HR Strategy

There are many lists that highlight great places to work. Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” andBusinessWeek’s “Best Places to Launch a Career” are two of the most compelling for general jobseekers. However, I have never come across a credible list designed specifically for those early in their career in the …

The World Series is over and the San Francisco Giants won. Whether you are happy or upset with the outcome, you should analyze what it took for them to win and determine what talent management lessons can be learned. Major league baseball has always been a leader in measuring employee …

Most HR measurements miss the boat! Many HR departments say they are a “business partner,” but few can provide any real evidence that they are having a strategic business impact. After years of studying CEO expectations of HR I’ve compiled a list of the kind of questions CEO’s might want …

Many corporate practitioners and HR consultants talk about being more strategic, but then turn around and focus on incremental improvements to strategies, models and practices decades old. When most, if not all, of the practices that form the foundation of the typical HR function today were conceived, times were different. …

Do People-Management Factors Cause Failures? In recent years, numerous scandals and disasters have demonstrated the far-reaching impact of corporate policy, and more importantly corporate practice. While firms like Enron, Bear Stearns, and “systems” best practice icon Toyota had well-documented processes, policies, and procedures, they also all engaged in management practices …

In any situation where employees fail to perform as expected, investigators must determine if the human error could have been caused by factors beyond the employee’s control. Such external factors might include actions by senior management, lack of adequate information or job training, faulty inputs to the process, or rewards …

In case you haven’t noticed, the economy has gone to hell. It’s been up and down like a yo-yo for the last decade, a fact that led Time to declare the first decade of the new century “the decade from hell” in a recent cover story. If you work in …

Last week I introduced this series by talking about how general business changes have rendered what many might consider traditional strategy development in talent management more of a hindrance to organizations than a benefit. I did not say that strategy is not important, or that delivering a strategic impact is …

Last week in Part 1 of this series, I mentioned that as the global economy continues to emerge, many organizations may find themselves needing to cut labor costs on a recurrent basis. During times of economic decline, the need may be for drastic cuts, which the options presented last week can address, …

When many organizations are faced with the need to cut labor costs, the approaches taken are generally unscientific and poorly researched. Many simply do what other organizations acting before them have already done. The decision-making seems almost whimsical, with the final option selection process akin to throwing darts. The end …