We all think it, don’t we? We all want to believe in this notion that we only hire the best and brightest. We only hire quality. We are “highly” selective. We’ll show our executives really cool data that shows how “highly” selective we are. Number of applicants per hire—25,000 people applied for this position and we only took the best …
Are You Brave Enough To Teach Leaders To Not Treat Everyone Equally?
Leadership slang time, people. Let’s give you a term you can text your fellow HR/Talent pros in response to hearing that they’re stuck in a time-suck they shouldn’t be in. The term/acronym? NINA. “No Influence, No Authority.” NINA refers to people who really can’t get things done in an organization, and it’s position/situation specific. Consider the following: – Authority is downward sloping. People with …
Hello 3-Day Weekends!
If you’ve been in the workforce for 20+ years, you probably grew up thinking working longer hours meant you were more productive, or helped you advance your career. I spent many years arriving at and leaving an office in darkness. Microsoft has put a bit of data behind the fact longer hours do not equate to higher productivity (or happiness). …
Would You Be Happy With No HR?
Today, if twitter is to be believed, (and there are many whom attribute gospel-like reverence to it) HR is focused on talent, technology and turnover. Throw in an employee experience or two and you’ve got the top 5 “issues” HR needs to address. I have orbited HR for over 15 years, and if I step into the wayback machine, 15 …
Confessions of a Class Migrant
Learning How To Navigate White-Collar Workplaces, When You Suddenly Can Afford A Compass Reading the Harvard Business Review’s article on Why Companies Should Add Class To Their Diversity Discussion gave me new words to something I have been feeling for years. Classism is the elephant in the room that we refuse to address when we talk about equity and inclusion. The …
Degrees Measure Resilience In Employment… And That’s Why We Require Them.
Do you have to have a degree to get hired at your company? Maybe. Do you need a degree to be one of the best in any company? Hell no. That’s probably why Ernst and Young and other have made decisions in the last few years to drop the degree requirement recently. Then why do we require degrees? I think …
10 Things HR Should Have Given Up by Now
I attended an awards luncheon where the nominees were asked the question, “What would you have expected to have given up by now?” Answers involved a lot of childhood sweets, biting nails and imaginary dogs (that was not mine). Slap that question on the HR profession and I have a few ideas around the answers. Some are common sense and …
Was Gladwell Wrong About Outliers? The Latest on Practice and the 10,000 Hour Rule
If you’re a high-end, progressive HR, recruiting or talent pro, you know about the 10,000 hour rule, a research area made popular by the Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers. The seed for the 10,000-hour rule was a 1993 study of violinists and pianists which found that accumulated practice time rose with musical prowess. On average, top-ranked violinists had clocked up 10,000 hours of …
How About a Designer In the HR Department?
How HR Professionals Can Use Design Thinking To Transform Their Company and Career A few years ago I found the world’s cutest mug. It had a little pug on the front, was large and perfect for drinking tea on a cozy Sunday. It was about 10 minutes after using that mug, tea all down my shirt and my fingers squished …
Prepare For Your Amazon Interview with this Airbnb Experience
Let’s say you’re eyeing that Director-level position at Amazon. You’ve read the culture takedown pieces and understand that you might be walking into an…ugh…aggressive workplace. Still, you know that 3-5 years at Amazon is money in the bank when it comes to your career. You can do anything for 3 years if it means you exponentially jump up the career …