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Picture of Meghan M. Biro

Meghan M. Biro

Like most people who gravitate toward HR, Meghan loves people. Early in her career, Meghan realized she was a rare people person who understood tech. As a high tech recruiter, Meghan worked with hundreds of companies, from early-stage startups to global brands like Microsoft, IBM and Google. Meghan founded TalentCulture in 2008 to lead a conversation about the future of work with her peers in HR and leadership. These days, she is consistently included in lists of top online influencers and writes about HR tech and talent management at Forbes.com, SHRM.org and a variety of other media outlets. Her career background spans recruiting, tech, marketing, branding and digital media. As an HR tech analyst, author and brand strategist, Meghan is sought after for her ideas about the future of work, is a regularly featured speaker at global business conferences, and serves on boards for leading HR and technology brands.
Picture of Meghan M. Biro

Meghan M. Biro

Like most people who gravitate toward HR, Meghan loves people. Early in her career, Meghan realized she was a rare people person who understood tech. As a high tech recruiter, Meghan worked with hundreds of companies, from early-stage startups to global brands like Microsoft, IBM and Google. Meghan founded TalentCulture in 2008 to lead a conversation about the future of work with her peers in HR and leadership. These days, she is consistently included in lists of top online influencers and writes about HR tech and talent management at Forbes.com, SHRM.org and a variety of other media outlets. Her career background spans recruiting, tech, marketing, branding and digital media. As an HR tech analyst, author and brand strategist, Meghan is sought after for her ideas about the future of work, is a regularly featured speaker at global business conferences, and serves on boards for leading HR and technology brands.

The Disconnect Between our Educational System and Organizational Demand

Does our educational system leave new graduates at a disadvantage? The U.S. educational system has long been considered one of the best in the world, but in recent years, it’s stagnated. According to the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (a triennial global study), the U.S. was the lowest-performing industrialized country—below average in math, and only hovering around average in science and reading. Middle of the road won’t cut it in this global economy. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently ranked the U.S. as third on the Global Competitiveness Index, behind Switzerland and Singapore, pointing to the quality of education

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Time For A New Leader In The C-Suite?

Business is remaking itself, and a concern for company culture appears to be high on the list of must-have skills (led by people who can add and subtract, of course). This truly makes me happy. What about you? I’ve been touting the benefits of company culture for a many years now and am very interested, but a bit skeptical to be honest, to read of this change in direction. Isn’t the C-Suite crowded already? There’s the CEO, CFO and COO, usually long-term appointments, flanked by the CIO, CSO and CMO, with average job tenures of two years. Usually the top HR

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The Impact of Technology on HR and What’s Ahead

Rapid changes in technology have affected businesses in more ways than we can count, from globalization and organizational adjustments to a workforce clamoring for remote and mobile job opportunities—and human resources has had to adapt swiftly. If HR wants to continue to play a critical role in helping businesses anticipate and manage organizational change, it must have technology at its core. With Millennials making up more than half of the current workforce—and predicted to make up 75 percent by 2020—HR is going to have to embrace and build on technological advancements to meet both employee expectations and business requirements. Talent analytics

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Social Learning Leadership: A New Panacea For Ignorance?

A dear friend’s TWINS (yes all caps) just entered a prestigious New England university. They are bright, driven, focused students and they’ll do well. They’d better, because it will cost my friend north of $100K a year to keep them in New England college splendor. Smiles. It would have been more costly at Harvard, which in 2012-2013 provided cost guidelines for undergraduates in excess of $62,000. Of course a recent graduate, if he or she were fortunate enough to find a full-time job (almost half are not so lucky, according to a recent study) might expect to receive an annual salary

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#WorkTrends Preview: Where Have All the Mentors Gone?

There are a myriad of benefits to well-designed and well-executed mentoring relationships in the workplace. However, it appears that the practice of mentoring is starting to taper off and, in some cases, disappear altogether. During this upcoming #WorkTrends conversation, we’ll discuss the risks and rewards of mentoring, identify some of the reasons mentoring is disappearing, and explore how to reintroduce these important business relationships. Along with our knowledgeable guests Jonathan Segal, a partner in Duane Morris’ Employment Group, and Sue Meisinger, a consultant and speaker on HR leadership issues, some of the things we’ll discuss include: What exactly mentoring is (as

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Who Owns Your Company’s Brand

I’ve written a lot about the positive aspects of brand, brand humanization, allowing employees to be brand ambassadors, and to free up their personal brand to evolve just as real people do. What I haven’t talked about as much is who owns your company’s brand. Does the organization? Do the brand ambassadors? Where do you draw the line, and when? I’ll tell you a story about a software technology company (one of my clients) which hired a well-known thought leader to be the brand ambassador for one of its product lines. The company allowed the brand ambassador to Tweet and blog

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#WorkTrends Recap: Diminishing Unconscious Bias in Hiring

Today’s #WorkTrends show addressed the topic of how to diminish unconscious bias in hiring–a topic that constantly plagues HR departments. Every day, unconscious biases influence hiring decisions. This issue undercuts the culture and success of many companies, from start-ups to Fortune 500s. According to our guest, author Gail Tolstoi-Miller, companies must build awareness of the biases that take place in the recruitment and hiring processes and take action. We discussed the reality that organizations need to implement formal, on-going training for people in decision-making functions, and she also shared how to combat and diminish bias throughout the hiring process. Some of

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Want to Recruit Great Talent? Focus on Your Online Presence

There’s no question that technology is a game changer today—no matter what your industry. One of the greatest changes happening with the advances in mobile technology, for example, allows businesses to both find and work with employees located quite literally around the world. While this opens up millions of hiring opportunities for recruiters, it’s also a bit of a Faustian deal. While recruiters may be able to pick and choose from a vast pool of talent that pool is so huge, that you can end up wasting time while attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff. What do you need?

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What HR Technology Can Learn from Minecraft

Minecraft, a video game that lets you build things with virtual blocks, has been a huge sensation since it hit the market in 2009. Everyone, children, and adults, seems to be obsessed with it; the game currently boasts more than 100 million players. Of course, there are behavioral and parental experts concerned that too much screen time playing Minecraft may affect social skills. However, contrary to this belief, experts have found that video games can offer quite a few benefits—including building social skills. Building social skills is important for children, but children aren’t the only ones who can benefit from the

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How HR Teams Can Use Cloud Technology for a Competitive Advantage

Nothing kills a good mood like a pile of administrative paperwork—a mark of many interactions with the human resources department. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Paper-based systems for everything from onboarding to attendance to payroll are moving to the cloud using new systems that can help HR work better. A vast majority of businesses are already using cloud technology in one way or another; in fact, one industry watcher observed that it’s quickly becoming the norm. Including HR in the transformation can automate and streamline critical functions like payroll and benefits administration—a move that can save money, improve

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Will Technology Replace HR in 2016?

We’ve been hearing about technology replacing humans in HR for more than five years. Algorithms, Talent Analytics, and Predictive Behavior Technology are certainly having a significant impact on HR, and making it much more of a science. Yet there’s an issue because technology is fallible too. What about the other side of the argument, that HR is an art because, at its heart, it’s about people? Which is it? Art? Or science? I say both. Today’s human resources professional resides somewhere between the warmth of personal relationships and the cold truth of data. For years, we’ve watched HR change before our

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#WorkTrends Preview: Diminishing Unconscious Bias in Hiring

During this #WorkTrends, we are going to discuss how to diminish unconscious bias in hiring. Every day, unconscious biases influence hiring decisions. This issue undercuts the culture and success of many companies, from start-ups to Fortune 500s. According to our guest, author Gail Tolstoi-Miller, companies must build awareness of the bias that takes place in the hiring process and take action. She will share why organizations should implement formal training for people in decision-making functions, and how to combat and diminish bias throughout the hiring process. #WorkTrends Event: Diminishing Unconscious Bias in Hiring Tune in to our LIVE online podcast Wednesday,

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Leaders: America Needs You To Be Its Batman

If you’re under 50, there probably hasn’t been, in your memory, a time of such paralyzing uncertainty. Sure, each decade since the 60s has seen its share of unpleasant news. The 60s saw JFK assassinated and the ramp-up of the Vietnam War. The 70s had Watergate, the fall of Nixon and the undignified scramble out of Vietnam. Jimmy Carter’s botched Iran hostage rescue marked the 80s, and the 90s saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. 2000’s Y2K was followed in close order by the dot-com bust and 9/11. While each of these periods

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#WorkTrends Recap: Quicker & Better: The Importance of Speed & Productivity in Recruitment

Today’s #WorkTrends show addressed the importance of speed and productivity in the recruiting process – a topic that is constantly relevant. In a tight labor market with high demand for top talent, speed is critical to landing the best possible talent. We were joined by Kurt Jones, Director of Product Marketing for PeopleFluent. According to Kurt, recruiting leaders need to focus on all of the areas in their control to make sure their teams are performing at peak productivity and with a constant sense of urgency. Some of the things we discussed included: How much wasted time costs an organization Why

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Five Reasons Why Social Media Should be On Your HR Radar

Social media has become an incredibly valuable part of HR recruiting efforts, both for relationship building and to identify and vet top talent. And truthfully? If you’re not building social media into your recruiting efforts at this point, you’re not really recruiting on par with today’s industry standard. The HR industry is using social media to source and recruit top talent—and, social media is where the candidates are. In fact, two-thirds of hiring managers say they’ve found successful candidates through social media. Social media, already so effective at digitally bringing people together, facilitating the sharing of ideas, and spurring conversation, is

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5 Truths: Insourced Leaders Promote From Within

Insourced focused leaders should be tuning into ways to recruit and retain talent from within for strong results and increased employee satisfaction. When my parents started in the world of work, there was an unwritten rule: put in two to five years on the job with a set job description and title before making your next move. Impress people, work 50+ hours a week, learn everything, and become essential to the organization. It was a recipe for success pulled straight out of 50s movies, and it was the way to move up the corporate ladder. With every promotion, the interval between

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Are You A Social HR Leader?

The Olympics provide us with a way to celebrate our great human triumphs. During the Olympics, eyes from across the world are glued to television screens featuring the best in human athletic achievement. In all of these sports, there are great athletes (“employees”). Behind every great athlete, however, is a great coach (“manager”). These coaches don’t deal with attributes, issues, or algorithms – they deal with people, and their people have reached the pinnacle of athletic achievement. As companies become more driven by social communication and less by hierarchical interactions, HR becomes a center of risk rather than a risk manager.

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5 Leadership Behaviors Loyal Employees Trust

Is any relationship ever completely reciprocal? Not really, because one party always wields more power over the other. This is a human behavior dynamic that is tough to ignore, especially when we look deeper at workplace culture and team dynamics. There are leaders and followers, loved ones and lovers, employers and employees. We might like to think equality, common goals and unquestioned commitment are the norm but it simply doesn’t happen. It’s true in personal life and in the workplace. I recently spent a weekend at a high school graduation where teachers glowingly described the fairly small class as a group of

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#WorkTrends Preview: Quicker & Better: The Importance of Speed & Productivity in Recruitment

During this #WorkTrends this week, we are going to address the importance of speed and productivity in the recruiting process. In a tight labor market with high demand for top talent, speed is critical to landing the best possible talent. According to our guest, Kurt Jones with PeopleFluent, recruiting leaders need to focus on all of the areas in their control to make sure their teams are performing at peak productivity and with a constant sense of urgency. Guest host Cyndy Trivella and Kurt Jones will discuss: How much wasted time costs an organization Why speed and productivity should be top

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5 Rules Of Talent Engagement: Be A Global Leader

It’s a global, multigenerational world of work. And as if that’s not enough to deal with,many leaders find themselves managing geographically distributed work teams, often with wildly divergent schedules, personalities, cultural nuances, work habits, and  – this is the difficult part – job expectations. Take Sally, a CIO for a software company headquartered in New York. Sally works from her home near Boston. She manages two teams with thirty members each. Team TISI +% 1 has people in LA, London, and in New York. Team 2 has people in Munich, New York, Mumbai and a sole employee who works from home in

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#WorkTrends Recap: Career Jumping – Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Today’s #WorkTrends show focused on the topic of Career Jumping, what it is, why it happens, how to explore it for yourself, as well as how to retain top talent from making a jump. What an exciting topic! We were joined by Mike Lewis, founder of WhenToJump, a site and community devoted to stories, people, and ideas that help people figure out when to jump. Some of the things we discussed included: How to retain top talent from “jumping” A discussion on why top talent jump today more than ever before How to explore internal jumps The steps involved in making

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Not Offering Flex Time? You’re in Trouble

Everyone likes perks, and today, businesses are waking up to that fact. Many are offering “in-house” bonuses like fully stocked fridges, free gym passes and employee relaxation spaces with Ping Pong or Foosball tables. And while these benefits bring a sort of “laid back” vibe, this type of workplace environment isn’t for every business. But there is one perk that virtually any company — in any industry—would be wise to explore: Flex time. Flex time, allowing your employees to work flexible hours instead of the traditional 9-to-5 schedule, continues to increase in importance for workers across the age, gender, ethnic and culture spectrum.

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Move HR to the Cloud and See the Difference: 5 Reasons to Switch

Businesses are switching to the cloud faster than you can say, “I hate my filing cabinet,” and for good reason. Cloud technology can significantly improve a broad range of business processes. From the back office to the front desk, cloud technology is transforming the way we work–for the better. Take human resources. HR is seeing significantly positive results from switching to the cloud—so much so that 57 percent of companies plan to make the move within the next 18 months. Organizations that have adopted the cloud already—which may include data and security, payroll and benefits, or performance monitoring—describe how much easier

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5 Tips To Hire Right The First Time

HR lesson for 2016: Pay attention. Interviewing and hiring is never simple. Just like loving someone for all the wrong reasons, you can hire — or not hire someone — and err in judgment. Some of it has to do with them, but a lot of it has to do with us. Bottom line: Even if you’ve got the perfect candidate, creating a positive takeaway in terms of interviewing and the hiring process is critical. The first real portal into an employer brand is the recruiting and hiring process. But there are more ways to do it wrong that right. Here

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4 Ways To Define Trust In The New World Of Work

It’s no big revelation that trust is the gas the drives the car when it comes to relationships; without it, you may roll to a dismal halt. Families depend on it; marriages are built on it. Pretty much any kind of partnership requires it, and without, the foundation of nearly any relationship is seriously weakened. It’s no different at work. But defining trust in the workplace it is a little different. The meaning of trust hasn’t shifted. But the nature of how trust functions has. How? Geographically, demographically, even culturally, how we view trust and what it means has evolved, as

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