HR PEOPLE, THE EMPTY HEADED PLAGUE

  Here is an article, from some time ago, everyone interested in the HR field must read. Come on. Go ahead, I'll wait.

  Let me choose for you some inspiring soundtrack to ease your read.

  You're done, right? How does it feel to be hated with such conviction? I love this article. Everytime I find someone that works in HR field and should be rewarded with Best Classic Corporate Parasite Of The Year award I deliver this wonderful piece of genuine hate straight to his inbox.

  Check out the following comic strip that proves the same point but with Scott Adam's genius.

  When I started interesting myself on HR field this was the reality to face, lots of accommodated personnel of corporations all around, with no ambition and not a single interest in making themselves useful inside a company in a career wide range of time.

  We have to thank to these HR fathers that built this poor reputation, for letting us new flesh such a virgin playground to start making a real impact and change things for once and for all.

  So once we have stopped whining. How do we start making ourselves, HR Specialists, useful in today's corporations? Well, first of all being experts on getting the most from people.

  I recently read a great report on what CEO's expect from HR heads today. This are some of the ideas I found interesting reading the text and could be used as a guide to start developing ourselves to serve this needs.

1. Get to know how to get more productivity from fewer workforce. Learn group dynamics, how to manage diversity, embrace it and how to get the most from it. Corporations today need to improve their productivity, be creative promoting staff's own creativity to be better and faster.

2. Leaders need to understand how their teams can help organisations to succeed. HR heads can help them with strategies to inspire their teams, coach the leaders on their abilities to lead and inspire better.

3. The Head of HR need to have interpersonal saavy: High emotional intelligence, a superb perceptiveness about people and good communication skills. This is what CEO's expect from the head of HR and this is what the head of HR needs to deliver.

4. Help building a trustworthy and fearless feedback channel throughout the entire organisation, indistinct to the hierarchy. Constructive feedback move things forward. Always. No matter where it comes from.

5. Facilitate, serve as a bridge of clarification for the senior management team and the entire corporation. 

6. Talent Care. "Not only may the head of HR be responsible for recruitment into the team; he or she may also act as troubleshooter or henchman, removing underperforming or recalcitrant individuals, thereby preventing team dysfunction". Touché.

7. Take initiative. Days of the empty headed HR corporate parasites must be left completely over.

Written listening to "Framework - Skeleton" album (Rate:9/10)

WHY PEOPLE LEAVE THEIR JOBS

  It is not a coincidence that most infamous mottos in the corporations today is "Our most valuable resource is our people". From some time now there is a real and tangible revolution going on where corporations finally understand the benefits (in terms of financially attractive terms such as productivity) of having happy people in their ranks.

  There is a very interesting article here that I personally highlight one of its 4 reasons why people leave their job in America.

1. Lack of trust of corporation (Not getting the expected promotions)
2. Want to become their own boss (Entrepreneurial initiative)
3. Being recruited by other companies (Today's market is a Jungle)
4. Need more fulfillment (We promote the ambition and this is what we get)

  I want to introduce my brief point with the Lack of Trust in Corporations (it does not mean others are not interesting, but we will be back on then possibly in subsequent posts). 

  The times of the effectiveness of simple punchlines such as "Everybody in America can be the President of the USA" are fortunately over. I believe society has turn now brighter and more skeptical maybe with such marketing based on faith and this, if you ask me, is a good thing. The challenge is now any employee need to see the fact of real career opportunity policies implemented to their corporations. Any employee needs a path, and this path needs to be wicked smart.

  Thus, every system or policy in this area needs to be founded on meritocracy (system based on rewarding the individual achievements) and be careful you use the cases of success with the most appropriate internal communication and marketing.

  Moreover, what today's team leaders need to face with their teammates is exactly this: dealing with expectations and facilitating (even coaching) personal improvement. And the monitoring tools need to be designed by them (who know first-hand their team dynamics) joining the HR Dpt.

  Author Leigh Branham (in its book "The Hidden 7 Reasons Employees Leave") identifies 4 unmet needs (based on a Saratoga Institue Study to 3149 people) in which he identifies: 

1. Lack of Hope

  "Believing that you will be able to grow, develop your skills on the job and through training, and have the
opportunity for advancement or career progress leading to higher earnings."

  - Limited Career Growth or advancement opportunity 16%

2. Lack of Trust

  "Expecting the company and management to deliver on its promises, to be honest and open in all communications with you, to invest in you, to treat you fairly, and to compensate you fairly and on time."

  - Lack of Respect or Support by Supervisor 13%
  - Supervisor's Lack of Leadership Skills 9%
  - Favoritism by Supervisor 4%
  - Poor Senior Leadership 2%
  - Supervisor's Lack of Technical Skills 2%
  - Discrimination 1%
  - Harassment 1%
  - Coworker's Issues 1%

3. Lack of Worth

  "Feeling confident that if you work hard, do your best, demonstrate commitment, and make meaningful contributions, you will be recognized and rewarded accordingly. Feeling worthy also means that you will be shown respect and regarded as a valued asset, not as a cost, to the organisation."

  - Inadequate Compensation 12%
  - Inflexible or Undesirable Working Hours 6%
  - Lack Of Recognition 4%
  - Poor Working Conditions 3%
  - Lack Of Training 3%
  - Inadequate Benefits 1%

4. Lack of Competence


  "Expecting that you will be matched to a job that makes good use of your talents and is challenging,receive the necessary training to perform the job capably, see the end results of your work, and obtain regular feedback on your performance."

  - Boring or Unchallenging Job Duties 11%


  These studies show how it is important to design and provide the leadership teams to cope this concerns on the staff in a daily basis in order to avoid dealing with this issues before it gets too late.

  How can we work this out? Just an idea that immediately comes to my mind is designing a quarterly rating tool for the leadership team, that will consider these threads as part of this performance review meetings. Of course in this encounters both the leader and the direct report need to build together a strategy to get to achieve this goals, not to mention the negotiation that will set the expectations in short-term and according to a realistic perception (who does not want to be the CEO?).


Written listening to "Lou Reed and John Cale - Songs for Drella" album (Rate:7/10)

MARSHMALLOW SUCCESS

  Even though everybody today is aware of the marshmallow challenge, I recently saw one of the most interesting TED videos on human productivity I have ever seen conducted by author Tom Wujec.


  For me one of the most interesting key concepts Mr. Wujec underlines in the video is the equation "Specialization Skills+Facilitation Skills=Success". But there is a even a more important thing hidden behind this equation:This two variables not always have to be a mixture of skills that need to be mastered by the same individual. What interests me of this all is how the designation of complementary roles in a team working environment leads collectively to success. In other words, this simple, even goofy, experiment is an example of collective leadership.

  Of course there are other variables such as time or reward pressure that deserve attention while studying this phenomena. However, it is also interesting to think how significant knowing your team's skills as fast as possible can ease the journey of success. 

  Just to end this quick, the main point in this activity is how allocating efficiently the human resource of your team, based on the advantage of the singularity of their individuals, leads to team success.


Written listening to "John Lee Hooker - Free Beer and Chicken" album (Rate:8,5/10)

FIRST THINGS FIRST

  Here it goes, this is my first post in this blog. I have created this as a hobby and I have no intention of getting anything from it but criticism, good arguments and interactions with anyone sharing or hating (equally welcome) interests.

  I'm not sure if everybody around here is familiar with Maslow's Self-Actualization Theory. Wikipedia has a good explanation on the whole concept.

  However I am in the side of people with guts explaining their  own personal view on anything. I found specially interesting and entertaining the perspective of Dr.-to-be Zeckeriya Ozsoy and how he disserts on the intrinsic nature of it and the significance of the component of the human spiritual experience (which I share in its foundations) in this article. Although Dr., I have to admit, I found it a little too unfounded (I hope, for the good of the world you left association fallacies before your doctoral dissertation). When I read the following statement...

    "Therefore, as their essence cannot be known or perceived, a hypothetical boundary is needed for them to become known. In order to make Himself known through His Attributes and Names, God Almighty has drawn a hypothetical line before His all-encompassing Attributes and Names. This line is the human [self]."

... one can only think "Wowowowow!!! What were we discussing here, again?". But don't get me wrong fellas, the article is really worth reading, and some interesting ideas that often are omitted or deliberately eliminated (specially in occidental literature) such as the importance and complexity of self-spiritual experience are of tremendous interest.

  I like people on constant thrill on optimising themselves. Maslow defined the self-actualizers as realistic, problem-centered, experience seekers, autonomous, with love of their privacy, with philosophical sense of humor and spontaneous people. As described by himself "the people at full use and exploitation of talents, capabilities, potentialities". In essence, the idea is I'll humbly try to find some of my own "actualization" writing this blog with the help of every other point of view that's shared in here.

  Anyway, I welcome you Dr. Ozsoy or everybody that comes around and appreciate the comments or constructive feedback, the biggest gift a human being can give to another.

Peace and love.

Written listening to "Diplo & Santogold - Top Ranking" album (Rate:7,5/10)