End of the Week Reading: Great Stuff from Great Blogs

I missed the Carnival of HR this time. (Need to do something about that darn calendar.) There are some very good posts there. Here is the link Carnival of HR. This is one is hosted by Rowan Manahan.

Additionally, here are several posts that I recommend you read.

1. Fran Melmed wrote an excellent piece called "We Don't Need No Stinking Diversity Training." It is so good it got picked up by NPR. She prompted me to write my piece on Removing the Ethnicity from your name.
2. Kris Dunn wrote some required reading for anyone considering committees called Are Committees in Your Company Ever a Good Idea? If this one does not make you think twice, then reread it.
3. Becky Regan, compensation pro extrodinaire, offers her 2010 predictions in The Compensation Cafe. "Top 4" Total Rewards Predictions for 2010  See if you agree.
4. Wally Bock, of Three Star Leadership, blasts Notre Dame and Brian Kelly for the very poor example of leadership they exhibited in Values, schmalues, there is money at stake.
5. And Ann Bares of Compensation Force writes on Throwing in the Towel: Are Employers Resigned to Impending Departures?

That is probably enough reading for the end of the week. But believe me, you will be better off for it. Have a great weekend.

Suggested Reading: Some Blog Referrals

As I have been brousing some blogs today and here are some posts I thought you might find interesting, I did.

1. The HR Capitalist starts a discussion on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers in a post called How Your National Origin Can Impact Your Performance.... He discusses the concept of the Power Distance Index, a concept developed by Geert Hofstede in his Cultural Dimensions. This discussion is in terms Korean Air Lines pilots and a series of accidents. Make sure you read the comments.



2. In Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog he writes about The Only Reference That Really Matters . The Dilbert cartoon is worth the trip and Dan's discussion of the reference process is excellent. I agree with this assessment.



3. Ann Bares writes in Compensation Force about Bonuses and Other Profanities and the impact on current events on the proper definition and use of bonus dollars and what a commuication and PR problem HR now does have.



4. At Fistful of Talents, Kris Dunn (in his alter ego), writes about All Workplace Jerks Don't Have to Scream - The Information Hoarder... I don't know about you but I have worked with some people like that before. "I am more valuable because I know something you don't know."



5. Over at Slacker Manager, Phil Gerbyshak has a guest auther, Steve Farber writing on How Do You Get Back Up? A Counterintuitive Approach to Thriving in Challenging Times. Some good advice on what to do when things don't go your way.

So take a look at these I think you will find them interesting, insightful and useful. I did.

Employee Engagement and the Recession

I have been pretty sick the last couple of days and have not felt the "creative bug" to write a new post. So I thought I would direct you to a very good one. Ann Bares, of Compensation Force, talks about the recession driven opportunity to enhance employee engagement in Recession-Driven Sense of Shared Destiny - Are We Missing An Opportunity?

Check it out.

A Comparable Worth Discussion

Ann Bares, of Compensation Force, responded to a request from other HR pros and put on her blog a definition and discussion of the issue of comparable worth as presented in the current pay equity legislation. Take a look.

BTW, for all of you PHRs and SPHRs that will need to recertify this will probably be a future test question. So you may as well learn it now.

Overcoming Inertia: Get Your Lazy A** Moving!

Interia is defined as "...the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest." To overcome intertia the body or object needs to be acted on by some outside force. (Your physics lesson for the day.) I went on vacation a couple of weeks ago and did no posting while gone. When I returned I tried to post again, but overcoming the inertia of being inert was difficult. So you have not seen much from me lately. (No one has been clamoring for my return, so maybe there is a message in that, hmmm...) Anyway, I was acted on by an outside force and it is getting me to post again. The outside force was the HR Bartender, aka, Sharlyn Lauby, who TAGGED ME. According to her blog the rules for tagging are the following:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of my post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Facts About Me

1. I once studied monkeys and chimpanzees. Worked on a project that was teaching a chimp a specialized language.
2. I abandoned that line of study 3 years into a Ph.D. Never looked back.
3. I have raced in several triathlons, despite my size. I race as a Clydesdale.
4. I am 57 and I have been married 37 years this December 18th. We were high school sweethearts.
5. I regret that I never served in the military, even though I came from a military family.
6. I have a wicked, sometimes ribald, sense of humor. (Scratch the sometimes, substitute often.)
7. I don't understand people who have a victim mentality.

Tags

Cathy Martin of Find Your Metrics That Matter

Michael Moore of Pennsylvania Labor and Employment

Dan MacCarthy of Great Leadership

Phil Gerbyshak of Slacker Manager

Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent

Ann Bares of Compensation Force

Kris Dunn of The HR Capitalist

So there you go. I am off the couch and posting again. Stay tuned.

FREE Salary Data, No Strings Attached: What a Deal!

Ann Bares had a great post yesterday at her blog Compensation Force. She posted the U.S. DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics' report on the May 2007 Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates.

As Anne states "This is essentially a free salary survey, and one which I have found it to be a good supplemental source of data. My experience is that it syncs up well with other sources that cost me a lot of money, and it has the additional benefit of covering metro areas and occupations that are not well covered by other professionally published compensation surveys."

So check out the report and bookmark it for future use. And, by the way, if you are involved in compensation and you are not reading Ann's blog on a daily basis (or whenever she posts) then shame on you because you are ignoring a wonderful resource.

Environmental Scanning: Some Great Reads on HR

As I was catching up on some reading, after having been on a trip to California, I wanted to point out to you some great reads and some new materials for you, especially if you are involved in recruiting.

Kris Dunn of The HR Capitalist has started another blog on recruiting called Fistful of Talent. It is a multi-author blog that will feature many different takes on recruiting. Today's is about the appearance of applicants today. Oh, The HR Capitalist (see link above) is about whether HR can be trusted or not. So check it out.

Jim Stroud, of the Recruiters Lounge has a FREE BOOK entitled Resume Forensics that you can download for FREE. It talks about resources and tips for finding resumes and candidates using search engines. Valuable stuff.

Ann Bares, of Compensation Force has a post today about The Quiet Pink Pay Revolution, women gaining on men in the workforce. Very interesting.

Penelope Trunk, The Brazen Careerist, talks about what knowing what you should be doing by what you did as a kid. A thought provoker.

Tomorrow I will blog about the SECRET union conspiracies under way with some companies, so stay tuned.

Carnival of HR for April 16th

This week's collection of the best of HR related blogs is published at Compensation Force.

Take a look an read some great articles... we are talking leadership, worklife balance, business acumen, a world without HR, brain exercise and much, much more. No better place to sample some of the best HR reading you can do in such a short period of time.