Depending on your industry and your geographic location, you spent the last 10 years or so positioning your company as a fun place to work. Maybe your company isn’t so much fun these days, but it’s still nice to have that reputation that yours is a company where time flies. In fact, maybe that feel is still in your online careers tab.
One company I’ve worked with was so committed to being a tantalizing magnet for high-talent, high-tech resumes that it actually featured a poker game in progress, with one guy looking up into the camera making the L on his forehead. Yeppir, real fun place to work! Fun, that is, for people who don’t want to work. The problem is that over time the early employees grew up. Got married. Had kids. Took their work very seriously, especially as … Continue Reading
I love my job. Why? I interview people who love their work for a living. I interview all sorts of people (CIA spy, hair stylist, bank chairman, nurse, accountant, airport director, animal shelter worker, secretary, beekeeper, you name it, I love it). I especially love talking with HR leaders. There’s something very cool about getting these folks to open up and talk from their hearts! (Don’t believe me? Click here and watch all the video clips you have time for. Then come back and watch the rest.)
Anyway, at the end of each interview I give HR folks a little thank-you present, which is an interview question that they can use while talking to job candidates. Their eyes light up, they smile at all the possibilities that question holds for them, and they always write it down. I’ve never shared … Continue Reading
I’m sure you’ve heard at least one story of the hapless HR person who, after having plowed through a stack of lay-off packages and sending employees tearfully on their way, is told, “You have one more package to prepare.” What’s worse? The feeling of betrayal? Or the self-recrimination that you should have seen it coming? Actually, does it really matter? Either way, it sucks.
As far as your HR career is concerned, there is little but downside to the lay-off process. You know more than you want to know about your co-workers. If the company is big enough, or your community small enough, you know more about the future of your entire region than you want to know. You start to feel like the grim reaper just going to the supermarket to replenish your Tums. You can’t help the feeling … Continue Reading
There’s this guy I know who had what can only be best described as a Jerry Maguire moment. In a fit of pique he unburdened himself about his job in a blog (but had the presence of mind to show it to his wife first for some serious vetting). I wasn’t there myself, mind you, but I’ve heard from several reliable sources that people actually stood up at their cubes the next morning and applauded. Sounds a little Hollywood to me, maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. But it definitely seemed to have happened in everyone’s hearts. Because the story prevails.
This is a company that has blogs galore, but everyone knows what you mean when you’re talking about this guy’s posting. You kind of say “the blog” in a lower, more momentous voice, like you would say, “the blob.”… Continue Reading
If you have been following my work for the last 20 years or so, you know that I’m probably the planet’s biggest HR groupie/geek out there. Maybe you’ve read my book HR From the Heart, which I co-authored with Libby Sartain. Or you saw my article, “Why I Love HR,” which I wrote in response to Fast Company’s nasty gram a few summers ago. Or I’ve interviewed you. Or you’ve attended one of my speeches celebrating HR. I love HR. So, you’ll know that I say this with deep respect and abiding affection: HR deserves more respect than it gets!
I just have to ask: Don’t you deserve to be engaged too?
After all, engagement initiatives usually come out of your budget. You work hard to measure and then improve your employees’ experience on the job … Continue Reading
I met Jim Hardeman when I was interviewing people who love their work for my latest book, Money With Meaning: 42 Practical Ways to Discover Your Calling and Land Your Dream Job Now. He was the head of a corporate program that helped employees suffering from domestic violence. This is something he knew a lot about. His dad brought violence into the family in the most gruesome of ways. And helping other people save themselves and their families became his calling.
I’m bringing him up here because his story is not so much a story of surviving a brutal start in life. It’s about the help of people all along the way who noticed him, saw his potential and gave him that little bit of extra help that changed his life at each turning point. From the teacher who … Continue Reading
