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Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Astronology - Holidaze: Beating the Holiday Blues & Stress
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Happy Holidays!
-Andrew
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Do Something Nice for the Holidays
It doesn't have to be a large bonus or a lavish holiday party either. Do a dinner at a local restaurant or a happy hour at a local bar. Instead of counting days off until the end of the year, tell everyone they can either take a day between Christmas and New Years...or carry a roving holiday into next year. If you have employees out of town, help them to get to their families by buying their bus ticket or letting them leave earlier to make it on time.
And the good things you do don't have to be monetary in nature. Have everyone volunteer in a soup kitchen or do a bakeoff in the office with the donations going to charity. Surprise employees by shutting the office for an extra hour during lunchtime and putting on a movie in the conference room.
Trust me, little gestures will go a long way to employee satisfaction in 2011.
-Andrew
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Job Growth and Job Loss
In good news this morning, Bloomberg is reporting that jobless claims in the US unexpectedly fell to 420,000 last week. The bad news, though: "the total number of people receiving unemployment insurance and those getting extended payments rose." So what does that mean for hiring in the new year? "Fewer firings signal employers may be gearing up to add to their payrolls and help reduce a jobless rate hovering near a 26-year high. While the economy is gaining momentum heading into 2011, Federal Reserve policy makers said this week it isn’t strong enough to reduce unemployment."
And if you decide to look for one of those jobs in the new year, Simply Hired Blog has the best 50 careers of 2011 (H/T Wendy).
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Astronology - Bridging Generational Gaps Starts with RESPECT
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Friday, December 10, 2010
Encourage Employees to Talk About Themslves
There is a very fine line between too much information at work and being personable and sharing. Most of us work collaboratively while at our jobs but very few of us know that much about the people we work with. Some of that is intentional with employees failing to share the good or the bad when it could really help foster better communication with others. An employer should know when something bad is going on in an employee's life so they can maybe give them some extra time to deal with a sick parent or allow them to get out a little early on a Tuesday so they can go to physical therapy for that ailing back. And an employer should know when good things are happening with their employees so they can share in their joy of a birth of a new child or an engagement.
The problem is that the workplace isn't always an atmosphere conducive to sharing. Health issues aren't supposed to be talked about with certain people and employees may worry that revealing bad health may open them up to discrimination. A new child or a spouse could mean higher healthcare costs and make employees think that employers will hold that against them. Employees usually don't have incentive to share and that is what employers need to work to change. Reward and announce good news--even if it is personal. Allow employees to stretch vacation times if a loved one is dying or give them a holiday present of a new chair if they have a chronic bad back. When employees feel like they all know each other better, collaboration occurs even more.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Jobs are a'Opening
Also from The Journal, a question whether the tax freeze for the wealthy will create jobs (answer: probably not). This will certainly be an issue debated for the next two years until they have to talk about this issue once again.
Lastly, USA Today talks about Baby Boomers who are going back to work after they turn 65, mostly because of the increased age at which you can file for Social Security. But about 25% of these workers are unable to physically work at that age anyway, says the article, which, ironically, means that they will have to file for disability which would increase the imbalances of Social Security. With 25% of Boomers equaling about the population of New York State, this is not a small issue.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Disappearing Jobs, Fiancial Advice and King James
Want to know why you can't treat your employees better than their manager? Well, look at the situation going on in Miami with the Heat, their star player, LeBron James, and their head coach, Erik Spoelstra as told by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. This one passage should make most managers and Human Resources professionals cringe: "The fundamental problem for Spoelstra isn’t that James doesn’t respect coaches – he doesn’t respect people. Give LeBron this, though: He’s learned to live one way with the television light on, and another with it off. He treats everyone like a servant, because that’s what the system taught him as a teenage prodigy. To James, the coach isn’t there to mold him into the team dynamic. He’s there to serve him." Eek.
Most people don't want to invest their own pensions, 401(K)s or IRAs, but if you do, there may be a book by two former Wall Street honchos you may want to pick up. As told by the New York Times: "when Mr. Murray, a former bond salesman for Goldman Sachs who rose to the managing director level at both Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston, decided to cease all treatment five months ago for his glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, his first impulse was not to mourn what he couldn’t do anymore or to buy an island or to move to Paris. Instead, he hunkered down in his tiny home office here and channeled whatever remaining energy he could muster into a slim paperback. It’s called “The Investment Answer,” and he wrote it with his friend and financial adviser Daniel Goldie to explain investing in a handful of simple steps."
Happy Hanukkah to fall my fellow Jews out there. May your nights be full of light and your bellies be full of oily foods. Even without the presents, it's probably my favorite holiday.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Astronology - A Recap of The Road Show: What's New from the 2010 Human Resources Conferences
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Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving!
While you're busy shopping for presents between now and New Years, let us give you many presents as we provide great content here on the blog. Hope all of you have a great weekend of turkey (or tofurkey or turduken or turturkeykey) and football and family. Happy Thanksgiving!
-Andrew
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
What HR Can Learn From the Derek Jeter/Yankees Negotiations
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But that doesn't mean that similar things don't go on in your own company. How many employees do you currently manage who are unhappy with their salaries but their loss would sting your company more than the financial outlay? How many employers have employees that they can probably do without but have meant so much to an organization that added financial incentive to stay around (and maybe as a reward for past results) may be appropriate? How many times does this situation become contentious and lead to a standstill between the perceived value of the employee and the offering value of the company?
The problem is that it doesn't look good from either side, but the employer has to figure a way to solve it before the problem spreads to other employees. Can you imagine if all the Yankees free agents were involved in this much of a public spectacle over the contract negotiations? If the Yankees were actually playing right now (and corporate America rarely has an off-season like baseball does) imagine the distraction this would cause--is the proposed cost savings worth it? The lesson here is not to pay employees just because they become disgruntled or to reward bad behavior, but sometimes a little extra pay (or other types of incentives) goes a long way to making sure a dispute does not get out of hand. As many people would find it weird to see Derek Jeter in anything other than Pinstripes, so you should find it weird to imagine your best employees working for one of your competitors.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Hiring or Not for 2010?
Well it seems that while many companies are posting for jobs, and some are even interviewing candidates, very few are actually hiring. Some companies are just using this as a "feeling out" period, trying to figure out what type of candidate pool they have to choose from and about how much it would cost them if they wanted to actually hire the candidates. Other companies want to get candidates in the door so they can have their names and their interviews taken care of so when the 2011 budget dollars get released, they can go ahead and spend.
But there is yet another class of companies that just seem to be interviewing for the sake of interviewing. I have spoken to more than one person who said their company has instituted a hiring freeze, but still continue to list jobs online and even bring in people to interview knowing full well they can't hire them.
One of the questions hiring managers, human resources, and even the candidate being interviewed need to ask is: when is this job for? Is it really immediate hire or is the budget there for sometime in 2011--or is this just a fishing expedition? An understanding between all parties in this process will make for a much more effective and trustworthy hiring process.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Astronology - Affirmative Action Compliance Essential in Stimulus Era
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Friday, November 12, 2010
Performance Review Time
The development aspect of it can be the most important part of the process. It is important to look at what happened in the past year but other than compensation or layoff purposes, it's all information of what's already happened. What can be just as important--or more important in many cases--are the development growth planned to build on the the current year's performances for next year and beyond. Since the goal is to retain most of your employees and make sure they perform to the highest capabilities, the development plan for the future--and employees goals being aligned with that plan--is vital to make sure that you meeting your overall corporate goals.
And that's why goal planning should always be tied into the performance review. That isn't to say that there needs to be punishment for not meeting goals or great rewards for exceeding them, but it is important to make sure everyone is rowing in the same direction. That way, when the actual performance review takes place, the employees next-year development plan can be ironed out more easily. Employees would go from fearing reprimand to wondering what they needed to incorporate into their own planning for the next year. In the end, if their goals are tied to the company's goals, then they can actually feel like they're making a difference--which makes performance reviews just a little more palatable.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Fake Companies Are All Over the Place
I completed my 45 minute commute to the company's offices in an office park and since I was early, I camped out for a little while in my car and read up on what I knew about the company. From their website they seemed to be a large sports marketing company that worked with the New York Yankees--among other accounts. As I was sitting in the car, I saw many young people leaving the building in suits and thought that this seemed like a cool work environment.
I decided to enter the office 15 minutes early and was surprised to find that the area I was ushered into seemed to be a single office. In the waiting room were a ton of other young people like me in suits and looked much like the people I'd seen leaving the building. I checked in and sat in the large waiting area. Someone came out of the office and a name was called and they went in to interview. Seeing about 10 people in front of me, I wondered how I was going to get interviewed any time soon.
My answer came when the door opened 5 minutes later and the person in there left. I thought this was odd, but figured maybe the interview didn't go well and they were just cutting it short. Except the next person had the same time limit--and the next person as well.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Astronology - Giving Constructive Criticism
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