HR Space

Doug Shaw: Encouraging HR to participate in social media

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:00:00 GMT

HR professionals have much to gain from engaging with social media. But what's the best way to encourage the 'social media-curious' in HR to take part in social media? This is the subject of a brilliant mini report entitled Social Media for Read More......(read more)

Kill the ‘Leadership Team’!

Evidence-Based HR — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:27:12 GMT

No, of course I am not inciting anyone to literally go out and kill their ‘leadership team’ – I mean let’s kill off the notion that any group of executives or managers should ever be allowed to call themselves the Read the Rest » Read More......(read more)

More HR 2.0 at HR Technology Europe

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:06:00 GMT

My next big HR conference which will include a big focus on social technology will be HR Technology Europe in Amsterdam on 25th and 26th October. As last year, I will be chairing the conference and will be blogging about it here too Read More......(read more)

"G4" emails reveal friends sharing a joke

Guru — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:32:56 GMT

Details of private emails between a bunch of former public schoolboys, who call themselves the “G4”, discussing an impending trip to to the Dubai 7s rugby tournament in March have emerged, rather embarrassing the G4 boys, who are all former public-schoolboys now fulfilling predictable roles as traders, bankers and lawyers. The Telegraph Read More......(read more)

The art of people management

HR means business — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:08:00 GMT

I often hear about employee complaints of not feeling well supported or ‘managed’ by managers. This made me wonder, has the art of management been lost? Did it never really exist? Why is this happening and what can be done about it? A simplistic Read More......(read more)

Bizarre Blogging: the Bahamas and the Billionaire

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:26:00 GMT

Blogging does get your name into some strange places at times, but this must count for my most bizarre name check yet: From the Caribbean News Now : NASSAU, Bahamas -- According to Human Capital Management expert Jon Ingham’s survey Read More......(read more)

HR Lessons I Learned from GE Super Bowl Ads

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:57:00 GMT

Recognize This! – Celebrating the deeper and broader value of what your employees contribute to every day makes work meaningful.

As most readers of my blog know, I’m Irish. Though I tend to divide my time between our Dublin and Boston offices, I can’t claim to be a true fan of any American sporting leagues.

Most know the American Football Super Bowl is the most watched show on television with 110 million viewers. With an audience of that size, it’s not surprising how expensive advertising spots have become. According to Forbes:

“This year, commercials cost $3.5 million for 30-seconds on average to air. Add to the cost another $2-or-3 million for production and the celebrities’ fees, and it’s more like $5 or $6 million for a 30-seconds ad in the Super Bowl. …

“Many Advertisers walk away because they discover that the ROI, the return on their investment, is negligible. … There is simply no way that any of the Advertisers on yesterday’s game can recoup their investment because these commercials do not move the needle on sales, according to numerous studies.”

Then why do fiscally responsible companies choose to advertise during the Super Bowl, especially for products no average consumer (or Super Bowl viewer) would ever buy?

Case in point – GE. With two advertisement “spots” in the Super Bowl, one can assume GE invested anywhere from $7-10 million. One spot was somewhat consumer focused, featuring the people who manufacture GE appliances at a plant in Kentucky.

I find the second spot much more interesting, however. This spot featured the people who make GE turbines in Schenectady, NY. No average football fan is going to run out the next day and buy a turbine. So why would GE feature this spot?

I believe GE made this investment as part of its continual investment in its employees, who GE leaders are clearly proud of. More to the point, GE is highlighting what makes work meaningful for their people. I particularly liked these two quotes.

“When I was a kid I wanted to work with my hands. I really enjoy building turbines. It’s nice to that what you’re building is going to do something for the world.”

“When people think of GE, they typically don’t think about beer. The power needed to make their beer comes from turbines made right here. ‘So you make the beer?’ ‘No, we make the power that makes the beer.’ ‘So without you there’d be no beer?’ ‘That’s right.’”

Do you help your employees make that deeper connection to the importance, meaning and value of what they do every day? Sure, the beer connection in this commercial makes good sense in a Super Bowl advertisement. But the same deeper connection could be made for the almost innumerable things GE turbines power to make possible.

What’s the deeper meaning and value of what you do every day

Curbing high pay – Regulation or taxation?

Flip Chart Fairy Tales — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:42:56 GMT

Here’s a brain-teaser for you. Without looking, guess which OECD country has the highest level of income inequality. Now guess again. It’s Italy, followed by Chile, Portugal and Germany. The US, which would have been my guess, is down at … Read More......(read more)

#E20S: Shouldn’t we talk about HR 2.0 instead of Enterprise 2.0?

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:03:00 GMT

I’m at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit in Paris today – you can see my posts on the conference at Social Advantage, these include, so far: #E20S Developing social strategy 2 #E20S Developing social strategy 1 I’ve been attending some Read More......(read more)

Why the story of inflation in 2012 could get complicated

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Inflation would at last appear to have embarked on a downward path, which could signal an easing of the income squeeze that is currently affecting UK households (See XpertHR's February 2012 economic commentary for more on this topic). But how likely Read More......(read more)

Ask Derek: Employee Rewards for Call Center Employees?

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:57:00 GMT

Recognize This! -In recognition and reward programs for Call Center employees, be sure you are reinforcing desired behaviors and outcomes, not just results.

Occasionally, I receive questions through the “Email Derek” button in the upper-right corner of this blog that have a broader interest to the readers of the blog. One such question came in from Sudan over the weekend asking:

I work as an HR manager for a call center and HR consulting business. What are your thoughts on:
1. Employee rewards for call center employees?
2. How to minimize unnecessary organization meeting?

Call centers can be tricky as the typical method of motivating employees is through incentives. In answer to Sudan’s first question, I’ll refer to a couple of past posts on the topic.

In 2009, I shared a Dilbert cartoon and commented on poor program structure, “Call centers will often set up reward structures based on call time or number of calls handled within a set amount of time. Yet such practices merely encourage representatives to get callers off the phone as quickly as possible, and not necessarily give the customer the level of service or help they truly require. So the representative is rewarded on essentially poor customer service and potentially a destroyed customer relationship.”

Also in 2009, I explained the difference between incentives and recognition:

I liked very much a client’s definition of incentive as “push the button, get the pellet.” You are told in advance “if you do this, you get that.” You are pre-directing effort in a way that eliminates the need for creativity and can actually discourage innovation and the desire to give additional discretionary effort – often with unintended consequences. Incentives are all about the stuff – the reward.

Recognition, however, is a more intensive effort that delivers the positive results companies are looking for when they think about these programs. Recognition is based on fostering an environment in which employees WANT to perform, then letting managers and even colleagues acknowledge exceptional effort and praise deserving employees for it. It is more intensive because it requires people to actually notice and then demonstrably appreciate the efforts of those around them. But that effort is well worth the result — a true culture of appreciation.

The confusion arises because recognition can include a reward, but it is not about the “stuff.” Recognition is about encouraging, acknowledging and appreciating desired BEHAVIORS. This is a critical difference to understand by any company desiring to influence employee behavior without stifling innovation, action and creativity.

Don’t misunderstand me. Globoforce offers incentives plans as part of our strategic offering. Incentives can have their place in a strategic recognition and reward strategy – for example in a sales incentive campaign or a call center initiative. But such usually short-term, end-goal campaigns cannot be confused with the overarching, long-term and ultimately cultural goals of recognition.

So what’s another option for call centers?

Once your employees clearly understand your core values and what they look like in their daily work as I’ve described above, empowering them to represent your core values in every customer interaction can do wonders. I look to this example from Zappos (discussed in an Inc. magazine article):

I spend a few minutes sitting in the Zappos call center with Grace Hale, a bubbly young woman with dyed black hair and a lip piercing. Unlike most call center operators, Zappos does not keep track of call times or require operators to read from scripts. Hale has a penchant for offering unsolicited commentary on customers’ shoe selections — “They are beautiful,” she coos during one call, as she pulls up a picture of a pair of Dr. Scholl’s Asana heels that a customer found uncomfortable. Not only are reps encouraged to make decisions on their own — for instance, offering a refund on a defective item — they are supposed to send a dozen or so personal notes to customers every day. “It’s all about P-E-C,” Hale explains to me. “Personal Emotional Connection with the customer.” …

[Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO] told a story about a woman whose husband died in a car accident after she had ordered boots for him from Zappos. The day after she called to ask for help with the return, she received a flower delivery. The call center rep had ordered the flowers without checking with a supervisor and billed them to the company. “At the funeral, the widow told her friends and family about the experience,” Hsieh said, his voice cracking and his eyes tearing up ever so slightly. “Not only was she a customer for life, but so were those 30 or 40 people at the funeral.”

As to Sudan’s second question about how to minimize unnecessary meetings, I find one reason too many meetings becomes commonplace is that the meeting becomes a substitute for other, more efficient (and effective) means of communications. So if you can open up more lines of communications, which a truly strategic recognition program that includes social recognition does, you can potentially eliminate some of those meetings.

Help out Sudan. What kind of employee recognition, incentive or reward programs do you recommend for call centers? What approach have you seen to be most successful?

The Future of Selling - Social Selling

McArthur's Rant - Human Resources, Organisations and HR 2.0 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:03:00 GMT

In a similar vein to my last post this review presentation considers the impact of social media on how, to whom and where we sell our services. A good general introduction to the emerging discipline of "Social Selling". Read More......(read more)

Selling Your Services to the Board

McArthur's Rant - Human Resources, Organisations and HR 2.0 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:24:00 GMT

Selling to the Board of an organisation can be a daunting prospect. In fact ,selling your services can be nerve jangling at any level. This excellent review of "Selling to the C-suite" provides some useful tips and hints. Read More......(read more)

Statutory redundancy pay

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:57:17 GMT

Recent figures issued by the Office for National Statistics ( on its website ) show that UK unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November 2011, to a total of 2.68 million. With redundancy still very much in the news, it is important that Read More......(read more)

Pay forecasts for 2012 - take part

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:25:25 GMT

Pay award levels fell to historically low levels during 2009 and 2010, and didn't recover much during 2011. However, data for pay settlements effective in 2012 has revealed a significant increase in the level of pay rises . But will this continue Read More......(read more)

HR Metrics and Business Partnering in South Africa

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:52:00 GMT

I’ve just booked my flights back to South Africa where I’ll be delivering a session on HR metrics in a couple of weeks time (22nd & 23rd February). I’m also back in Johannesberg to to do a repeat session on 23rd and 24th April Read More......(read more)

Employee Engagement Task Force Update: Nita Clarke Video

DerekIrvineGloboforce — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:02:00 GMT

Recognize This! – Employee engagement most certainly is not something else you must do. It must be primary focus to gain greatest competitive advantage and success in the marketplace.

I’m quite impressed by the level of commitment in Britain to employee engagement, first demonstrated in the very comprehensive MacLeod Employee Engagement Report of 2009, written by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke. Then last Spring, an Employee Engagement Task Force was created to bring together HR practitioners with others concerned about how to best engage employees and encourage them to give of their best every day.

Last week Nita Clarke conducted a video interview with People Management magazine. (I cannot embed the video for you, but it is available here.)

A couple of excerpts were particularly poignant. First, this statement showing engagement continues to rise up the management agenda because more and more leaders and managers now understand that old models of management are no longer sufficient to get the best work out of employees.

[1:46 time stamp] How has the employee engagement agenda moved on since the report from yourself and David MacLeod came out in 2009?

Salience of issue has come up the business and performance agenda. People know increasingly that how they treat people at work is really going to be a crucial factor in the success of the organization. There is much more understanding of the importance of culture – of whether you have an environment in which people are encourage and enabled to give their best or whether you’re still stuck in the old command and control method, which really doesn’t work anymore. Today’s people, especially younger people, are not prepared to hang their brains on the door when they come in and just do what the boss says. One of the reasons employee engagement has gone up the agenda, is that it really highlights the fact that you have to treat people differently at work if you want to get the best out of them.

This next comment drives home the very critical importance of creating a culture that enables and encourages your employees to thrive. As Nita points out, employees must understand your core organizational values if they are to contribute in the most effective way, even as they choose to give of their best.

[2:52 time stamp] What would you say to organizations who feel they have to focus on survival and not on engagement issues in these tough economic times?

Employee engagement isn’t something else you have to do. It’s about understanding how you change the organization to put people at its heart. At the end of the day, it’s the people. … What makes your organization different from any other? What gives you the competitive edge? … It’s the people who work for you. If you can organize your workplace, if you can develop a culture – a style of a way of being – that enables and encourages people to give of their best because they are committed to the organization and they understand its values, then you really do release something that’s absolutely transformational. And that’s why people who think [engagement] is something else that you have to do are missing the point. If you look back at the last recession, organizations got through difficult times, by fundamentally engaging their workforces like they’d never done before.

Be sure to watch the video for more on how to make engagement surveys useful and other insights from Nita.

Have you seen employee engagement rise up the agenda in your organization in the last few years?

Just run that HR hypothesis by me one more time would you?

Evidence-Based HR — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:08:51 GMT

When HR tries to measure itself it always ends in tears and not just in the HR department but by every executive who has endured yet another, interminable, HR slide presentation supposedly demonstrating HR’s incredible value. It would not be Read the Read More......(read more)

Talking about learning in my life.

HR BEGINNER — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:57:00 GMT

This time I would like you to go and check my guest post visiting Sukh Pabial's "Thinking about Learning" . It is great to be part of his HR Blogs Carnival. Sukh is asking people to share their biggest learning in their life. Saying "I Read More......(read more)

Quantitative easing: What can we expect in 2012?

XpertHR - Employment Intelligence — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:00:00 GMT

With the UK economy back in negative territory , many commentators expect to see an extension to the Bank of England's programme of quantitative easing in the near future, in order to attempt to boost growth (See links at the bottom of this page for Read More......(read more)

Why would RBS staff give Zoe Williams a soundbite?

Flip Chart Fairy Tales — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:07:59 GMT

Zoe Williams has been going into branches of RBS and asking staff to comment on the directors’ bonuses. She can’t understand why they are so reluctant to respond: All I wanted was the view from the ground in RBS: did … Continue reading Read More......(read more)

Mail Integration – a secret to using time productively

Project 42 — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:54:00 GMT

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It is unusual for five minutes to pass without hearing a “bleep”. No matter where you are – at home, in the office, on the bus or at a restaurant – a beep will be heard, and at least thirty people will look in their pockets and bags to see if they received a message. We live in an age where we are connected to each other all the time. Whether by phone call, SMS or email, people expect to reach other people instantly. Studies show that people spend up to 13 hours a day on the internet, including at work when programs are running in the background, and anytime a person has a phone that is connected to WiFi.

However, with all this “email fever” around, we do not use our email time productively. Much time is spent searching for old messages, reading spam and trying to work out how to attach files. If we want email to be a productive communication tool in the workplace, we must work out how to use it efficiently.

One answer lies in mail integration. Email integration is when email is a built-in part of another program. One project management program with successful mail integration is Clarizen. If you are using the software, and you want to ask a question to your team leader, you click the email icon on the Clarizen dashboard and send an email from inside the software, without the need to open a new program. The e-mail reply will also be integrated into your project management dashboard, as well as sent to your email address.

This system has a few advantages – firstly, it is easy and quick to communicate with people who are working on the same project as you, without searching for their addresses; secondly, all your questions and replies are stored inside the project management software for easy reference. Even more conveniently, a good project management program will do away with the need for some email messages at all. According to a recent study, workers spend more than half their email time sending updates and scheduling meetings. If your task management software updates itself in real time as users input data, you can see at a glance what everyone is doing, as well as tracking budget, resources and finances, without the need for constant emails back and forth. Meetings can take place within the program. Team members can comment on each other’s ideas using chat or notes, without the need for separate emails. This cuts down drastically the amount of time spent on unnecessary management e mail.

Mail integration is an important part of any software that focuses on the end-user experience, because it increases efficiency and productivity.

eBoss Recruitment Software

eboss — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:51:00 GMT

Web based recruitment software and recruitment database management with optional website integration, £39 per user and includes a bonus 2nd User, Unlimited CV Parsing, social media tools and postcode search. Some useful features of eBoss recruitment database software are CV parsers, automatic parsing of attached CVs & management of clients, candidates, consultants & Jobs online

Peter Howes, SuccessFactors on Career Management

HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:10:00 GMT

I (virtually) attended HCI’s Talent Strategy and Workforce Planning conference this week and will be posting on some of the WFP and data stuff from there over the next few days. However the most interesting piece for me was Peter Howes Read More......(read more)

Mastering survey questionnaire design

HR means business — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:09:00 GMT

Is your current employee survey benefitting your company? Some suggest such surveys are just a tick box exercise. That surveys offer little or no real business value. Both assertions may well be true … for some companies, at least. However, this needn Read More......(read more)