Tiptoe-ing through the HR news for the week ending April 26th, 2013:
Quit being so efficient
Employees at every company hope to find success in their careers—who doesn’t? Once those pesky butterflies from the first few weeks of a new job go away and employees get settled into the daily routine, they’re able to get into a groove and handle their responsibilities with ever-increasing speed and precision. But this comfortable pattern, Inc. taught us this week, may not always be the most conducive to success.
Employees often get caught up in the pursuit of efficiency, losing sight of other important aspects of the job in the process, like valuing customer satisfaction. The author recommends producing swift results at work, to be sure, but cautions us to value moderation and prudence, as well.
Reach outside your shell
For employees with “Type A” personalities, an active attempt to stop being so efficient may seem a bit scary, but an article in Forbes this week tells us that accepting discomfort and the lessons that come with it is a surefire way to improve your learning. We’ve all heard of the notion that success is difficult to come by without taking risks.
In a competitive environment, employees and companies that allow themselves to step outside of their comfort zones—to speak up in an important meeting, for example, or offer to meet with a prospective client—are most likely to strike gold and reap career success.
Don't miss out
Golden opportunities like these are not always easy to come by, and according to TLNT this week, millennials are the generation most concerned by this. The term “FOMO,” or “Fear Of Missing Out,” and is largely self-explanatory.
Many young employees feel a sense of internal urgency at work that parallels their internal need to figure out what to do with their lives—where they want to settle down, who they want to surround themselves with, and what the rest of life has in store for them. The author advises employers to manage the FOMO phenomenon among millennial employees by maintaining strong and open lines of communication.
Widening awareness
It’s important for employers to accommodate their millennial employees in order to encourage their best work. At the same time, it’s vital for millennial employees to adhere to the pre-existing culture and habits of the business. At the end of the day, it’s really all about making an effort to relate to others, we learned this week from the Harvard Business Review.
In order to gain respect and influence at work, employees must master situational, personal, and solution awareness. By doing so, they can show others that they understand their outlook and opinion about any given circumstance, as well as their “Path to Progress.”
The ability to truly understand someone else’s point of view requires us to step out of our shells. This is a valuable skill for the workplace, to be sure, but it’s some solid general life advice, too. (You can thank us later!)
Pioneering through the HR news for the week ending April 12, 2013.
Ahead of the Past
We all dream of second chances—the opportunity to travel back in time armed with the knowledge we have now and the will to do things differently. This is especially relevant when it comes to our careers. An article in Forbes this week reflected on such a sentiment, offering advice to the twenty-somethings in today’s workplace.
Find a trusty mentor within your organization, the author advises, who can keep you on track at work in spite of the many distractions that will come
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A breakdown of the HR news for the week ending April 5, 2013:
How you Choose to Manage Job Candidates
If there’s one mantra we’ve all experienced first-hand, it’s this: no one is perfect. We all make mistakes big and small. But when you’re a hiring manager, those mistakes can feel a little bit bigger.
Finding quality new employees is crucial to your business' long-term success, not to mention the fact that a person’s livelihood is at stake. This week, TLNT breaks down the top ten mistakes hiring mangers make when searching
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A wrap-up of the HR news for the week ending March 29th, 2013:
Unhilariously Bad Management
Bad bosses always seem terrible in their own unique way. But truly horrible bosses share something in common: nine core beliefs. At least, so says Inc. in a post this week. They share a fundamentally broken understanding of workplace, company, and team dynamics.
For starters, bad bosses believe that management is about handing out instructions to employees and make sure they carry out their assigned tasks. They believe that employees should actually want to work ultra-long hours, and see their primary role as managing the
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An examination of HR news for the week ending March 22nd, 2013:
The Micromanager
Okay, we’ve all been there. You know you should leave your employees alone, trust them to do their work well and not get so involved. But you can’t help it. You figured you could do whatever it is they’re doing—only you could do it better. Welcome to the world of micromanaging. Luckily, Inc. offers up four tips this week for how to avoid turning into that particular monster.
It all comes down to setting expectations for your employees. Workers
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Reflecting on the HR news for the week ending March 15th, 2013:
External Forces
Sometimes finding professional success relies on factors that are outside of our control. Maybe the right job just didn’t come along at the right time. One thing we can control, however, is how hard we work. This week, Inc. breaks down why hard work does matter, even in the face of elusive factors like luck. We can’t all be the smartest kid in the class, but we can be the hardest working.
It's okay to stand out a little!
It’s
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Calculating the HR news for the week ending March 8, 2013:
Big Brother for Big Data in the Workplace
Big Data is a term that’s been getting a lot of buzz over the past few years, but it’s not necessarily something that always gets associated with HR. Thanks to an article in the Wall Street Journal, that could change. This week, the paper reports that, in an effort to learn more about how much face-time matters to its call teams, Bank of America asked 90 of its workers to wear badges for a few weeks with tiny sensors to
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Debating the HR news for the week ending March 1, 2013:
Marissa’s Mission
There’s one story dominating the HR news—and beyond—this week. Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer has drawn criticism, praise, and plenty of eyeballs for her decision to ban working from home. Nowhere were opinions more divided than on Huffington Post. Yale Law student Rachel Dempsy wrote that Mayer’s mandate demonstrates “poor judgment and misplaced priorities.” If the issue is that employees are not doing their work, she says, why not just fire them instead of letting a few bad
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Confronting the HR news head-on for the week ending February 22nd, 2013:
Step 1: Appreciate the family
A lot of HR is about figuring out how to interact with employees to maximize their comfort and productivity. While it’s generally a best practice to keep things ultra-professional, a dash of family values can go a long way towards keeping things on an even keel, particularly for companies that are transitioning out of start-up mode. Inc. offers up three lessons every organization can learn from the family.
The first lesson is to maintain open lines of communication between the “parent”
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