One thing I have learned from working in the HR arena is that Human Resources professionals are most definitely not a protected class. The HRism bias is alive and well. This is not another cynical rant that we don’t have a seat at the table or a lament that employees don’t understand what we do. This vital work is often a thankless job caught in the no-man’s-land between management thinking and employee’s thinking. There is… Read More »Taming Rampant HRism
I have not done an exhaustive study on the subject, but it seems to be human nature to simply dismiss people that are not like us. The first lesson in my [almost] adult life was when I was working a summer job between my freshman and sophomore years in college. Looking back, I can see the wisdom in my father’s push to get me a job in a factory environment as a place to learn… Read More »Defense Against Dismissivism
If there is a line between stalking and people watching, I probably test those boundaries from time to time. There is a library of characters in my brain, probably for that unwritten great American novel, that grows with every day. This week began with observing how people see different generations. If ageism is alive and well it is probably partially due to how people are perceived by another age group. Next we transitioned into a… Read More »Reviewing This Week on Make HR Happen – Watching People Everywhere
People-watching gives us a peek into the thoughts of an individual by their actions. Watching groups of people as they interact with each other gives us clues to the culture they are creating among themselves. I have learned to be very cautious about applying the lessons learned in parenting and training pets as a somewhat inadequate solution to solving business problems, but there are some interesting parallels. Children cannot be expected to arrive with a… Read More »Rewarding Bad Behavior
A people watcher is a collector of observed behaviors. When I was a child, I remember watching my parents and wanting to say and do everything I observed. How quickly we forget. Fast forward to a quick road trip lunch stop at a nasty McDonalds in Maryland where now I am the daddy that is being observed by a toddler sitting in the restaurant-supplied high chair. Imagine my surprise when I heard that cherubic little… Read More »Always Question Everything… Sometimes