Dr. Seuss has been providing great advice to children for years. And while the above mentioned passage is great advice, it assumes that one realizes their own control in situations. It requires personal accountability. Personal accountability seems to be missing far too often in organizations today. Consider the number of conversations you have had with those in your organization about missed deadlines, failed projects, or performance misses. How often do those conversations result in a list of excuses?
This is the first in a new series called tips and tricks. Supervising others is one of the most difficult jobs one can have; it is also one of the most important. Below is a list of tips for supervising others that I picked up along my career path. What can you add?
A common understanding in the learning field is that the best way to learn is to teach someone else. During the past year, I have had the privilege to learn a great deal from my HR students. What my students taught me this year: HR is still misunderstood in many organizations. Many of my students […]
When your business grows to the point where you need to start hiring people to work for you, you know you’re doing well. It means you’re growing, and it’s a big step forward in terms of just how successful your business can be.
It also means you need to spend some time figuring out exactly what those employees are going to do, and how they’re going to do it. Do you need part-time employees? Full-time? Do you need occasional help? How you answer those questions will help determine how those employees are classified.
Recently, I got asked another question and the answer required a little more thought on my part. One of my HR students asked, “How do you know so much about this stuff?” After thinking about that for a couple of days, I discovered that the answer is that I am a true student of HR and all things related to people in the workplace. I read a lot of books, I read a lot of articles, I spend a great deal of time on websites, I attend professional development seminars and conferences, I teach HR, and I am actively involved in my local ASTD chapter. I am constantly seeking the most up to date information and I love research on the topic. I am a true HR Nerd.
You get a resignation notice from a top performing manager. You weren’t prepared. You have been talking about succession planning, but other priorities got in the way. Now you have the notice. So what do you? This is an important role and will be key to the future success of the company. Knowing the spot can’t go vacant, you take a look at the team and offer the position to the top performer. The top performer tells you he’s not ready. You know that he will be fine. You tell him that, hand him a set of keys and get busy on those other priorities.
Human Resource professionals are often given the task to create performance management systems. One would expect these systems should focus on the individual and organizational performance needed to achieve the organization’s targets and goals. However, it seems that often times these systems are counter-productive and result in anything but higher levels of achievement consistently and across all areas of the organization.
HR is full of different roles and responsibilities and there are a ton of buzzwords that we love to throw around in organizations. We also love to use creative titles for people in HR. Companies do this for a variety of reasons, but mostly is a marketing campaign. We need some good marketing in HR, but we also need to realize the best marketing is providing a service that people want and need. Results happen and a key to HR success is tying all that activity we do to business impact. Below are some of lessons I was reminded of this year tied to the importance of HR and what we do. There a few buzzwords and rhymes thrown in for fun.
s the year comes to a close and I begin to reflect on the previous twelve months, I realize as adults we are always learning and re-learning important lessons. Many of the lessons I learned this year were simply reminders of lessons learned years ago. Below is the beginning of my list and will serve as part one for the Twelve Lessons I Learned (or Re-Learned) This Year blog series. These lessons are universal in many areas of life.
In my last post, I discussed the positive effects of gratitude. During this time of Thanksgiving, it is easy for us to be thankful for the things in our life that we love and enjoy. However, how often do we show gratitude and give thanks for the things that were difficult for us or for things that were unpleasant? It reminds of the commonly used notion of Feedback as a gift. As much as it is, it can be hard to realize it when the gift you are receiving is negative or unflattering.
Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 15 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. [Read more ...]
