1486 Posts Found

Incentive programs are common in the software industry, where, instead of relying on a direct sales force, corporations like Sage Software often turn to small resellers to pitch their applications to a vast market of customers. Incentives as extensive and generous as Sage’s are rare, however. For the past three years, the company (formerly known as Best Software) has invested $1 million a year to … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Susan Greco | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Marketing / Sales | Industry: Software | Company: Sage Software

Are companies getting their money’s worth by psychological testing of workers? More to the point, is there any real evidence that years of testing have produced more honesty among employees, identified more leaders, or eliminated more crazies – or is testing merely another management hallucination brought on by breathing copier toner fumes?

Some quick answers: While testing is better than not testing, there are many more … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: James Krohe Jr. | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

Complaining about my father’s vagaries would be like complaining that Yogi Berra doesn’t make sense when he talks. When someone’s flaws are also their defining and most seductive characteristics, you just have to accept the consequences.

Content: Quotation | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Personality / Behavior

Care to dramatically enhance your chance of finding great employees? Trade in your gut instincts for a systematic approach to interviewing, testing, and evaluating job candidates.

Content: Article | Author: Stephanie Clifford | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

Individual coaching is the death of the group. Working with a single person, you can’t see how his behavior affects the whole system. And giving people evaluations rather than creating situations where they can learn to evaluate themselves doesn’t really raise their awareness. Also, the coach is usually the instrument of hierarchy, a way of asserting behavioral control from the top.

Content: Quotation | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Coaching, Organizational Behavior

People respond almost too well to monetary incentives. That is, ‘firms get what they pay for’, but since these schemes cannot be targeted well, what firms get is often not what they want.

If an organization is going to function well, it should not rely solely on monetary compensation schemes. The ability of organizations to place workers into jobs with which they identify and the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: George Akerlof, Rachel Kranton | Source: Rotman Magazine | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Motivational speeches are about making people feel good about themselves and enthusiastic about where they can go. But in my experience, it doesn’t work to paint a rosy picture and say “Doesn’t it look great over there?” and expect everyone to drop what they’re doing and go in that direction. What I do is, instead of trying to make people feel good about where they … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Roughly 30% of all companies, including big names like Wal*Mart and General Motors, subject their applicants and employees to some sort of personality test. Judicial decisions, however, illustrate the risks employers assume by using and relying on such tests for employment decisions. This article surveys the use of personality tests historically, their purported benefits to employers, and the potential liability associated with the tests. [BNET … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Kathryn Davis | Source: Morrison & Foerster LLP | Subjects: Human Resources, Legal

Internal coaching is one of the fastest growing trends in leadership development. It may also be one of the most cost effective. What does it take for an organization to achieve benefits from building an internal coaching capability? In this article, Prof. James Hunt and Joseph Weintraub describe important lessons learned from their research and work with organizations that have successfully implemented internal coaching programs … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: James Hunt, Joe Weintraub | Source: Babson Insight | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

Human Resource Champions issues a challenge to HR professionals: define the value you create and institute measures for your performance, or face the inevitable outsourcing of your function. Ulrich identifies four distinct roles that human resources staff must assume-strategic player, administrative expert, employee champion, and change agent. He provides hands-on tools that show HR professionals how they can operate in all four areas simultaneously and … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: David Ulrich | Subject: Human Resources

Most boards believe that rewarding managers through stock options is an effective incentive leading to long term shareholder value. Equity ownership, by definition, aligns managers and shareholders. But effective incentive implies a motivation to do something, as opposed to a simple desire to see the share price go up. Most senior executives, right up to the CEO, will tell you that movement in the stock … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Motivation

HR’s leading thinkers provide a blueprint for the future. The international bestseller Human Resource Champions helped set the HR agenda for the 1990s and enabled HR professionals to become strategic partners in their organizations. But earning a seat at the executive table was only the beginning. Today’s HR leaders must also bring substantial value to that table. Drawing on their sixteen-year study of over 29,000 … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: David Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank | Subject: Human Resources

Entrepreneur / CEO Will Herman offers advice about firing someone.

Content: Article | Author: Will Herman | Source: 2-Speed | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

Will Herman takes a look at the issue of highly productive employees who aren’t aligned with the corporate culture, utilizing a matrix popularized by Jack Welch.

Content: Article | Author: Will Herman | Source: 2-Speed | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

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Basic, but useful, information about conducting exit inteviews.

Content: Article | Source: HR Matters Monthly Newsletter | Subject: Human Resources

For twenty years R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. has worked as a diversity consultant, researcher, and author. Now as never before he sees the need to broaden and redefine our ideas and behaviors around diversity. Indeed, what happens in the next decade will be crucial in determining whether America’s leaders move forward in their efforts to create cohesive, effective organizations–or simply muddle through. In turn, what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Human Resources, Management

I believe forced ranking systems are pretty ham-fisted; there is a whole series of perverse outcomes associated with them. They work in the sense that they force identification of performance differences. The question is: what do you do with the rankings? This is where it becomes much more contentious. I consider that imposing real consequences on people because of such rankings … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subject: Human Resources

Surveys show that workers aren’t resentful of CEOs’ exorbitant pay-in fact, Americans in general are surprisingly blasé about inequality-but that’s partly because they aspire to that pinnacle. People hunger to be managers because they know that’s the only path to the good life in corporate America . . . which is one reason why we have so many inept managers. This is yet another argument … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Competence, Human Resources

Like Barbara Walters questioning a celebrity, managers can elicit valuable information from job candidates by artfully conducting an interview. Here’s how to sharpen your technique.

Content: Article | Author: Carol Orsag Madigan | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subject: Human Resources