Subscribe
Follow Us
Archive for September, 2009
The Difference Between a Great Sentence and Real Communication
Sep 30Here’s what I have to say about the difference between a great sentence and real communication:
In English classes, including 100% of the information will get you an A. In great employee communication, you have to chose the right 10% to be the most effective.
Class is ended. Go in piecemeal.
Want Employee Wellness? Change Your Sick Policy and Other HR Hints
Sep 29
[Photo credit: Bronx]
Alright, I’m cranky.
Three people were coughing their heads off on my R5 train this morning. You know why? “They have the flu” is the easy answer. The real answer? Their companies have crappy sick policies. I don’t even know them and I know that.
You’re talking about wellness at work. I’m pretty certain about that. But mostly when you’re talking about wellness you really mean that your employees are too fat and they smoke too much. (I say this as I stare at a bag of Boston Kreme donuts.) There are other things employees can do to be well and save money. Here are a few:
- Stay home when you’re sick.
- Cough into your elbow.
- Wear a seatbelt. (That goes double in a taxi. More about that soon.)
- Watch out for home injuries. 2.5 million eye injuries happen around the home.
- When it’s dark, drive with your freaking lights on. (That means you, guy in the black car barreling down Sugartown Road this morning at 6:40 am.)
Mostly, I have something to say to the HR Policy Police. If your sick policy makes it so that your employees come in sick to avoid a “non-excused absence,” think about that, will you? What’s worse — one sick person or 100 sick employees? How does it make any sense to have people come in and infect their coworkers?
And if you have any employees on the R5 — especially the one I take in the morning — please change your policy to keep Swine Flu Mary off the train.
Drug Test, or Stupidity Test?
Sep 24No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -P.J. O’Rourke
Wouldn’t it be cool if companies stopped doing random drug tests and substituted random tests for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power? I think the workplace would be a lot better off.
Protect Insurance Company Profits
Sep 22Will Farrell has something to say: Protect insurance company profits.
If you can’t see the embedded video, here’s the link.
If You Want to Help HR, Get Out of the Echo Chamber
Sep 22The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. — Albert Einstein
Last Thursday, I went to a book signing for The Rookie, a science fiction book by Scott Sigler about an intergalatic football league 700 years in the future.
In addition to getting to listen to Sigler’s process for research and writing his upcoming 37 books (yep, he has that many in the pipeline), I also got to hang out with the gifted graphic designer Donna Mugavero (aka MsInformation) and The Maestro, George Hrab. We talked about business, the creative process, and what it would take to create a colony on Mars. We talked about audiences. About expectations. About communication. And the meaning of “far.” Check out George Hrab’s FAR in the embedded video below to see what I mean.
You know what the really good part was? We didn’t talk about HR.
If you want to help HR, get out of the echo chamber. Complaining about HR is fun. It’s easy. And it’s useless. Doing something about it is something else entirely. I know some real HR superstars. They’re not in the echo chamber. They don’t waste time as disgruntled middle managers. They’re doing things. That includes knowing what’s happening outside HR. Sometimes that means going far, far, far, far away from the echo chamber. Really far.
Featured Product
Social Media
Flickr
