Want to Get Your Organization on Track? You’ll Find Passion Is the Key

I  worked all my life and never really understood the passion thing until later on.

I had great jobs, I did great work, but I was not passionate. I started out in sales for IBM and held numerous sales positions until I kind of morphed into HR.

I eventually left sales and took a part-time job as a computer trainer. What I learned about myself that I was pretty good at this and I really enjoyed it. By this time I was back at IBM and the powers that be decided I could bring more value to the organization in another role. That role enabled me to work from the client’s site to solve their training needs.

The level of enjoyment I found was gradually rising. My next move was to design training systems and solutions, and on top of that, I was able to work from home full time. By now, I was hooked.

I had found my calling.

What a pine cone taught me about passion

Great Managers, Great Leadership; Think of Them as Engagement Maestros

A new VP rides into town for the holidays!

This past week in New York, as in other cities, there were Christmas parties all over town.

In this case, the department got together with drinks, food and holiday festivities. It was a festive occasion with everyone engaged and having a heck of a time. The new VP walks into the room and works it masterfully. He had conversation for everyone; not just fake small talk, but actual conversation with each person about their work and who they were.

A Gen Y person that I know is not satisfied with her job and works for this company. Her complaints were that the job is not challenging and she has nothing to do but basically sit and do make work. She was actively looking for something else, spending lots of time trying to get out.

However, internally she had already been identified as a superstar by all. Although she has been there only a short time, she is known as the go-to person to get it done. She has grasped the business, speaks in meetings, and asks relevant questions that managers have told her that they wished they would have asked.

The 7 Ways Organizations Justify Bullying in The Workplace

“You are fired, Get out! I am not going to pay you for two weeks! Leave now and I mean right this minute.”

Yes, that is the way that it ended. OK, I gave you the ending. Now I will back up and give you the full story.

A friend who had been passively looking for a job finally got an offer, but at the last minute, decided to stay put. A month later, her company was going through layoffs but she was spared — or at least she thought so.

Her manager called her in during this period and told her that while she would not be laid off, they were going to demote her, and on top of that, her salary was going to be cut. She walked out of that meeting dazed.

Did You Spend the Holiday Reflecting on What is Really Important in Life?

This Thanksgiving, we did not say the usual prayer before the feast.

This year instead, I received a note from a family member who asked if we could go around the room and let each person express what they were thankful for.

I did not give it much thought as I led off the thank-you’s. I listened to each comment, and they were insightful and touching. At the end of about 10 thank you’s we were all teary-eyed. It brought to the forefront how each individual looks at their lives through the prism of thanks. I also noticed how strong our relationship is as a family.

This set the tone in a much more powerful way than Thanksgivings in the past.

Sometimes, we are all so fortunate and take so much for granted. But think for a minute if you had to list, say, 10-15 things that you are thankful for in your life. What would they be?

Although there was one comment about work — that was it — but they all mentioned family.

Key Engagement Question: Would You Recommend a Friend to Work Here?

One of the most important questions when it comes to employee engagement is, “Would you recommend a friend to work here?”

One of my Gen Y mentee’s called me last week. The problem was I was in Boston on business and she knew that. So when she called I knew there was a problem. As I glanced at the phone, my thought was, “What now?”

When we finally talked she told me that a friend of hers was applying for a position at her company and had asked if she could do an internal transfer of her resume to the hiring manager. She wanted to know, “what is it like to work there?”

Would you recommend your organization?

The New Org Chart: Identifying the REAL Information Brokers in Your Business

New York City is known as a city to people watch.

As I ride the subway each morning, the ride takes me through neighborhoods that have both private and public schools. The cars are inundated with teenagers on their way to school. Just try and imagine a room full of teenagers, all divided into small groups.

I always look up as they come in the subway car: Youth and lots of noise. I watch and try to pick the leaders in each group, and it is so easy to spot them in their clusters.

Who are the real leaders?

Volunteering: How You Can Turn It Into the Ultimate Team-Building Event

My daughter decided to volunteer through a program at her job.

Each employee has the opportunity to volunteer their services and receive a day off in return. She was up early on a Saturday morning and headed into New York City to work at a soup kitchen in the Bowery.
To her surprise, basically the entire division that she worked with was there. She was really surprised to see the senior executives there in their jeans and sweatshirts.

She could not stop talking about the experience and how wonderful for her company to sponsor such an event even if there was not a day off in return. She met many of the people in the kitchen and got a chance to really have a conversation with a number of them one-on-one.

Employee Engagement? In a Business, It Needs to Start at the Very Top

A fish rots from the head down, as the saying goes.

While the word rot sounds offensive, let’s just say it starts from the top.

This week, I was having a conversation when someone mentioned to me that their new CEO of her company was in town. She was slated to be in the New York office for a couple of days.

This CEO met with the senior staff, and as they gave her a tour of the building, she passed numerous employees. In that passing she acknowledged no one — no eye contact, no nod of the head, and basically no “how are you?”

High Performance HR? It’s All About Technology AND Social Media

I only have 90 connections, I know but I was only connected to LinkedIn about a year ago.”

“Yes, I did look her up on LinkedIn and I thought “ ‘how you could be the head of HR and only have 32 connections?’ ”

These statements came from people I spoke with last week concerning the use of LinkedIn.

It seems that a lot of folks (professionals) have been asleep at the switch. The use of social media has transformed the landscape. I know of people that are dissatisfied with their career but they spend all their free time on Facebook instead of Linkedin. These same folks basically set up a page at one time on LinkedIn but never really went back to it.

Social media: THE most important tool for HR

Over the past couple of weeks, LinkedIn has slowly uncovered some new tools coming our way: Linked Classmates and LinkedIn Talent Pipeline. I can only image that what we see now from Linkedin will look nothing like what it will be in the future.

How could this be?

Social Media has changed the landscape of not only corporate America but our personal lives as well. Organizations are struggling with social media policy and how to integrate it within the cocoon of their organizations.

Our personal lives have been transformed with the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr. I often wonder sometimes what it was like before the onslaught of these tools. I call them tools because that is the way that I view each of them.

Their use allows each of us to connect with people that we could not in a thousand years ever connect to. It allows us to connect and keep in touch in ways that snail mail, or phones for that matter, never could.

Are you kidding me?

But in my sphere, LinkedIn is by far the most important tool for HR. Where else can you get a glimpse of a person or eavesdrop on someone’s profile in a legitimate way? This is what talent scouting is about. But when you look at senior leaders in the HR profiles it sometimes makes you shake your head, because there seems to be no real use of it.

My daughter told me an incredible story of a senior executive of her firm that refuses to use the computer. He writes out everything longhand and gives them to his assistant to type. All senior executives were given iPads to use in the sales calls and he flat out refuses to use one, saying it is a waste of time.

I recall a senior level executive who everyone assumed was way in over their head in their new role. This was confirmed when the executive had to prepare a presentation and he did not know how to put a deck together. He finally had to admit that he had never had to assemble one, not only from the technology vantage point, but even from just composing the slides.

Yes, one of the main competencies going forward for will be the use of HR technology.

The intersection of technology and analytics

HR technology and analytics is helping to transform HR into a decision science with a measurable impact on business. The expanded use of the Internet for the delivery of HR applications, especially on a service basis, is also emphasizing the importance of HRIS for organizations of all sizes. This creates new roles for HR professionals and the imperative to develop strong HR technology competencies.

Technology is fully embedded in so many aspects of business, so much so that understanding the use of technology in all areas of the business, and particularly in relation to human and organizational capital, enables HR professionals to speak the language of business in an environment that is increasingly technology-driven.

The use of social media leads to new ways of collaborating, organizing work, building teams and developing new knowledge and skills, and this can help further build organizational and human capital.

High Performance HR

Research indicates that companies with the most high-performing HR function behave differently when it comes to the use of HR technology in efficiency and effectiveness metrics. And, they also operated with 16 percent fewer HR staff.

So yes, the landscape of HR technology revolves not only around HRIS, SaaS and Talent Management systems, but also their new brethren of Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook on the other end of the spectrum.

Eventually all this technology will all collaborate for the greater good of the organization, so let’s all get on board.