Everyone loves birthday cake. No, wait. Jane will only eat chocolate sheet cake from Costco. Harry is gluten intolerant. Stephanie is a vegan. The entire accounts receivable team has gone paleo. Bonnie is a Jehovah’s Witness and doesn’t celebrate her birthday or other people’s birthdays, but she doesn’t mind if
As a Human Resources Geek, many of my friends are also in HR, and I hang out in lots of HR groups. One of the things that fascinate me is the disconnect between how we see ourselves and how we see things when we’re on the other side of the
You can Google lists of red flags for job hunters, but nothing beats actual stories. Some hiring managers really need a good dose of training before they are allowed anywhere near job candidates. Of course, we should be grateful some of them are so unintentionally honest about how
Last week, a company in Pennsylvania made headlines when they told employees to either attend a Trump rally, take a vacation day, or take a day off. It seems like an abuse of power for a company to demand attendance at a political rally. (Although technically, it was
When you hire technicians, your first priority is ensuring that they can perform their job. Do they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to repair a washing machine, install a furnace or troubleshoot that troublesome software? If they don’t yet have the specific skills you’re looking for, do
Work-life balance is an elusive dream that lots of companies and people ask for. Companies declare that they offer a great work-life balance and people aim for short commutes and telecommuting to have a great work-life balance. There’s a problem, though. Balance is not what we are looking for. Think
When your organization is small enough and the work can be done remotely, it might not seem worth dragging your employees to one central location — especially considering the cost of leasing a private office. And, conveniently, employees generally love telecommuting. Globally, 70% of professionals work from home
Earlier this week, I shared some stories about what real HR looks like. Human Resources deal with people and people will always have new problems. I shared the article on LinkedIn and Facebook and I got more new stories. If you’re an HR person you’ll nod in agreement with all of these. If
If you go to an HR conference or read articles about human resources (even the ones that I’ve written) you might get the idea that HR is full of exciting planning meetings, coaching managers, and designing strategy for succession planning. And that stuff does happen. For sure. But,
I got very unexpectedly invited to the wedding of a colleague who has been giving me the cold shoulder for over a year. No matter how many times I say good morning to her, she just ignores me. She is the girl who gets away with anything with
