Is it time for chief culture officers to emerge in the workplace? Is this what it will take to provide a bridge between executive leadership, business culture and an increasingly disaffected workforce? That’s what was on our minds at TalentCulture this week…
Human Resources…what does it mean to most people in today’s workplace? HR is usually seen less a curators of workplace culture and more as the police brought in to direct traffic or quell a riot. So how do we change it up? What can we do to add value?
I’d like to talk about several pet theories about employer/employee relationships. First, employees work to make money. Second, it’s Maslow’s world, and we just live in it. So what does this mean for the world of work? Let’s look closer…
Why is employee retention such a difficult job, at a time when many companies are scoring record profits and sitting on cash? Some people say, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But many HR practitioners admit that the recruiting process is broken — and they’re unsure about how to turn it around.
Innovation and entrepreneurship, paired with good old-fashioned hard work, have created a new era of “fringe” benefits. But despite all the fancy tricks organizations offer these days, it seems like they may not get it. Recognition 101 = Listening.
Because we don’t blink here at TalentCulture, this seems like a good time to talk about the elephant in the room: job haves and have nots. But we are talent strategy professionals. It’s our job to think and talk about these things. So together, perhaps we can generate some solutions…
Is it really a small world after all when it comes to human capital management? Is it possible to balance a global workforce so it functions as one big happy team? Can domestic leadership spur international success? These are the questions we’ll ponder in the TalentCulture community…
“It seems to me, while it’s true that every dog will have his day — when all the bones are buried there is barely time to go outside and play…” —Neil Peart At least we all agree that 50 clicks to apply for a job online is frustrating, even egregious. Mercy, 10 clicks is like 49 years in dog years these days — millions of automated job application processes painfully processed each year. It’s “customer service” crystal clear that the more hoops you make prospects and customers jump through, the less likely they’re going to jump. Same with job candidates and current
It’s an understatement to say that first contact with a recruiter can be stressful. Like a “close encounter” with a space alien – job applicants never really quite know what to expect. The ramifications can be profound – even if those consequences are unintended. So what can we, as talent-minded professionals, do to improve that first impression? How can we lead the way to better outcomes?
Most businesses around the world are small. Small businesses generate most new jobs. Most full-time and part-time jobs exist at larger companies. And all in between is the continuing rise of the freelance nation. Now, while many of us who participate regularly in the weekly #TChat Twitter Chat are unemployable freelance free spirits who wax poetically — and I say that with all due respect — I’d argue that most of those full-time and part-time jobs are on the job, meaning required to be in the office, in periodic collectives to individual desk time, most of the time. My fellow free spirits may throw
Do you work with the person in the next cube, or is your closest associate half a world away? Do you work in an office with walls or an Internet café? Is your favorite mode of communication a quick water cooler chat, an IM or a detailed email? Are your go-to teammates working on your current project, with you, or working on other projects, elsewhere? Today it could be any or all of the above as people find themselves working in geographically distributed multigenerational teams. Even independent contributors work on teams. Whether you’re in an office or a cube, a train
An article in Knowledge @ Wharton on the issue of declining employee loyalty struck a chord with me. Our recent #TChat about brand humanization, employee engagement, and multigenerational workplaces also surfaced this as a consistent theme from our community: Leaders and HR practitioners are worried about employee loyalty and the costs, both organizational and financial, of less-loyal employees. In multi-generational workplaces, declining loyalty seems more apparent than ever. Younger workers are less attached to brands and more attached to causes and missions. Today, workplaces must offer not only relevant work, fair compensation, and clear goals: There also must be a shared
Here’s an interesting people factoid: At least three generations are playing in the workplace sandbox today, with a fourth set to join soon. The Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y are about to welcome Gen Z, sometimes called Gen 9/11. And we have more expected to arrive in the next decade. While the entrance of a new generation into the workplace often signals the exit of another, we don’t expect Boomers to move on to retirement as quickly as anticipated. Longer lifespans, better healthcare and a failing economy are creating unusual pressure on would-be retirees, keeping many in the workplace — and
Brand issues have been a hot button topic for us at The World of Work as of late. Employee brand has given way to employer brand — many companies find that their on-staff brand ambassadors have built huge personal brands and followings, but have failed to transfer that value to their employers. Personal branding has lost some of its shine, as pundits from the HR camp point out that personal brand cannot be allowed to trump employer brand when the force of an individual’s personal brand outweighs the messages and values of the company brand. So, after a couple of years of tentative introduction,
There’s a fun event today, Wed May 16th – A Live Social HR Camp being hosted from Vancouver, BC Canada and six other locales spread across four countries. It’s the first-ever SocialHRCamp, an un-conference aimed at helping HR professionals collaborate to determine what it takes to leverage and integrate social media within the workplace. Pretty cool stuff. Also, check out Hashcaster for the live tweets and of course your favorite Twitter client. I’m also excited to play hostess, speaker for our Boston, MA event that will take place the first week of December here at Google Cambridge — Please stay tuned for
Employers are using social media to put a shine on brands. That’s no surprise, but what may be is the degree to which they’re letting employees’ voices be heard as part of that brand message — pretty exciting times for brands. Not all leader’s feel comfortable with the approach, however; we have witnessed many a branded message gone haywire and plenty of companies that wished they could have retracted tweets. It’s a strategy not without risk: Some individuals have strong personal brands, which may dilute the employer’s brand. Yet, since most employees have ready access to social media, the strategy has the feel of inevitability.
It’s an old television show, but some in our community will recognize “The Six Million Dollar Man” in this week’s World of Work #TChat forum. I’m a complete sucker for pop culture in all forms so I could not resist this eight track flashback (HA) blast from the past. In anything but the smallest of organizations, you simply can’t be a leader without a solid team to back you up. It just doesn’t work, which is why there are so many books, columns, blogs and tweets about leadership. Yet leadership is an elusive trait for many people. Not everyone is a
Successful talent strategy requires much more than filling open job requisitions. Look closer at your organizational culture — what does it say about your company?
In business we’re always looking for trustworthy answers from leaders and employees, so why not borrow a method that’s worked well in another industry? Bloggers, writers, journalists — they learn a few things early on or along the way: how to write pyramid style, how to interview, the right questions to ask, and so on. There’s a standard set of questions: the who, what, when, where, why and how. It’s a simple approach with a little magic, and it usually elicits trustworthy answers. For this week’s World of Work #TChat, we’ll look at the five Ws that can lead to a culture of workplace innovation.
As a general rule (it’s part of my personality really) I try to withhold judgment, being an open-minded seeker of people talent in all forms and shapes entails this, but I’ve just been given an opportunity to be officially judgmental. HRO Today Forum, a lively and informative event for the HR and talent management industry, has invited me and several of my colleagues and friends to serve as judges for the 2012 HRO Today Forum’s Startup America Partnership iTalent Contest. The panel of judges — I’m still amazed and honored to be included — will review the latest HR, recruiting and talent
Understanding talent vitals, the heartbeat of your business — you don’t often hear the term “vital signs” applied outside healthcare, but in my Leadership and HR circles I’m hearing more people talking about “talent vitals,” so the term appears to have crossed the chasm. I’m all for bridging gaps between your people talent and metrics. Because it has, and because we’d like to know what you all think, talent vitals will be the topic for this week’s World of Work #TChat. If we go with the healthcare root of the term, a vital sign is one that indicates a state of health in
Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, is one of the informal definitions of absurdity — and insanity. Yet many businesses and leaders do just that. They repeat what they’ve always done, year after year, even as agile competitors swoop into their markets and blow up old business models. Google, Amazon, Apple — all have turned on their heads the old ways of getting things done, and the search engines, bookstores and computer consumer electronics companies blindsided by the innovation have fallen by the wayside. These aren’t one-trick ponies, either: These are innovative companies in the truest
Remember the enthusiasm for our first Social Talent Show? Well, now it’s rolling, and we’re working hard for you guys to prepare an awesome, disruptive and fun conversation this Wednesday. With our guest Bennett Resnik, founder of The Hands We Shake, we’ll chat about mapping the social graph within and outside the enterprise — i.e., retaining your best talent by understanding how they interact with others inside and outside your company. I’m looking forward to our conversation on Wednesday, because the world is changing dramatically, in terms of leadership and workplace. Addressing that will help us build the future of work and make it
We all live in social communities — not just physical neighborhoods, but online communities where people live and engage. Pick your passion, and there’s a social community for it.
We all live in social communities — not just physical neighborhoods, but online communities where people live and engage. Pick your passion, and there’s a social community for it. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn come to mind at first, but the list includes more interest-specific communities, too — e.g., BeKnown for job seekers, Ravelry for knitters and fiber artists, Orchid for jewelers, or the Steve Hoffman Forum for audiophiles. Pretty exciting, really — it’s why we here at TalentCulture and #TChat have been talking about talent communities for several months. But what about the concept of talent communities — are we really discovering the best talent available in these online communities?
