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Archive for July, 2009
Five Ways to Guarantee You Won't Get the Best Candidates
Jul 31People are your most important asset. (We know that because it’s what everyone has to say.) Let’s take you at your word. If people are your strategic advantage, you need the best ones. So, why is it that so many companies do things to guarantee they won’t get the cream of the crop?
Here are five ways to guarantee you won’t get the best candidates:
- Use the same old boring job descriptions that everyone else uses. If you want to position above the competition, then do it. That starts with writing job descriptions with a little attitude.
- Think narrowly. Except for professional requirements like Legal and Actuarial, who says people have to come from conventional backgrounds? Just because someone has experience doesn’t mean it’s good. Ever heard of The Peter Principle?
- Don’t ask current employees for recommendations. Your employees’ friends are some of the best people available. Have you asked them to get their friends to join?
- Jerk around former candidates. This is a small world, and people talk. If your recruiters or managers have a habit of mishandling candidates, they talk.
- Say one thing and do another. If you want good people, you have to be true to who you are as a company. Don’t say you’re one thing if you’re another. Check out Glassdoor. Your candidates have.
UPDATE: PMV just told me about a great article on ReadWrite Start called “How to Hire an A Team.” Here’s the point that just knocks my socks off:
Hire an A-Team and it will hire an A-Team. Hire a B-Team and it will hire a C-Team.
Bam!
You Should Encourage Your Employees to Drive Drunk
Jul 30
[Photo credit: Huggs2]
Before you let your sales rep get in a car and drive for a couple of hours, don’t waste the opportunity to get him wasted. That’s right, give him a few drinks before he gets behind the wheel. Pump his blood alcohol level up to .08.
What, that doesn’t sound right? Neither does sending that same sales rep out on the road and expecting him to have a hands-free business meeting while he’s driving. The odds of him getting in an accident are the same as if he were drunk.
Four Times as Likely to Be in an Accident When Distracted by Cell Phone Use
Drivers who are distracted by phone calls are four times as likely to be in an accident as a non-distracted driver, according to a recent study by the National Highway Transportation Association. And if a person is texting, he or she can travel the length of five football fields before looking up. Truckers who text are 23 times more likely to be in an accident than those who don’t. And it was reported that the engineer was texting on the train in Los Angeles in October 2008 that rammed into a freight train, killing 25 and injuring 135 people. We have the power in HR to change how employees use cell phones while driving.
HR Against Distracted Driving (HRADD)
You can toss all your other policies. Want to write one that will really matter? One that will save lives? How about this: No employees of your company should talk on the phone while they’re driving. Period. Write a policy that makes it everyone’s job to be safe. Don’t schedule meetings with people while they’re zipping down the road.
I know this sounds a little nuts, like the toothpaste is already out of the tube, but I’m old enough to remember when it wasn’t even a bit shocking to think that it wasn’t okay to drink and drive. People used to brag about it. “Man, I was so lit last night, I don’t know how I drove home.” That seems unimaginable in 2009, doesn’t it? Can you imagine that some day we’ll be saying the same about being distracted while driving? Maybe.
HR Bobbleheads Episode 7: Groupthink
Jul 29
HR Bobbleheads – Episode 7: Groupthink from HR Bobbleheads on Vimeo.
A good idea is a good idea.
Until it leaves someone’s mouth, only to be bombarded, twisted around and blasted into oblivion by coworkers, until it’s completely unrecognizable.
QOTD: Do You Look Forward to Your Annual Performance Review?
Jul 27I’m curious: Is there anyone out there who looks forward to their annual performance reviews? Let’s hear it. And if you detest annual performance reviews, let’s hear that too.
Working in Lake Woebegone
Jul 24Did you know that I’m awesome? Of course, you know that you’re awesome, and she knows that she’s awesome. We are all, it seems, legends in our own minds. On their blog and in their recent podcast, NPR’s Planet Money takes another look at how everyone thinks they work harder, better, faster than most everyone else. NPR’s take is that this Lake Woebegone Effect makes it tough to pay for performance, because most of your employees are going to feel like they’ve been hosed.
Bad morale is not the only problem. This skewed view of the world is a big reason why that most sacred of HR cows, the self-evaluation, is so ripe for satire. There’s certainly a place for tooting your own horn, it ensures bosses know about an employee’s successes and provides clues to his expectations. On the other hand, asking people to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 5? You’re sure to get numeric proof that all of the children are above average.
Editor’s note: We’re delighted to have Lex Fortis as newly featured writer at KnowHR. Lex has been a huge contributor in the comments and to my entertainment (he wrote Performance Review Madlibs, for example). I can’t tell you how jazzed we are to have Lex as part of the editorial team. Please welcome Lex to the KnowHR team. –Frank Roche
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