Looking to 2011 and Beyond: “Who You Gonna Call?” Will it be to HR?

This time of year always brings out the crystal ball for psychics, bloggers, writers, and thought leaders in every profession. Well, maybe not in that order. 

I remember when I was growing up, I would always read the predictions of the psychics. I would literally keep track of who was right and who was wrong by the end of the year. The vast majority of time they were wrong, but that did not stop them from coming out the next year with a new and bold list.

Lately I have read about the changes coming in 2011 concerning social media, technology, human capital, talent management, strategic HR and the list goes on. Everyone has their take. In 2009, I wrote a piece for a career magazine on my thoughts on 2010 titled “Try to Put 2009 Behind Us, Making the Most of 2010.”

I recently reread that article and it could still stand the test of time.

Reports worth reading

In our HR space today, there has been excellent research this year that would have a psychic salivating. We don’t really need the predictions unless we have been blinded by the turmoil and stress.
Here are my favorites reports for the year:

How to Set Goals for New Employees

This article is based on a recent interview with Inc.com on setting goals for new employees.  Reprinted from Inc.com (Inc. Magazine)

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Effectively setting goals for new hires—both short and long-term—can be the difference between a successful and happy new hire or someone likely to leave the company quickly. Here’s how to do it right.

As companies attain quick success, they also face the struggle of hiring new employees, bringing them up to speed on company policy, and setting realistic goals for the new contributors. Defining goals starts before the new hire is even in the building with the human resources manager collaborating with the manager of the new employee, but it extends further than that and is a process that needs to evolve continuously.

“To me, there is no such thing as setting goals too early in the hiring process,” notes Ron Thomas, human resources strategy consultant and blogger at StrategyFocusedHR who developed a highly successful talent management strategy while at Martha Stewart Living and IBM. “It should be done almost as soon as you identify the need for a new hire and defined by anyone that will be working with the new employee. From there, the goals should evolve accordingly with the candidates and once the new person is brought in.”

How to Make an Employee's First 90 Days Successful

This article is based on an interview that I recently did with Inc.com on the importance on Onboarding New Employees.
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The process of onboarding is vital to the success of the new employee and the business itself. Here are specific steps you can take to make an employee's first three months successful.

When a new employee reports to their first day on the job, the feeling is quite similar to those first day of the school year jitters we all had as kids. And while it's a challenge for the employee to familiarize him or herself quickly with the office, the job responsibilities, new co-workers and more, it's just as important and stressful for their managers. Making a new hire feel comfortable and a part of the team from day one is imperative to make the employee a successful and productive member of your business.

Job Descriptions: It’s All About Where the Job is Headed, Not Where it is Now

My normal routine is this:

Up at 4:30. Make the coffee. Check e-mail. Listen to Bloomberg TV for the business news update, get dressed in my workout gear and into the gym by 6. My workout is over and I am walking out of the door around 7 and headed into New York.

My workout is a like a retreat. Those 45 minutes are the best part of my day. I get all my heavy thinking done, review my upcoming day and week, review the previous day, and, make adjustments accordingly. In other words (as my wife said), I spend time “thinking about my life”

This normal routine was shattered last week. On my way to the gym, I heard a news report about the uproar over the appointment of Cathie Black for Schools Chancellor in New York City. While this appointment had been made a few weeks prior, it has now gotten more heated. The main objection was that she did not have a “Masters” in education.

Stressing Out Over Performance Reviews? Here’s a Way to Fix That

Sometimes when I am thinking about writing a blog post, my thought process can be all over the place. Often times, my thoughts run to what either someone said or something I recently read.

Over the past few weeks, I reached out to a friend to ask her to intercede with another friend (and executive) who was looking to make a career transition into her domain. She readily agreed and I connected them. (On a side note, I believe we all should reach out to folks that are suffering from what I call careeer-itis. There, but for the grace of God, go I, as my mother always taught me).

My mission was accomplished, or at least I thought it was, until the day of their proposed conversation. Then I received a call from my friend that this executive never called or e-mailed. That sounded strange, so I sent her a quick note and never heard back. After a few days, I called her and left a message.

When she got back to me she apologized and suggested they talk this week. I immediately forwarded the e-mail over to my friend. As would happen, the day of the meeting she never called.

A Thanksgiving Thought: Listen to Your Employees, They Have Answers

Like a lot of you, Thanksgiving is a time for both thanks and family.

My family runs the gamut from senior citizens to Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. My wife and I have two children, a son who is Gen X and a Gen Y daughter, a daughter-in-law, and a new granddaughter. My niece who is a regular at our home along with her boyfriend, are both Gen X. Her mother — my sister — just retired. At the top of the food chain is my mother-in-law, who also recently retired from the school system.

Being in the Boomer generation myself, I love the interaction with both these groups. Our routine is always stimulating conversations which always turns into a spirited discussion. These discussions run the gamut of topics from politics to current events.

One of the topics that stirred the pot this year centered around careers, engagement, and overall talk of jobs. I drove this conversation when I mentioned a recently published post on TLNT that talked about the level of engagement within companies today. I listened intently, probed, and probed some more to try and get better insight into their thinking and the culture of their respective employers. I did not offer any opinion, but just tried to keep the thread of the conversation on track.

And the Winner is .............

My uncle had a love for the “ponies.” During the summer break from college, he would take me and all my brothers and we would head to the race track. It was always a fun family event on Saturdays. We would all sit in the clubhouse, which was a lot more elegant than the grandstand, and there we would begin the process of choosing winners for each race.

If you have never been to a race track, the list of characters who frequent them would give a screenwriter a treasure trove of material.

All the real fans would do their “workout,” which appeared to consist of looking at the horses’ past record and the times that they finished. I assumed they would extrapolate from this information for a fool-proof method of winning. Overall, it seemed to me about as successful as throwing a dart to choose the winner. My method was just to guess the top three winners of the race. My metric for a good day was to leave with more money than I came in with.
I thought of all of this the other day, when I saw the ad for the new movie Secretariat; the horse race, the expected and unexpected outcome, the drama as to who was going to finish in the money.

Are You Ready – Finally! – for HR 3.0?

A funny thing happened on the way to a tweet.

Last week I tweeted an article appropriately titled “Making the Case for Corporate Social Human Resources: Are You Prepared for HR 3.0?” The article reviewed a recently published book “CSR for HR: A Necessary Partnership for Advancing Responsible Business Practices,” and it makes the argument for connecting CSR (corporate social responsibility) with a company’s human resource function. I was intrigued with the 3.0 statement.

As with tweets, I always follow whether someone else votes for the article by re-tweeting it. Well on this one, I did receive a direct message from @TLColson. Her message was to the point: “most are still mastering 1.0, who are we kidding?” I had to smile, and chuckled as I read that.

This kind of stayed in my mind as I thought over the 1.0 to 3.0 analogy. What is HR 3.0 and how does it look?

Learning from AMEX: How Initiatives Can Drive Employee Engagement

Social media has been a godsend to a lot of us who love great content — although being told by someone what they had for breakfast does NOT count.

The amount of fruitful information you have access to is like nothing that you could have dreamed of years ago. Twitter, Facebook, and Google are just great tools. One of my mainstays is “Google alert.” To the uninitiated, it allows you to create a search “alert,” and then you will get the information when something is posted within the realm of your alert.

At times, the amount of articles you get sent from an “alert” can be overwhelming, but every so often, you read one that resonates. Last week, there was one that really stood out for me: “American Express commits $25 million to Leadership Development.” Because I have a background in training and development, I was awed by the amount of funds being committed. My thoughts ran to the kind of  leadership development program that could be designed when money is not an object.

So much for reading the headlines.

Philanthropy and employee engagement