Communications
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The Fear of Feedback
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I once worked for an organization where feedback was deemed as critical to the success of any project. In this case, these projects were sales cycles, but the general principle is transferable. This organization had a group called “Afterburner” in to speak with the entire sales force. Afterburner was made up of ex-military pilots and…
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Social Media Best Practice #3
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As part of the other systematic’s (Systematic Viewpoints” series on social media: Best practice #3: Collaboration requires a balance of freedom and governance to thrive. ((Systematic Viewpoints, September 11, 2007. “Social media in the enterprise – best practice #3.”)) In the post, he uses a Sharepoint example where “employees had been given broad access to…
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Social Media Best Practice #2
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Best Practice #2: Show direct business value by aligning social computing to real-world work. ((Systematic Viewpoints, September 11, 2007. “Social media in the enterprise – best practice #2.”)) The other systematic (TOS) continues by saying: If you’re thinking of deploying a form of social media, it must have a defined value proposition, be aligned to…
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Video iPods in Training
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“Training is now going to employees rather than the other way around.” ((Gronstedt, Anders. June 2007. “Employees Get and Earful.” HBR June 2007, Pg 26)) A few months ago I posted some podcast ideas that you could use in HR. Harvard Business Review recently listed a few excellent reasons to continue expansion of this format…
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Understanding the Contributors to Employee Engagement
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The May 2007 issue of HBR gives us a broader view of employee engagement and defines some of the contributors for it. Not surprisingly, employee engagement is not made up of one huge event that makes the employee committed to work, company and co-workers. Instead, each workday event has marginal immediate and downstream effects on…
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Asynchronous Communications, HR 2.0 and the Future of Work
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We seem to want real time everything. We schedule meetings when and where the most of us can be together in the same room. When that fails, we schedule conference calls. I’m a definite culprit of this as I will always meet my clients face to face when the opportunity presents a choice. Unfortunately, real…
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Generation Y Mobile Technology: The Future of Work
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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 one…
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Great HR Podcast Ideas
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I’ve been thinking about how would could both communicate through podcasts. Certainly there are the obvious applications. If you do a corporate meeting, why not record it and make it available for download? If the President of the U.S. gets to speak to the nation weekly in his radio address, why not HR? What about…
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Virtual versus Physical Communities
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The advent of virtual communities and their influence on shaping the workforce in undeniable. What started ages ago with people talking over the phone but perhaps never meeting has turned into true communities where people can identify themselves with groups of people based on semi-unique traits. Within our organizations, this can simply mean “I belong…
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Quantifying the Customer Experience
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Hewitt has a lovely article in their Hewitt Magazine Online entitled “The Science of Customer Experience.” ((Volume 9 Issue 2. Retrieved from www.hewitt.com on December 18, 2006.)) While I’m really going to stick by my guns in the proclamation that they are an outsourcing company and no longer a pure consulting company, their outsourcing experience…
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Understanding Change Drivers in Change Management
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The actual drivers for change don’t often make headlines. We talk about FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) and we talk about hour tactics of communications and training programs, but to really understand change and how your employees will react, you need a better understanding of the change driver. ((This entire post was formulated after reading http://www.change-management-blog.com/2007/02/change-drivers.html))…
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Communicating with a Millennial (Part 4: The Transition to Work)
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So what are the right expectations for a millennial just entering toe workforce? Ryan states “I find that managers are not giving me the appropriate guidance necessary for me to grow in the company. They’re too concerned with what’s going on above them to look at what’s going on below.” And “Some of my best…
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Communicating with a Millennial (Part 3: Getting to Know You)
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This wasn’t supposed to be a series. Both the Recruiting Animal and “Ryan” have brought up interesting points that I’d like to comment on. Is it possible that all of this “adjusting” going both ways (to the Millennials and for them to work) is really just workforce entry angst? Recruiting Animal: If that’s true, it…
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Communicating with a Millennial (Part 2: Dubs needs friends)
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There was a fair amount of conversation regarding this “millennial” generation last week, some of it controversial and with minor disagreement. There doesn’t seem to be differences in that we all agree that each generation has it’s own quirks in terms of preferences that can be stereotyped, as well as communication methods that might be…
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Communicating with a Millennial
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I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what I’ve been calling the millennials, others have been calling Gen Y. I think we all understand that there’s a significant change in the way this generation is looking at work and life. Certainly the world as it gets smaller and easier to access through both…
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Employee Morale and Uncertainty
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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 the…
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Employee Self Service – Lessons From Web Design
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Information Architects put out a list of their top 50 websites and what factors made them successful. I particularly like IA’s tagline of “Interface Design is Brand Design.” As you think about your self service sites, understanding that driving adoption and branding at the same time is a key factor in overall success. IA puts…
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Required Skills for HR Transformation
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I had a bit of a humorous moment as I was reading this article from Mercer.com. While besides the point of this post, the Mercer page starts out saying: The survey reveals that despite some progress, nearly 60% of finance executives still view HR as a cost rather than a strategic partner; and 80% of…
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Myths of Employee Engagement: Part 3
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Over the last couple days I posted some basic reactions to WorkUSA’s research on employee engagement. Today, I’d like to continue with some reactions to the rest of their “key findings.” Engagement is a leading indicator of financial performance. Companies that increase their engagement levels can expect to significantly improve their subsequent financial performance. ((Watson…
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Myths of Employee Engagement: Part 1
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I found on the Watson Wyatt site a WorkUSA research paper that WW looks to have sponsored. In the “WorkUSA® 2006/2007: Debunking the Myths of Employee Engagement, Executive Summary,” WorkUSA attempts to identify some myths and ascertain what actions might be most important in driving engagement. (I should note that I didn’t purchase the full…