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From the Archives of Make HR Happen – Those Times We Challenged Mediocrity

An inside joke is one shared by a few people that will instantly draw howls of laughter… but only if you happen to be an insider. One such incident was in my Army days when a bunch of us smart but rebellious officer candidates banded together as a protection against indiscriminate harassment by the TAC officers. One day we were called out for being a group of the “…most mediocre soldiers I have ever seen!”… Read More »From the Archives of Make HR Happen – Those Times We Challenged Mediocrity

Reviewing This Week on Make HR Happen – Absolutely No April Foolery

Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules! But we started off the week with the rules for breaking all the rules. Following up on that concept, there were articles on the five rules for building trust, then three more rules on exposing the past, multiple rules for considering contingent employment, and finally five more rules for dealing with toxic people in the workplace. Actually, these are more like lists of guidelines that are the result… Read More »Reviewing This Week on Make HR Happen – Absolutely No April Foolery

Considering a Contingent Career

About the time that the current boomer generation came into existence in the mid-1940’s, William Kelly placed his first “Kelly Girl” office temps with a client. How times have changed. By 1990 this had grown to the proportion of 1 in 13 new jobs categorized as temps and Manpower, Inc. became larger than General Electric. In 2005 the U.S. Department of Labor released a special study providing a definitive analysis of the contingent workforce and… Read More »Considering a Contingent Career

Institutional Archaeology

Often overlooked in the undeclared war between generations in the workplace is the fact that most people are not stupid. Thin skinned new entrants into the workforce meet and mingle with the bias of overconfident old timers and chips begin flying off of everybody’s shoulders throughout the organization. Unlike most wars, neither side really has any advantage. It is virtually impossible for either side to win… or lose. The most likely casualty is the business.… Read More »Institutional Archaeology

Creating an Environment of Trust

If there is one thing that is certain about managing the human resource of a company it is that no standard measure of the group can be representative of every individual. The opposite is not true. Employee surveys are generally aggregated to give a sense of the pulse of the group and statistically we take some degree of satisfaction in knowing how the “organization” thinks. Because there is statistical evidence that we can make management… Read More »Creating an Environment of Trust