Archive for January, 2009
Web 2.0 – High Employee Performance and “Chatting” are not Mutually Exclusive
Posted by: grandma in Performance Management on January 31st, 2009
An increasingly popular belief among HR circles is that Web 2.0 is the holy grail of performance improvement. Here is the premise: If you allow your employees to chat, put up an internal Myspace page, edit company wikis, contribute to blogs, and put everyone on Twitter, you’ll be able to drive revenue and reduce costs – right? This is what performance is about, correct? Does 100% collaboration actually improve revenue and reduce costs? Does the ability to engage in all of these forums align with company goals?
Would you rather have your employee send you one email with five action items or start five separate chat sessions? There is something to be said about aggregating your thoughts and presenting them together in weekly correspondence with your manager. The major problem with chat is the expectation of immediacy. We are conditioned to answer chats much faster than all other channels of communication.
These technologies have been around since, well, Web 1.0. Didn’t we have chat on AOL back in 1995? Wasn’t the problem with company knowledge bases that most of the knowledge resided on an employee’s PC? Has this changed because a company threw up a Wiki? Software companies are great marketers of technology and basically sell the same thing under a different software umbrella (see Cloud Computing). Don’t believe the hype on these technologies. You may placate Generation Y by having these, but will they really help drive company revenue?
If your company utilizes chat, how much time is actually spent chatting on work related versus personal items?
The Myth of Heroic Leadership – Give Obama a Pass
Posted by: grandma in Employee Development, Leadership on January 31st, 2009
I was sitting around with 8 of my Republican friends last night, and they are behind Barack Obama 100%, hoping that he will be the best President ever. Obviously there are several issues challenging America today. Can one man right the ship when so many checks and balances are in place to prevent this? Conversely, can one really sink the ship with all of these government controls? Just as Bush isn’t responsible for wrongs in America, Obama can’t and won’t be responsible for all the things necessary to turn this thing around.
Headlines in Austrailia read: “America has its Messiah”. I couldn’t help but observe the crowd fawning over Obama, crying like he will be the opiate to their pain. Expectations of Obama supporters are dangerously high. If you don’t strongly agree with this then you need a reality check. I think Republicans will give Obama a pass – I see his biggest challenges coming from his own party. (See Peloisi) One of Obama’s best qualities is that he can see situations from multiple viewpoints. Unlike Bush, he’s not so steadfast in his convictions that he won’t take a step back and re-evaluate his position. To me, this true leadership. The press and most Republicans would call this “Flip-Flopping”. I hate this label.
Morgan McCall, author of “High Flyers”, identified one common trait among the best leaders: They are life-long learners. “The real leaders of the future are those who have the ability to learn from their experiences and remain open to continuous learning.”
2 Things Barack Obama Should do for the Unemployed
Posted by: grandma in Recruiting on January 31st, 2009
Barack Obama took the oath as our 44th President almost 2 weeks ago. Obviously, the most pressing issue is the economy. Unemployment passed the 7% mark for the first time in 16 years and this number is expected to rise significantly in 2009. Job seekers encounter all kinds of difficulty in their search and here are a few changes he should implement as part of his policy:
Background Check for Credit Score/History : Employers should be prohibited from checking a candidate’s credit score and history. There has never been a study that correlates a poor credit score with low performance. Eastern Kentucky University did a study of this in 2003 and found no correlation. Some say this is a civil rights issue, and I agree. It is the ultimate Catch-22. Would somebody poor and without a job likely have a poor credit score? Check out the story of Brenda Matthews and how her job offer was rescinded because of her credit scores.
As a manager, would you rather have 10 sales people with perfect credit scores or 10 with terrible scores?
No income questions: Just as age discrimination is a big no-no, income questions should be prohibited as well. If a person is qualified, then they should earn the fair market wage for that position. Period. Hiring managers and recruiters blindly ask “How much did you make last year?” This is not a relevant question as a predictor of performance. Job Seekers need to act as their own “agents” and revealing this number puts them in a very weak position for negotiation. Lying about what you make can be uncovered in a background check – but is it really lying when you are trying to get the best wage possible? If an agent is negotiating your salary, then this is positioning, not lying.