Work Life

I was reading a post on 2010 (originally attributed to Joyce Gioia, but without a link). 1  I write this on the plane, so I can’t look it up.)  In it, there are a few 2010 predictions that keep the momentum of driving HR organizations to realize that it’s about engagement, not about retention. 6....
Read More »

No pun intended. But I’m troubled and I don’t get it. This morning the acting CFO over at Freddie Mac committed suicide.  He was brought in after the bailout, so theoretically he should not have a ton of direct responsibility over the causes of the current economic crisis.  People seem to be committing suicide...
Read More »

Karen Beaman states that the workforce is changing: Multi-Generational – we are are now seeing up to four generations of workers working simultaneously in the workplace — Veterans, Boomers, X’ers, and New Mils — each with differing world views, work/life needs, and job expectations of their employers. Multi-Cultural – we are experiencing increasing cultural...
Read More »

We keep talking about Gen Y Milennials.  They are after all the next unknown generation of workers, and they are “different.”  However, we can’t ignore the Gen X’ers either.  As the boomer retire, the Gen X population will be the first ones to fill the shoes of leadership and senior talent.  And the fact...
Read More »

So much collaboration used to happen around “water cooler conversations.”  These may have been informal lunches, chats in the halls, and even chats next to the water cooler in the lunch room.  However, as the workforce increasingly works from home and scheduled conference calls limit the possibilities of impromptu meetings, the opportunities to collaborate...
Read More »

I’m not usually very interested in mainstream work technologies from the standpoint of systematicHR.  However, I was listening to yet another ZDnet interview with a CIO (this time with Ray Gilbert of Alcatel-Lucent) regarding the next generation of technology. “…desire to watch convergence take place, to get people down to one cell phone or...
Read More »

Knowledge@Wharton wrote a few months ago about a “new” phenomenon within middle manager ranks. A number of men and women in middle management are increasingly reluctant to take the next step in their careers because the corporate ladder is not as appealing as it used to be, and the price to climb it is...
Read More »

It seems I make a point of talking about the millennial generation (those emerging into the workforce now), and how there seems to be a perception that they are less motivated than prior generations. It’s probably true that they were given broader opportunities than prior generations while growing up. This simply means that they...
Read More »

The other day I was visiting a client site and was struck by how recent financial difficulties experienced by the client had impacted the workforce. As part of my job, I had to interview personnel at different levels, and as a result was able to get some great insight into the morale level of...
Read More »

Many of us who read systematicHR are in the same situation. We’re good at what we do, we’re over-worked, we’re committed to achievement, and our employers expect us to succeed. It all boils down to one thing – most of us are not getting enough sleep. Dubs is writing about sleep? You ask. Why...
Read More »

A lot has been written about the connection between low employee morale and stress.  In fact, Melissa Bushman even claims it to be  “The most common cause of low employee morale.” On the face of it, this sounds reasonable.  If I’m stressed at work, I’m probably not happy at work.  Take a deeper dive on...
Read More »

Do a Google search on “employee morale” and you will get “about 1,020,000 hits”.  Evidently, it’s a pretty hot topic!  Actually, after I went through all the million plus hits, I found that there are actually 748,639 non-duplicative hits.  Still quite a few, and definitely a hot topic.  I found out all kinds of...
Read More »

There’s a lot more to the Universum survey that I have time to go into or interpret including top employer brands cut into multiple categories and such.  What I found most interesting was their cut on the new graduate goals for work. Easily, the highest ranking career goal was the desire for balance between...
Read More »

  The other day, I came across an interesting graph a client of mine had copied from a BusinessWeek article.  I’ve been trying to find it online, to no avail.  I found reference to it here, on another blog, NumericLife. Everyone has a boss to deal with When employees were polled to pick New...
Read More »

Your grandfather probably worked to live. Your mother and father most likely fired to make a living. Your children will be working to define a life. - Jeff Hunter, 2006 1 There’s really no argument that the industrialized world has gotten quite a bit wealthier over the last 100 years, 50 years, 20 years...
Read More »

I’ve been in all sorts of situations.  From the smelly guy, to the office in front of the kitchen, to sitting behind the cell phone guy.  The woman who had extra butter popcorn every day at 3:30 pm was about enough to make me quit.  Careerbuilder.com via CNN.com published a list of everything you...
Read More »

The Edelmann blog highlights a New York Times article analyzing the affect of vacation time (or lack of) on employee engagement and turnover within the younger generation of workers (not quite phrased that way of course). Many young people in the workplace are finding that quitting their job is becoming the satisfying new alternative...
Read More »

In the “talent war” discussion, there is now even more room for concern. While we have always realized that growing retiree populations were decreasing the availability of senior talent, the development of young talent seems to be at risk as well. If younger employees are culturally resisting engagement (paritally defined as a willingness to...
Read More »

Prior posts in this series Talent Part 1 – The Rules of Talent Talent Part 2 – HCI on Talent and Engagement Talent Part 2 – Talent Part 3 – Building Talent in Your Organization Yes… what do they want? And once we figure that out, how do we give it to them? So,...
Read More »

It was all wrapped into a single post from one of Michael’s link posts. In this google blogger page where Trisha Weir talks about how she got to be hired (partly by selling WHY she owned a Google t-shirt) I have to give some kudos to the recruiter and hiring manager for recognizing a...
Read More »