Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting and Orienting New Employees

Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting & Orienting New Employees has long been the go-to reference on every aspect of the employment process. Packed with forms, checklists, guidelines, and ready-to-use interview questions, the revised and updated fifth edition provides readers with practical information on topics including interview methods, documentation issues, reference-checking, orientation programs, and applicant testing.

The fifth edition has been brought completely up-to-date, addressing new legislation on … [ Read more ]

Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead

Regardless of from which side of the desk one has experienced the rite known as the performance appraisal, there are many who will welcome the authors’ provocative proposal. Coens is an attorney and organizational trainer; Jenkins is a former human resources director at a division of General Motors. They acknowledge the countless books about performance appraisals and note that most suggest ways to make appraisal … [ Read more ]

Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People

If your company is like most, it has a handful of people who generate disproportionate quantities of value: A researcher creates products that bankroll the entire organization for decades. A manager spots consumer-spending patterns no one else sees and defines new market categories your enterprise can serve. A strategist anticipates global changes and correctly interprets their business implications. Companies’ competitiveness, even survival, increasingly hinge on … [ Read more ]

Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

After examining the careers of more than a thousand star analysts at Wall Street investment banks, and conducting more than … [ Read more ]

Punching In:The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-line Employee

Curious to know just what happens behind the “employees only” doors of big companies, journalist Alex Frankel embarked on an undercover reporting project to find out how some of America’s well-known companies win the hearts and minds of their retail and service employees. Frankel knew the only way to find answers was to go native.

During a two-year urban adventure through the world of commerce, Frankel … [ Read more ]

Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage

The source of competitive advantage has shifted in many organizations from reliability to innovation and flexibility. But what does it take for an organization that innovates to then manage effectively? In this follow-up to Built to Change, Ed Lawler argues that it is a combination of the right structure and the right people. First, organizations must decide what structure they are: are you a high-involvement … [ Read more ]

Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty

Executives everywhere acknowledge that finding, retaining, and growing talent counts among their toughest business challenges. Yet to address this concern, many are turning to talent management practices that no longer work?because the environment they were tailored to no longer exists.

In today’s uncertain world, managers can’t forecast their business needs accurately, never mind their talent needs. An open labor market means inevitable leaks in your talent … [ Read more ]

The New Human Capital Strategy: Improving the Value of Your Most Important Investment -Year After Year

The statement ‘People are our greatest source of competitive advantage’ is hackneyed at best, but still it is true. Author Bradley Hall thinks the main problem is that the leadership in companies doesn’t know if their employees are ‘better’ than their competitor peers and whether they continue to improve annually. He proposes a radical new way of identifying and measuring precisely which activities are most … [ Read more ]

Reward Systems: Does Yours Measure Up?

It’s one of the thorniest management problems around: dealing with unmotivated, low-performing employees. It’s easy to point the finger of blame at them. But in most companies, it’s the reward system, not the workforce, that’s causing poor attitudes and performance: many reward systems actually discourage desired behaviors while rewarding the very actions that drive executives crazy.

In Reward Systems: Does Yours Deliver? Steve Kerr describes the … [ Read more ]

The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce

The days of lifetime jobs and employee loyalty are over. Instead, competition and other market forces lead companies to lay off people, and employees to leave for the highest bidder, writes Peter Cappelli in The New Deal at Work. These changes in the workplace are making a salient impact on companies, employees, and the nation. For instance, companies are less likely to provide employee training … [ Read more ]

Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again: Selecting Candidates Who Are Absolutely Driven to Succeed

Underperforming salespeople are perhaps the greatest cause of frustration to sales executives and financial loss to business owners. The cost of hiring and keeping a bad salesperson can range from six to seven figures annually. To make matters worse, many companies waste money by trying to train sales skills in people who will never improve. Research shows that the most important factor for success is … [ Read more ]

The Hidden Persuaders

Originally published in 1957 and now back in print to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, The Hidden Persuaders is Vance Packard’s pioneering and prescient work revealing how advertisers use psychological methods to tap into our unconscious desires in order to “persuade” us to buy the products they are selling.

A classic examination of how our thoughts and feelings are manipulated by business, media and politicians, The Hidden … [ Read more ]

Developing Global Executives

In our borderless global economy, companies must ship their executives nearly as far and wide as their products. Whether these far-flung executives soar or land with a thud may make all the difference between a successful international enterprise or a world-class failure-and it is this crucial difference that Developing Global Executives defines.

Based on a wide-ranging study of veteran global executives, leadership development experts Morgan W. … [ Read more ]

Managing the Human Animal

We have taken ourselves out of the Stone Age – but we cannot take the Stone Age out of ourselves. Time and time again managers and leaders have tried to eliminate hierarchies, internal politics, and interorganisational rivalry – but to no avail. Why? Evolutionary psychology would say that they are working against human nature – emotional and behavioral ‘hardwiring’ that is the legacy of our … [ Read more ]

High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

How do you develop the people who will one day lead your company? High Flyers challenges conventional wisdom about how to groom executives for the top positions in the firm by presenting a strategic framework that senior managers can use to identify and develop future executives. McCall demonstrates that the best executives aren’t necessarily managers who possess a previously identified, generic list of traits or … [ Read more ]

Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace

Generations at Work is intended to help you bridge the gap or, more accurately, gaps between people of different ages who work at your company. What’s so vexing about the workplace is that four different groups are vying for roles and recognition. There are the veterans, boomers, Xers, and the nexters. The people in each cohort, the book argues, have more in common than just … [ Read more ]

The Coaching at Work Toolkit

The Coaching at Work Toolkit is the first comprehensive, practical resource for coaches in the use of the theories, tools, techniques and practices that affect learning and change. This book offers coaching tools and psychology-based techniques and is a much-needed guide to understanding the practice of coaching and applying the theories and language associated with it.

The Hiring and Firing Question and Answer Book

Paul Falcone offers a comprehensive look at virtually all hiring issues, including application and termination procedures, evaluation, recommendation and lawsuits. This objective q&a-style guide offers step-by-step directions for managers, owners and HR execs on handling both commonplace and stickier situations, such as disciplinary problems and union considerations. The information will be particularly useful for start-up or small companies with no formal hiring, firing or evaluation … [ Read more ]

The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing, and Positioning Your Best Peop

The Talent Management Handbook explains how organizations can identify and get the most out of “high-potential people” by developing and promoting them to key positions. The book explains:
1. A system for integrating three human resources “building blocks”: organizational competencies, performance appraisal, and forecasting employee/manager potential
2. Six human resources conditions necessary for organization excellence
3. How to link your employee assessment process to career … [ Read more ]

Human Resource Champions

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 ]