual. Those three waves are (1) demographic changes, (2) candidate empowerment, and (3) the increasing value of talented employees relative to other success factors. Recruiters and managers who ignore this tsunami will be swept away; those who take ...

Loyalty in the workplace may sound old-fashioned, but look around. Many organizations regularly conduct employee satisfaction surveys, solicit preferences on benefits and career development, and gather other work-related details. These efforts are often part of larger strategic initiatives to retain top performers, boost morale, and identify problems early on. It might seem obvious that success begins with employees’ willingness to share ...

In Mid-April I travelled to Bangalore, India to deliver a two-day workshop on Advanced Talent Management. The workshop is aimed at sophisticated and senior talent management and HR professionals (most of whom will have read books like “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman and other authors like Jim Collins, Marcus Buckingham, Jeffrey Pfeffer, etc.). I facilitate this workshop throughout Asia, ...

The definition of HR transformation has evolved out of a number of perceived and real pressures on the HR function. The function is expected to support the business, provide the right direction for the people management strategy, and then execute the strategy. It also has to demonstrate an improvement in value, yet at the same time carry out cost-heavy administration. In ...

There’s an interesting guest post on Customers Rock! about customer experience and emotion by Colin Shaw, author of The DNA of Customer Experience. He writes that companies still don’t get the reality that more than half of a customer experience is about emotions – feelings that can either drive value or destroy it. So when he meets with companies, he asks ...

One of my former clients, a small department of a large organization, engages in a morning coffee klatch – staff arrives on or before 8 AM, turn on their computers, and then gather around the table in a small lunch room for coffee, tea, cereal, and/or a variety of goodies available. (The office always has a generous assortment of baked goods ...

Identify their value-add to your current organizational needs. Keep your staffing indicators ahead of the game in regards to long term human capital investments and returns. Set appropriate expectations and approach it with competence and not wait for the moment of negotiation that will delay the start date. Being competitive in the global economy is important.

Employer programs for drug abuse prevention have three major goals. First, to keep drug abusers out of the work force by screening job applicants. Second, to deter employees from developing a drug abuse problem. And finally, to rehabilitate employees who have a drug abuse problem. However, employers should keep in mind that this last goal - rehabilitation - is the ultimate ...

How many people do you know who use “Attitude Adjuster” as a business title? Kevin Burns does. He specializes in Corporate Personal Development, helping companies develop their people in order to develop better and stronger organizations. His work is based on the premise “that business gets better when the people in the business get better.” I met Kevin earlier this year ...

What's a manager to do about feelings in business? Why, manage them, of course. Not to mock your question in the slightest; we're dead serious. Because if there's one thing that doesn't get enough blame for undermining productivity, creativity, and the smooth functioning of business, it's the mismanagement of emotion in the workplace. Too many managers let people go, emotionally speaking, ...

Smaller businesses are significantly less likely than larger ones to offer health insurance, surveys show, but there are small firms that offer comprehensive benefits and do so with excellence. Renee Schaaf, vice-president of retirement and investor services for The Principal Financial Group (PFG), spoke recently to Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein about a national contest her firm sponsors to identify ...

Recently we were asked by “People and Management” a popular HR magazine in India to explain Web 2.0 and SaaS to their readers. Our thoughts were published in the magazine as an article titled “Web 2.0 and The SaaS Factor for HR“. If you visit Internet often, you will have, most certainly, come across the two buzz-words, Web 2.0 and SaaS. ...

It is important that an employer ensure that his or her employees are fully informed of company benefit programs and policies as well as other matters of general interest. For example, the company employee handbook could be supplemented by a regularly published (in print or electronically or both) company newsletter or other written forms of communication. Not only would the newsletter ...

"To be successful in 2009 menas doing the extraordinary. It means focusing even harder on your customer, improving the quality of service, being very efficient and ensuring that the peole that are employed in your