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The problem isn't that loyalty is dead or that careers are history. The real problem, argues Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer, is that so many companies are toxic -- and that they get exactly what they deserve.

This .pdf report from the National Commission on Entrepreneurship, offers an overview of stock option theory and practice with some interesting statistics and analysis/commentary.

Katherine Hammer, CEO of ETI, reflects on her experiences terminating three once-valued and loyal managers, in the process identifying three major symptoms that alert her to problems.

Let's face it. Anyone reading this article thinks that information about how to reward highly-regarded employees applies to them. And we all have ideas about what these rewards should be (more money, bigger title, bigger office, etc.) But short of giving out stock options that will be worth $500 zillion in six months, how can managers provide meaningful incentives, and rewards, for star performers? Wharton management professor Anne Cummings makes some suggestions.

We would all rather praise than criticize because it's emotionally easier. But providing constructive criticism is an essential skill for any manager who wishes to avoid a messy termination. Even when an employee is worthy of praise, a manager must maintain a balanced outlook and act accordingly.

Article talks about how VCs are treating their admin staff members in wake of the talent crunch.

Setting up a foreign office? Leave those American hiring practices at home. So says this informative article focused on international human resources issues.

As the stock markets have begun to pull back from their historically high levels, the boards of directors of corporations that have used stock options to attract and retain employees have found themselves under increasing pressure to modify or replace previously issued stock options that have gone "underwater." (i.e. options whose exercise price is above the current market price of the corporation's stock). To address this problem, corporate boards are confronted with the prospect of "repricing" these existing options in order to allow them to retain their incentive value.

How to reward the best without alienating the rest.

Arte Nathan was VP of human resources for Mirage Resorts Inc. in 1998 when it launched Bellagio -- a lavish resort even by the standards of a city famous for its excess. Everything about Bellagio was larger than life, from its 3,000 rooms to its stunning art collection of original masterpieces. Equally lavish was the challenge that confronted Nathan: Hire 9,600 workers in 24 weeks.

Nathan and his HR team designed a campaign that would screen 84,000 applicants in 12 weeks, interview 27,000 finalists in 10 weeks, and process 9,600 hires in 11 days. In the end, they nailed the deadline -- without using a single sheet of paper. They created electronic job applications, processing documents, and personnel files. Now MGM Grand Inc., which acquired Mirage Resorts last March, is pushing Bellagio's electronic HR system across all of its properties. Here, in his own words, Nathan explains how his team did it.

McKinsey & Co. surveyed 6,900 senior executives and young managers from 56 companies to figure out the secret to winning the battle for great people. Here is an excerpt from the report on the seven "talent imperatives" that are essential for winning the war for talent. The seven:
1. Instill a talent mindset at all levels of the organization -- beginning with senior management.
2. Create "extreme" employee value propositions ( EVPs ) that deliver on your people's dreams.
3. Build a high-performance culture that combines a strong performance ethic with an open and trusting environment.
4. Recruit great talent continuously.
5. Develop people to their full potential.
6. Make room for talent to grow.
7. Focus on retaining high performers.

Authors of a new study claim vitality, integrity, tolerance, appreciation and latitude are the main elements to measure a healthy workplace. According to the researchers, trust and caring are the two most important aspects of a job. The pair also discovered that managers are the source of most of the problems. They interfere too much, punish or reward workers for results out of their control, and micromanage. Also, find their checklist of questions for companies to measure their emotional health.

For a complete set of career resources check out our Career Center

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Online recruiting is changing the way employers think about finding good employees and the way employees think about their jobs and their employers. Indeed, the Internet may completely change the way companies manage human resources, says Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at Wharton. But while the Internet makes it easy to find resumes of passive applicants - people who are happy with their current jobs but who might be induced to move to a better one - it also raises serious ethical questions about privacy.

Now that employees in many dot-com companies have suddenly found their stock options to be substantially "out of the money," is it time to announce the death of stock options as an integral component of compensation packages? Not so fast, argue Wharton accounting professors Christopher Ittner, Richard Lambert and David Larcker in a new paper that studies whether the performance of new economy firms is related to the level of equity grants to employees.

"At the end of the day, we bet on people, not strategies." So how do we attract and retain the right people to bet on?

A successful interview should determine if there is a match between the individual and the job. Furthermore, a good interview process allows you to understand their behavior, values, motivations, and qualifications.

Given recent increases in the use of stock options, one might reasonably expect that employees - the beneficiaries of this perk - understand how options work. But according to recent research by Wharton professors David Larcker and Richard Lambert, employees tend to be relatively uninformed as to the basic economics of stock options, a finding that has important implications for employers, boards of directors and management consultants.

Mildly scientific in its original conception, the selection interview first came into vogue around 100 years ago and remains the primary tool for hiring new employees. Researchers continue to debate how well this time-worn process works to find the best candidate for the job, and indeed if it works at all. M. Ronald Buckley and colleagues examine a century's worth of theory and practice.

Summary of main issues raised in a journal article about the consequences of corpporate layoffs.

Studies reflect fewer than 30 percent of downsizing efforts have achieved anticipated profitability. This statistic suggests the real downsizing losers are organizations and stockholders.

A look at yet another one of the interesting best practices of the US Marine Corps - this time their practive use of HR.

Note: Business 2.0 is now part of CNNmoney and some older articles are no longer available

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Grading employees via forced rankings is a valuable management tool, say many companies. A slew of employees beg to differ.

"In a relatively known and predictable world rational solutions can be planned, for training as for anything else. A programme can be organised and implemented so that a workforce acquires the skills it needs. These skills will be the possessions of individuals. But perhaps we are beginning to see the limitations of this way of understanding things. To conceive learning objectives as WISE and OPEN is to begin to transcend these limitations. They acknowledge the social nature of learning: that knowledge is created by people in combination with each other and also lives in social relationships (and so will not vanish with the employee). It is a function of persons in interaction and not a possession of individuals."

Article also lays out 7 Fundamental Principles of Personal/Personnel Development:
1. openness
2. uncertainty
3. complexity
4. relationships
5. reflection
6. reframing
7. restoration

Wisdom from Ketchum Inside, the workplace communications and change management practice of Ketchum, a top-10 global public relations firm.

The key to creating a stable, productive workplace is to put employees in charge of their own success...The developed steps to get there are geared toward giving employees a clear sense of their personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, and consequently, teaching them how those traits can be leveraged to improve both performance and compatibility on the job. To gain this awareness, it is important that employees go through the process of evaluating themselves from four different viewpoints: individually; in relation to their job; in relation to their co-workers; and in relation to their organization.

"Lies, rumors, and office gossip have always been an entrenched part of the workscape. The office water cooler has long been a place to chitchat about the latest company news and to swap lurid tales . . . Left unchecked, certain kinds of office gossip can lead to serious problems. Employees who perceive that they're working in a hostile environment might also feel that they are the subject of discrimination. [Annette] Simmons says management sets the tone with its attitudes and policies, but a flood of gossip is often the result of workers who lack information and have too much time on their hands. 'When management withholds information, it creates a vacuum. People fill in the unknown with their assumptions, and things begin to spiral down.'"

Many companies are feeling the pressure to employ technology-based training solutions instead of continuing their reliance on traditional classroom training. Some have even taken the plunge with pilot projects, producing both favorable and unfavorable results. But before you go wading into the pricey waters of technology-based training, take the time to look at why many professionals feel it will vastly improve and enhance your training efforts. Instructional multimedia, the kind of training delivered over the computer, has some major differences and some powerful benefits over classroom training. The two current front-runners, CD-ROM and Web-based training (WBT) have many similarities, but some vastly different capabilities that may require some trade-offs on your part.

So you've made the decision to use multimedia as part of your overall training strategy. You can take the low cost route and purchase generic off-the-shelf products, or you can expend more of your training budget on your own development. But do you know how to tell the difference between high quality multimedia and multimedia that is substandard (it may do the job but not as well)?

Most organizations use their training investments about as strategically as they deploy their office supplies spending. And the impact on customer satisfaction, cost containment or quality improvement is just as useless.

Tough "360" reviews and employee ranking are gaining fans. Competency-based performance management is the backbone of most of the alternative approaches.