The Mature Resume

Watch this video clip from The Early Show and Money Magazine for resume tips (or what to look for when hiring). You have to love the advice to keep the fax number off the resume...any other things a no-no for a resume that may "date" the job seeker?

Airing the Dirty Laundry

I've just read an article by Christine Crews, VP for the Employers Association Forum, Inc. as published in the Summer 2011 edition of HR Florida Review. The topic of the article is Technology's Impact on HR. It speaks about walking the fine line between allowing access to technology while at the same time managing all the good and bad that can come with it. This is a topic that affects organizations of all types and sizes. Many organizations have email policies and may have policies governing the use of technology but many of these policies are ambiguous and do little in the way of speaking directly to what is current in technology. For example, not many organizations specifically focus on social media within their technology use policy. In fact, some organizations have decided to lock out certain web sites (read: Twitter and Facebook) with the goal of preventing time spent by employees performing such unproductive tasks as updating followers on what they think about the movie they watched last night.

What these organizations may not have considered when creating their policy is the fact that social media cannot be blocked by a firewall or a policy. Social media is not restricted to work hours. What are employees (or for that matter anyone within the organization) posting for all to see during their lunch (on their iPhone, Blackberry, Evo, tablet pc, etc...) or while at home, at a coffee shop, bookstore, and so on? How does a company manage their reputation and maintain an open workplace at the same time? Are there benefits of allowing open access to social media while at work?

A PDP By Any Other Name

Just because (just because I'm so into human resources - yes, it's true and yes, you can giggle) I "Googled" the term "performance development plan" and came up with (drum roll).....37,400,000 hits. Of course, mine was a simple search, no Boolean methodology used, but still I thought that there is a tremendous amount of information to be had on all things performance. There are also myriad terms used in connection with career planning among them: individual development plan, personal development plan, professional development plan, and performance development plan though for purposes of this post I will use the term performance development plan (pdp). I also noticed a rather high number of universities from the University of Idaho to MIT using pdp's. This seemed to make perfect sense to me as a pdp is intended to focus an individual on their career path, the skills they need to develop to help them reach their career goals, and a timeline to guide them.

A pdp can be very useful and enlightening if constructed and utilized in the right manner. Unfortunately, I have heard feedback from managers that they did not feel they had the time, effort, and support developing a pdp warrants. Or - the focus may be on employees who are high-performers and those employees who are not the current shining stars may miss the opportunity a pdp affords. So, quick moral of the story: developing a well-thought out pdp is important to both the organization and the individual. A great pdp:

empowers employees

assist with career succession planning

fosters loyalty

boosts productivity

increases retention

Work-Life Balance

Just came across a great article on work-life balance. Although this Yahoo! Finance article is mainly about the top 25 companies (as rated by their current and former employees) for work-life balance, the article also contains various reasons to support why establishing a flexible set of benefits is beneficial to all.

Hey Coach I Need Your Counsel

I've never played on a sports team and have never coached one but I have been a coach. I am not a psychologist (and have never played one on tv) but I have counseled employees. The coaching and counseling I am referring to is part of providing ongoing feedback as a human resource professional or as a manager. I was thinking about this topic today after recalling a particularly challenging employee I once supervised.

Several years ago one of the employees I supervised was one who staffed a key area of our department. The employee was responsible for greeting customers, determining what assistance they needed, ensuring the customer received the assistance needed, providing forms where requested, and answering phone calls and general email inquiries. The employee was hired because of their past experience in working with customers, fluency in several languages, and the fact that at the interview the employee gave a strong indication they understood how their role would influence how others saw our department on first contact.Unfortunately, not long after the employee was hired we began to receive complaints from customers stating the employee was rude and seemed unwilling to help them. In addition to observing these things myself, I also noticed that the employee became flustered when several customers were waiting for assistance at the same time. When I had a coaching session with the employee to point out specific things the employee had said to customers and actions the employee had taken that gave the perception of rudeness, the employee did not understand. To the employee, they were merely offering quick service to our customers. I learned, after speaking further with the employee that the behaviors may have stemmed from learned cultural differences in expectations and assumptions. I outlined the expectations our customers had and provided specific examples. Only after the desirable behaviors were modeled by working with the employee did the employee begin to understand.

When coaching employees it can be difficult to remember that the focus must remain on the behaviors being exhibited and not the (real or perceived) attitudes of the employee. It is integral to remember that point as the employee's receptiveness to coaching will depend on providing specific examples of behaviors and not general statements regarding their attitudes. For example, state "Stieg (as in Larsson, yes I read the trilogy), you have been late five days within the past two weeks and your reports have contained multiple mistakes" and not "Stieg, you seem to not care about your work as of late".

What amazingly positive and/or incredibly unbelievable stories might you have about being a coach or being on the receiving end of a coaching session? Did you learn some "what to do" and "what not to do"?

Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Remember that little song by Santa Esmeralda (okay, I do listen to disco from time to time, it's my guilty pleasure) that pleads: "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good"? Those lyrics popped into my head as I was thinking about communication. How often have you had a message to convey that somehow did not reach the intended receiver as you had hoped? Did you blame the receiver for not paying attention or did you stop and consider what their communication style is? Quite often in my career I have had the opportunity to work with some very talented people. These people were recognized for their talents but were also, sometimes to a greater degree, known for the "quirks" in their personality. What it came down to was learning how to best adapt to each person's style of communication. What communication style are you? There are several models to choose from - let's try the HARP model. The HARP model defines four, distinct communication styles:

Harmony (otherwise known as "Can't we all just get along")

The person using this style as their main style (we all use the four styles at various times though we have main styles we use most often) is focused on maintaining relationships. They do not like confrontation and seek to avoid it.

Action (the "Get-r-done" people)

This person gets jazzed about possibilities and being part of forward movement. Action people, though, have a wee bit of difficulty stepping back and taking in the overall picture. Details are not this person's strength.

Rational ("Just the facts" here)

Logic, reason, and detail are the friends of Spock and those using the rational communication style. These people want clearly defined plans and want to keep emotion out of the process. They like to see the light at the end of the tunnel and they enjoy the walk through the tunnel even more.

Pragmatic (Just maintain control....)

These people want it done their way and like to see results. Pragmatic people are highly focused and highly competitive. Game on...

Can you identify your main communication style? What about the style of your boss, co-workers, reporting staff, and even your significant other/other family members? Now, how to you adapt your communication style when conveying a message to someone with a similar style? A very diferent style?

http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/blogs/entry-detail

TMI (The Misbehaving Interviewees): Lessons In Interviewing From "The Office"

http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/blogs/entry-detail?blog_id=1280&entry_id=13362&sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4ddbe878aaed8bb1%2C0

Introductions All Around

Hello my fellow human resource learners. I say learners because isn't that what we all are? The human resource profession is a constantly evolving one, where federal, state, and local (and, for some human resource professionals, international) laws are continually being reinterpreted or clarified. It is an area of practice where some dance a short rumba with human resources here and there and others practice it each day as if readying for a dance competition!

What do the words "human resources" mean, though? We can use the BusinessDictionary.com definition: "The division of a company that is focused on activities relating to employees. These activities normally include recruiting and hiring of new employees, orientation and training of current employees, employee benefits, and retention." That seems a bit dry and, let's face it, boring. Is that what the field of human resources is all about, the simple reaction of human resource professionals to the daily operations of an organization? Much has been said about the strategic aspects of human resources as of late, so much so that it is becoming more of a buzzword and less about the underlying importance of what the human in human resources is all about.

Let's consider the FreeDictionary.com definition that focuses on the economic impact of human resources: "... the contribution to an employing organization which its workforce could provide in effort, skills, knowledge, etc." I like that. That's what human resources is about and that's where we bring value to an organization - managing the unique assets that each and every employee brings and the intrinsic value those assets hold.