My HR Practice

I just put an interesting article in my Blog " I Think, I Like "  in which Lou Adler posits that experience is overrated .  He says, "e xperience and skills are overrated. A continuous track record of exceptional performance in a variety of increasing complex situations isn’t." This article got me thinking about a prevalent practice in corporations - assessing employee potential .  It also made me acknowledge that in defining potential, companies have made this way, way harder then it needs to be.  Look at this definition, from the Harvard Business Review: " High potentials always deliver strong results, master new types of expertise, and recognize that behavior counts. But it’s their intangible X factors that truly distinguish them from the pack.  The Four X Factors of High Potentials : 1. Drive to excel 2. Catalytic learning capability 3. Enterprising spirit 4. Dynamic sensors " Catalytic learning capability?...

I've got another Blog running that I call " I Think, I Like "  In it I put content that includes books I'm reading, things about which I'm thinking or interesting stories I've read and enjoyed.  Today, I added a great piece from Fortune on the story of a candy company called Mars .  If you've heard of M&M's or Snickers, you've heard of Mars. What I love is how Mars tells the story of the Seven "C's" of Employee Engagement . Customer Capability (I'll count two "C's"' here) Mars boasts employees who love not only the products they make but also the office culture and the company's long-standing principles. Every Mars employee gets a glossy 27-page booklet explaining the principles in action, signed with the names of 13 family members. The principles, righteously explains the booklet, "set us apart from others, requiring that we think and act differently towards our associates, our brands and ...

When I wrote "The Seven C's of Employee Engagement," I included Career among the "C's" . Here's the reference: C areer  is so important to engagement and, in my experience, the number one reason why employees are not engaged.  If employees are to sustain their engagement, they must be working in service of something bigger and more meaningful than the next merit increase or promotion.  They must have a career goal in mind, and they must context their accomplishment and professional development against that goal.  When this exists, so does discretionary effort. When it doesn't, my experience teaches that "above and beyond" effort is not sustained.   I promised to write more about this later.  So, here it is.  Let me share a personal story.  I launched into my first job with IBM with a strong foundation:  MBA Human Resources; meaningful professional experience with State University of New York, Computer Sciences Corporation, Inte...

If you are an aspiring HR professional, there are two words you must find a way to insert into any conversation with a business leader -- "Competency" and "Model".  Using these words will make you look smart and educated and send a message to the business leader that she needs you because you know about something she won't admit that she's never really understood. Do a Google search on the phrase "competency model" and in 0.40 seconds you will gain access to 331,000 hits.  And if you are brave enough to go deeper, you'll look at searches related to "competency model" and find the following: competency model examples; competency model definition; leadership competency model; competency model template; core competency model; cultural competency model; technical competency model; and  competency model for managers Let's go ahead and look at #2, competency model definition.  In 0.31 seconds Google returns 1,550,000...

When I wrote "The Seven C's of Employee Engagement," I led with Customer Capability. Here's the reference: C ustomer  C apability  may be the most important and yet most over-looked "C". Employees must be proud of their product and/or service and how it enables customer success.  Ask employees to design, sell, make, deliver, service or bill for products or services that are a poor value for their customer, and over time they will offer less and less of their discretionary effort.   I promised to write more about this later.  So, here it is.   How many times have we heard in sports that " winning cures what ails a team ?"  In basketball, the Miami Heat's LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Eric Spoelstra (the  coach ) seemed to struggle to get along during the season.  With those struggles was a sense that, together, they simply did not appear to make each other better.  Then came the NBA playoffs and a first round serie...

Being the parent of three wonderful young men, all of whom decided to pursue college dreams, required that I prepare myself to answer questions about college selections and careers.  And, being a career HR practitioner and one whom, on occasion, people would seek out for advice, required that I have some sort of framework through which I would offer my thoughts. I should also disclose that I come from an upstate New York, middle class family where my parents had six children in six years and my father could not afford a single day of unemployment. Not one.  So, he made decisions that always resulted in the safest, if not most lucrative path to maintenance of weekly income.  Meaning, my mental model and associated framework is, admittedly, conservative. Here's what I told my sons: "Sons, all companies do seven things. D esign . They conjure up a product or service that they think may have a market.  M arket . They test to see if there i...

We've all seen the studies that speak to the impact on productivity of employees who give their company their discretionary effort.  The person who pulls an all-nighter to be ready for a customer presentation.  Or the one who travels tirelessly to connect a company globally.  When our employees go "above and beyond" to achieve, we say they are engaged.  And we all want to know how to make more engaged employees. My experience teaches the there are seven "C's" of employee engagement.  I must credit IBM with the beginnings of this framework, as I learned most of this from my time with IBM in Chicago.  I've tested this informally ever since and have yet to find a framework that is more memorable and relevant. So, what are the seven "C's" of employee engagement?  Here goes: C ustomer C apability (I'll count two "C's"' here) C ompensation C areer C onnections C ommunity C ulture C ustomer C apability may...