Turn to almost any organization in the country and a familiar thread is going to be heard - What is the ROI (Return on Investment) for this project? Human Resources is no different. Through the works of Bersin & Associates, who in their 2011 report "The Best Practices for the High Impact HR Organization" determined that the top challenge for HR Management was…

Over the past week I have been going through some family issues which began with a medical emergency last Friday. Everyone we talked to from our family practitioner to the ER medical team believed that the signs pointed towards one thing. When the surgeons went in to operate on Saturday morning, they found an entirely different problem was manifested in the same environment. Upon reflection we do the same steps in the HR world we work in.

Every single day we are confronted with…

In the LinkedIn groups (TLS-TOC Lean & Six Sigma in particular) there has been an ongoing conversation about when you merge the three. In the course of the discussion we posted a comment regarding an output from a seminar we were facilitating which talked about an organization in which the job requisition was reviewed and approved three times by the same person in a hiring effort. One of participants replied that that was an indication of mismanagement not a system problem. He further…

For the past two months there has been a running discussion in the Linked:HR group on LinkedIn regarding why more HR professionals do not have a degree or background in Business. It has been a lively discussion to say the least. However we were struck by one of the latest responses in which the member stated "HR nowadays is an organizational "warm and fuzzy" atmosphere. No need for business acumen."

John Donne in his famous poem stated that

No man is an…

Interesting pronouncement but I assure you you that it did not come from my mouth to heaven's ears. Several years ago when I thought about trying to return to the full time corporate side of HR a seasoned recruiter made the comment after looking at my resume. He was basing this on the fact that since graduating from college I have been in a number of positions within a number of industries. But the statement is more telling of the state of the recruiting industry then it is of my skill…

Over the past almost 7 years that we have been blogging int he HR space we have made much about the bad decision by corporate management to rely solely on the recruitment of passive candidates to fulfill their talent management needs. Now Yahoo has reportedly taken this to a new level -  Not only can you not work outside the office, you have to have ivory tower credentials to boot. Lets get some facts out on the table right upfront less someone accuse me of not appreciating the efforts that…

It has been an interesting week between Marissa Mayer's clamp down on telecommuters at Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg's pitch that women sabotage their own careers.In both arenas there seems to be a criterion missing. That criterion is how do you view your human capital in your organization - are they a liability or are they an asset? Let's look at the two events separately:

Marissa Mayer contends that in order to make Yahoo more productive she wants all human capital assets under one…

Awhile back we posted a blog entry in this space based on the marque of a local church. When I drove by it the other day the announcement of this Sunday's sermon was on the marque and is the title of this post.

I hear everyday people telling me that they know things need to change within the organization, but it will take time and they will wait it out until the organization gets around to changing the culture or the policy, usually by managerial edict.

The problem is that is…

We had in one of the first posts here asked you to define what you thought HR Excellence was. From the level of responses I am assuming ( I know the problems with assumptions) that you are having a hard time coming to some sort of consensus. So let me tell you what I feel the components of the definition of HR excellence are:

Achieving HR EXCELLENCE is the result of:

CARING more about your organization than others think wise;

What are…

One of the blogs I read each week is that of Ben Eubank's Upstart HR. In his post for the week he posed the question shown in the title above. For your consideration here is the text of his latest blog. After the text of Ben's post we will add some after thoughts of our own on the topic.

So maybe you read half a dozen human resources blogs, or maybe this is the only one you follow. Why do people write human resources blogs? What’s the point?

Well, I can’t…

While checking my LinkedIn groups this morning I found this post from Seth Godin

At a recent seminar, a woman who helps run a community college stood up to ask a question.

"Well, the bad news," she said, "is that we have to let everyone in. And the truth is, many of these kids just can't be the leaders you're describing, can't make art. We need people to do manual…

To my HR purist friends I apologize if you think I believe that HR does not have a vital role within our organizations.I am in no way equating HR to playing the child game of house. What I am suggesting is that there is a new visitor in  the neighborhood.

For some time I have had some elementary interest in a new tool to increase employee engagement called gamification. It came to the forefront when I received a LinkedIn Invite from Noreen Poli of…

On two separate times in the past week, my inbox contained entries which centered around the image that the corporation puts forth to the marketplace. In each one to some degree the organizations involved forgot what their purpose is -- to acquire and maintain customers. To do that we need to have the "right person, in the right job, at the right time and in the right place."

Consider these events. The first involved a cheerleader on the Baltimore Ravens. She was banned from being…

Those of you who are old enough to remember the TV Show from the 1960"s staring Peter Graves- Mission Impossible will remember that every show began with the following phrase:

Good morning, Mr. Phelps..... Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to make XXXXXXXXXX. As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck,…

Every year my wife and I have a tradition of attending the supposed "final tour" for B.B. King and as usual last night he sang is hit "The Thrill is Gone." In listening to it last night I began, based on some comments from some of my HR peers, to wonder if that is HR's problem. Have the majority of our peers -deep down inside- lost that thrill about the role HR plays within our organizations? Is the change self-inflicted or the response to a changed view of the function by…

I admit it I have an addiction. Back in 2001 I was introduced to the writings of Kathleen O'Neal Gear and her husband W. Michael Gear who have written a series of 23 historical fiction books centered around the lives of the North American Native Americans(http://www.gear-gear.com)They are fast reads but full of twists and turns. Their latest one is called People of the Back Sun in which the Standing Stone village is manned by about 400 warriors and they…

Here we are on the weekend before Christmas and the Iowa Supreme Court handed us an early "gift" Before I explain what the gift was, let me take you back in time to when Bobby Darin was still performing and he sag the following words:

"WelI … I don’t know what you got But it’s got me and baby I’m hooked Like a fish in the sea. You make angles call from above. You could make the Devil fall in love. An-a … who-o-o wouldn’t fall for irresistible you."

Over the past several decades…

I recently was involved in a conference call with a prospective client who was asking me whether I would be available to come speak to their office meeting about how the staff could work closer with corporate HR professionals. I got off the call and began to look back to the time in my career when I was in the external recruiter's seat and what was important to me to establish that relationship.

So for what it is worth, here are my thoughts.

1. The Toyota Production System…

We have just recently undergone a decisive election era in which some very strong views have been expressed. Some of those comments made me take a moment and reflect on the status of diversity within this country and the workplace in particular.

One of the facts that became abundantly clear is that there is a dramatic change in the demographics of the society in which we live. Change is tough but when the majority suddenly finds itself in the minority it raises a wide range of…