Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Ed Baldwin”
When I take a quick scan of any Best Places to Work list, I pessimistically always wonder whether these places would be on the list if they weren’t profitable. Do you feel having a great culture mandates that you must also have a healthy bottom line? Does big profit always precipitate enviable culture? While I haven’t taken the time to do …
Everyone’s heard the phrase “a bad apple spoils the bunch,” but in my work experience, this hasn’t been true. In my experience, it isn’t the bad apple that spoils the bunch; it’s the semi-bad apple. That apple that you think is just as good as the rest (or pretty close), until you realize it’s not just as good, and that …
Virtually all companies want to hire the very best talent available. Most have some version of this statement proudly displayed on their careers page. But we all know that there are constraints in terms of the price you can afford to pay for that talent. That’s the crux of achieving your company’s talent strategy, maximizing the talent you bring into …
How many of us have seen our leaders (C-Suite, bosses, the ivory tower, “the brass”) abandon their integrity when the going gets rough? Maybe they decided to cut salaries to shed costs without cutting their own, or they identified a sacrificial lamb to take the fall for what was their mistake. Perhaps they simply elected to flat out lie to …
In today’s hot job market nearly all of us are trying to “build a better mousetrap so the world will beat a path to our door,” as the saying goes. We are all authoring our employment brand, and trying to one-up our competitors. And a lot of that work revolves around understanding and then documenting/describing our culture. Culture is such …
Grace is a word not often used in a business context. It should probably be used more. And even less so, grace is not something we typically associate with firing someone, taking away someone’s source of financial security, involuntarily. But we should. Because when it comes to firing someone, grace on the part of the employer is what’s needed most. …
There is an email that occasionally makes the circuit in the HR community. The content of this email is an amusing excerpt from a 1940’s transportation magazine article entitled Guide to Hiring Women. The point of this forwarded email isn’t about how atrocious the recruiting practices of women were in the 1940s, but rather to challenge its readers (recruiters, HR …
My pre-interview checklist. Hugo Boss suit. Check (although it fits a lot tighter than I remember it fitting a decade ago). Conservative tie. Check. Polished shoes. Check. Ironed and starched shirt. Check. Fresh shave, cleared hair out of nose and ears. Check. And perhaps most importantly, investing several hours getting to know as much as I can about the slate …
I’ve had the really good fortune of traveling internationally for a good chunk of my career. It’s been a career filled with humbling and tremendous learning, derived from surviving the potent mix of immigration/border security lines, horrific plane meals, and profound cases of jet lag. In fact, I would go so far as to say that traveling internationally has played a …
Think about the best professional advice you’ve ever received. Where did it come from? A how-to YouTube video? A TED talk? Your spouse? An executive coach? Maybe a lawyer? A book? A keynote speech at an HR/talent conference? Likely not. Or… from a fellow HR/talent colleague? Yep, that’s what I thought. Networking is all the rage. So are conferences, podcasts, …
