1485 Posts Found

First, companies need to take a step back and reframe the way they talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. They must start with a new basic premise: that they will understand the needs of every individual, look for patterns of difference that cut across the whole organization and matter the most in driving positive outcomes, and devise solutions that holistically address those differences. When viewed … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Gabrielle Novacek, Jean Lee, Matt Krentz | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources

Too often HR or legal policies solve for the exception — but then you force everyone to operate in a worse environment simply because someday there could be a bad actor who does a bad thing. I’d much rather solve for the 99%.

Content: Quotation | Author: Marco Zappacosta | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Legal, Management

When you’re hiring a role, you make your list of what you want this person to be great at, and your list is 12 items long. What happens is you end up hiring for lack of weakness rather than exceptional strength in any one area — that leads to a mediocre outcome. Push yourself to define the role in terms of three specific key attributes … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marco Zappacosta | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Too many employers pay too little heed to the needs of the lower earners in their company. Here’s why—and how—they should shift gears.

Content: Article | Authors: Brooke Weddle, Tera Allas | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

Many employees who are not engaged want a reason to be inspired. They are the “show me” group that needs an extra push to perform at their best. While positive feelings, such as happiness, are usually byproducts of engagement, they shouldn’t be confused with the primary outcomes. Rather, the primary emphasis should be on elements that engage workers and drive results, such as clarity of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Annamarie Mann, Jim Harter | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

What would it take to build the skills your company needs in your current workforce? Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman offer a new playbook for a historic talent crunch with no end in sight.

Content: Article | Authors: Joseph Fuller, Manjari Raman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Human Resources

At early-stage companies, where you’re still wrestling with product/market fit and building up the company foundation, management often falls to the back burner, leaving folks to generally figure it all out for themselves. However, many of the cracks that emerge as startups scale can be traced back to those missing managerial cornerstones.

One root cause? Manager training, which is largely ignored by startups as a BigCo bucket … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Johnathan Nightingale, Melissa Nightingale | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Management, Training & Development

When we’re at work and someone says something biased, it affects how we feel in the workplace and how we feel about that workplace. You can have all the inclusion practices in the world, but if they are not translating into the everyday experiences of your people, they are not yielding positive outcomes. Inclusion is what you do as a company to invite people in, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Aneeta Rattan | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

As a rule of thumb, I don’t think most leaders can handle scaling back more than one order of magnitude in org size — for example if you currently have a 10 person sales team, look for someone who’s led a 100 person sales team, but not 1000.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeanne DeWitt Grosser | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources

You get the behavior that your comp plan designs for. In the early days, I prefer to keep comp plans simple with two metrics, max. I also love plans that have a component focused on the entire customer lifecycle. For example, comping teams on bookings and retention can be a powerful way to ensure teams pursue the right users who will be longtime customers.

Content: Quotation | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Customer Related, Human Resources

Many companies have employee wellness programs with the goal of reducing the skyrocketing costs of health care for their workers. But there is little evidence that these programs are effective.

Wharton management professors Iwan Barankay and Peter Cappelli suggest that instead of free gym memberships or yoga classes, companies should try to meet the most vulnerable workers where they are by offering … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Iwan Barankay, Peter Cappelli | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

The right customer assessment not only reveals the strength of existing customer relationships, but also how primed they are for new business activity. This assessment should be standard practice for every M&A.

Content: Quotation | Author: Anson Vuong | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Mergers & Acquisitions

For most of my interviews, I actually ask very little about how they would solve a particular problem. When it comes to questions like “What was the hardest challenge you’ve ever faced?’ often a lot of candidates have canned answers. Instead, I focus on the incentives. What do they care about? What motivates them? What drives them? If it’s an hour-long interview, I’ll spend 40 … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Rick Song | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

When they talk about what it takes to be successful, managers will often say, “I know it when I see it.”  What they’re really saying is, “I recognize the qualities I value, which just so happen to be the qualities I have.” The organization’s norms, processes, and interactions are structured to give those who “have it” opportunities to demonstrate their talents and advance accordingly. But … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Dina Gerdeman, Robin Ely | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Identifying and measuring employee performance will become trickier as many jobs become less based on routines. The primary consideration in choosing the correct performance measures is that they need to reflect individual-level impact on achieving the organization’s goals – meaning they should meet two conditions:

1. they must directly link to organizational success
2. they must be in an employee’s sphere of control

Failing to meet these conditions can … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subject: Human Resources

Managers must take proactive steps to increase employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in organizations longer. The authors created this Employee Engagement Checklist: a distilled, research-based resource that practitioners can execute on during this critical period of renewed uncertainty. Use this checklist to boost employee engagement by helping them connect what they do to what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Ashley Whillans, Daniel Stein, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Nick Hobson | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Motivation, Organizational Behavior

We’ve built out job architectures, which we call a job framework because we don’t want it to be a ladder where people feel like they have to go directly up. Instead you want people to feel like they can maybe take a path somewhere else or do something else, and that would still be career growth.

Content: Quotation | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Human Resources

Pay, incentives, and benefits haven’t significantly changed for decades, but people’s preferences have. Employee compensation needs a rethink if companies are to attract and retain talent.

Content: Article | Authors: Alastair Woods, Andrew Curcio | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Human Resources

In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink identifies three key motivations:

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

But these words rarely show up in job descriptions, recruitment material, performance reviews or annual meetings.

Content: Quotation | Author: Vipula Gandhi | Source: Gallup Management Journal | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

While I definitely agree that people are your most important asset, I’ve noticed that most content doesn’t talk as much about the systems. While early employees are of course a driving factor for the company culture, they’re only half the equation. The other half is the foundational systems. The comparison I like to draw is the nature versus nurture debate. Both your genes and your … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kevin Fishner | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior