Recruiting Bloggers.com

40% of Workplace Bullies are Female

Example:

“She gave this employee totally inappropriate assignments, setting him up to fail, and then punished him when he could not complete the assignments.... She eventually did not invite this employee to the Christmas party.” The worker finally quit.

Some of the behaviors — glaring, failing to return calls, not praising a worker — may seem trivial, but they take a toll when repeated over and over again.

“Imagine yourself sitting at a conference table and you offer something as a suggestion and someone looks at you and shakes their head every time.... It can be damaging to be constantly dismissed in front of your peers."

One danger is that people become resigned to it and say:
‘That's just what it's like around here.’

Source: New York Times

Creating passion!

by Your HR Guy

Everybody wants to be passionate about what they do but they have a hard time finding what they are passionate about in the first place. It seems that all sorts of people are having a hard time figuring out exactly what they want to do in life. Even people that shouldn't know what they are passionate about yet are concerned about it.

It may seem weird but I haven't ever worried about it. Why?

Older is Often Better

By Your HR Guy

Forget about Gen Y/Millennials for a second, how about retaining the older generations?

Unfortunately, we can't all work for a dot com where younger workers and older workers can enter the industry on essentially the same footing. There are many industries where the wealth of experience an older person brings to a company actually does make a real significant difference. And with early retirement being offered in many of those industries (and early retirement being a voluntary option), the time to strengthen your retention strategy is now.

Cleanliness may be next to Godliness...

by Your HR Guy

But it isn't anywhere near career success.

This is one article I am actually going to share with my boss. A good point from the article:

"Mess isn't necessarily the absence of order," Abrhamson and Freedman claim. "A messy desk can be a highly effective prioritizing and accessing system. In general, on a messy desk, the more important, urgent work tends to stay close by and near the top of the clutter, while the safely ignorable stuff tends to get buried to the bottom or near the back, which makes perfect sense. The various piles on a messy desk can represent a surprisingly sophisticated informal filing system that offer far more efficiency and flexibility than a filing cabinet could possibly provide."

Generational Smackdown 2007!

by YourHRGuy

Am I smelling a generational smackdown between Recruiting Animal and Employee Evolution? Maybe Animal could get the Evolutionistas on the radio show and really go to town. I could probably put aside some time to listen to that.

And honestly, I feel a bit torn about who I should root for. On one hand, I agree with Animal's premise in that generational gaps are overstated and that, to a certain extent, they don't even matter in some companies (whether that affects Y'ers in a positive or negative way) . On the other hand though, Gen Y are my boys. I've got some bright eyed bushy tailism in my body and I am part of Gen Y too.

Getting a MBA may be worthwhile...

by Your HR Guy

...in a few years.

And I really hate to make blanket statements like that because all of the MBA guys and gals I know are swell and they work great together. That doesn't mean though that I haven't talked to a lot of dweebs coming fresh out of MBA's not knowing anything about working at the executive level. At some point, I almost want to question if they actually knew the whole point of getting an MBA was to move up or move out?

How about a four day work week?

by Your HR Guy

Jacob from JobMob left an interesting comment on my post about the productivity of Fridays in the business world. Enter the idea of the four day work week.

Interesting. It isn't a new concept by any means. School districts have tried it with some success. People with places that have flextime do it all the time. Some businesses have summer Fridays. So it isn't whether or not it can be done (it can be), it is whether or not it makes business sense or people sense.

It only takes three seconds

by Your HR Guy

Don Imus is, at best, a person that doesn't think about everything that comes out of his mouth. Which if you're a shock jock, is probably not that unusual. We can bat around whether he is a racist or not but at this point, at least from where I am taking this post, it doesn't matter.

You aren't a shock jock.

How do I know? Well, you're reading this blog. And even recruiting's biggest shock jock doesn't really compare (sorry Animal).

Start tracking your accomplishments today

by Your HR Guy

Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. Today

The number of times that I've asked someone for a major professional accomplishment and they've stumbled and given me a really poor answer is way too high for what it should be. I've been trying to think about people who couldn't possibly list a major professional accomplishment and I've narrowed it down to a person with no professional experience not being able to answer that question.

Companies aren't chickens

by Your HR Guy

If you are familiar with the term "running around like a chicken with its head cut off," you'll understand what I mean when I say companies aren't like chickens. Without a head, companies don't do anything. Chickens can run around for minutes without their heads on, companies don't last seconds without their head in place. And if they were to do anything, it wouldn't be running around. Maybe grabbing some free sodas before they leave but that's it.

I realize that I am tipping on the edge of absurdity so I want to bring this down a bit.

Jason Goldberg and Jobster seem to have what amounts to a major problem.