Why I Hate the Elevator Speech

By Sheri Mazurek on November 18, 2012

There are career centers and networking groups all over advising us to perfect our elevator speech. Armed with this advice, many get busy writing and practicing (well, maybe practicing) their 30 or 45 or 60 second commercial. Once the speech is perfected off you go to your networking event, conference or career fair ready to make connections.

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Scary Things in HR

By Sheri Mazurek on October 29, 2012

here are a number of scary things in the world and in business. In honor of Halloween week, below is a list of some of the scariest things about HR….

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Employees hate/love to go to participate in training

By Sheri Mazurek on October 21, 2012

n organizations, there are people who love to participate in training events and there are at least an equal (most likely more) amount of people who hate training events. Those haters of the training events are most likely not opposed to learning. In fact, when they need know something, most of them will find a way to learn it.

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Merit Pay Doesn’t Work

By Sheri Mazurek on October 14, 2012

I have written multiple times about he ever hated performance review. This dreaded ritual in many companies is also often tied to the annual salary increase. An increase that often times is given within a tight budget constraint somewhere between 2-4%. It also often called a merit increase or a pay for performance compensation system. Those who are top performers may get a 4% increase while the poor performer may get the 2-3% increase. The result of this system actual keeps employees at very close salaries. And my guess is that if the top performer in a particular position or team has a little less tenure than the bottom performer, the bottom performer could still make more money.

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Great Reads This Week in HR

By Sheri Mazurek on September 23, 2012

After seeing an info graphic earlier this week, I planned on writing a post in response to it. The info graphic can be found here and it depicts the biggest time wasters at work. At the top of the list of time wasters is talking to co-workers. This is very topic, I was going to write about; however, I found that my thoughts have already been articulated on Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog So I encourage you to visit his blog this also.

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Poor performance, What’s the Cause?

By Sheri Mazurek on September 8, 2012

We spend a lot of time in business and in HR building systems and processes to accomplish goals. Whether or not we have well defined goals, we do typically have systems or processes in place in an effort to make the business work. Sometimes the systems are well defined and sometimes they are not. Regardless, these systems are often to blame when things aren’t going well, along with everything else from the employees not listening to poor management.

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What Managers Wished HR Understood

By Sheri Mazurek on August 22, 2012

The article served as a reminder that sometimes hiring managers don’t understand other things as well. And if you are a hiring manager, I am sure that you are thinking of a number of topics that HR doesn’t get about “running your business” or “dealing with your people”. So in an effort to help bridge the gap between hiring managers and HR and represent both sides, below is a list of 6 things that managers may want us to know.

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Practice til You Make It

By Sheri Mazurek on August 6, 2012

I love the Olympics. I love watching the amazing things others can accomplish with dedication and practice. That has always been a favorite part of my job as well. Regardless of the organization or role I had within the organization, I have always loved watching others change, develop and grow to achieve amazing things. It’s how I ended up in HR. And no, I am not going to follow up that statement by, “I just love the people side of the business.” I just love business and have found that ordinary people can accomplish amazing things within the business by working hard and putting in the time to develop their talents.

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Choices Make all the Difference

By Sheri Mazurek on July 24, 2012

There are a number of examples in the news currently of people whose legacy has recently changed from positive to negative. The removal of the Joe Paterno statue at Penn State is one that shows how poor decisions can wipe out years of positive acts. Paterno will now be remembered more for the scandal surrounding the university and less about wins and losses of a football team.

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Ten Ways to Not Get Called by a Recruiter You Met at Your School’s Career Fair

By Sheri Mazurek on July 8, 2012

Fall is full of great things including the beautiful scenery brought by the changing leaves and joys of trick or tricking with the kids while they are still young enough to find magic in a big bag of “free” candy. For those of us in HR and Recruiting, fall brings the season of college career fairs. And just like the stores preparing for their “back to school” revenue, recruiters are preparing to find the best and the brightest.

So are the best and brightest preparing for us? Are they getting ready to find their start in a great career? I am sure that many of them are doing just that; and these are the ones recruiters will be thrilled to meet at their local career fair. However, my guess is that there will still be hundreds of them that can check at least some of the things on the following list.

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