Category: Community and Connection
Transitions…and Thank Yous
As Women of HR gets ready to turn three years old this June, we’re in the process of going through our first major transition. For the past three years, the amazing and talented Lisa Rosendahl has been the driving force behind this site, spending countless hours soliciting, editing, and scheduling all of the fantastic and informative posts that have run. If not for her, this site would not be what it is today, and I know I’m not alone in expressing my gratitute to Lisa for all of her efforts. But as with any major project, as things evolve, changes become necessary. To allow her more time to focus on her own endeavors, Lisa has decided to step aside as editor, and I have stepped in to assume those duties. To read Lisa’s thoughts on the transition, stop over to her blog where she’s talking about it today as well.
As the new editor, I look forward to continuing to provide you, our readers, with the informative and thought-provoking posts you have come to expect. I’ll also be looking to add new themes, series, and topics to keep the site ever evolving and in tune with the changing nature of our profession and business in general.
I would like to offer a public THANK YOU to all of our intelligent, talented, and hard-working contributors who generously give of their own time to share their thoughts and experiences with all of you. Without them, we wouldn’t have a Women of HR!
And last but not least, a big THANK YOU to all of our readers for continuing to come back, week after week, to see what we’re currently talking about. If there’s anything in particular that you’d like to see us posting about, please comment below or send me a note at womenofhr@gmail.com. I welcome any suggestions for topics and themes, or any ideas you may have for ensuring that we’re relevant and providing you what you need. And if any of you have ever thought about wanting to write and would like to become a contributor, or even just test the waters with a guest post, please send me a note as well. We’d love to have you as part of our team!
Smart Social Media Policy Starts With Managers: 5 Key Questions to Ask
With social media, what you don’t know can seriously hurt your organization. One 2010 survey found that employees estimate spending roughly four hours every day checking multiple email accounts, with up to two hours spent on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. A 2012 Salary.com survey found that 64 percent of employees visit non-work related websites daily. And don’t think blocking employee access to social media on company networks is the answer; personal smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous, and easily fill the gap.
The rub for today’s organizations is that while social media use at work has definite risks, it also is one of the best ways to empower and engage employees. Increasingly, in our connected 24/7 businesses, the line between work and personal time is blurring. This is especially true for Generation Y employees; as long as they meet deadlines and deliver, these employees don’t feel that it’s particularly useful to distinguish between time spent updating Twitter or engaged in team meetings. Organizations may beg to differ, especially when an offensive or inappropriate blog post or tweet can damage their brand, lower employee morale, and even lead to workplace lawsuits.
Yet, most organizations don’t really know how their employees are using social media, either personally or professionally, let alone what impact it’s having on employees’ overall levels of productivity.
That’s why it’s so important, before you set policy, to know how your managers currently handle social media use at work, as well as how its use by employees is effecting their management. Get at these fundamental issues by asking managers five key questions:
- Have your employees’ use of social media ever triggered a workplace lawsuit or regulatory investigation?
- What impact have your employees’ personal use of social media during work hours had, if any, on their productivity?
- How do you use social media, if at all, to help manage your projects and employees?
- Have you reviewed all applicable federal and state laws governing electronic data content, usage, monitoring, privacy, e-discovery, data encryption, business records and other legal issues in all jurisdictions in which you operate, have employees or serve customers?
- Could you comply with a court-ordered “social media audit”, by producing legally compliant business blog posts, email messages, text messages and other electronically stored information (ESI) within 990 days?
Social media can speed innovation and collaboration, but ONLY if your employees know how to both use it as well as steer clear of its many pitfalls. Start by asking managers these simple questions; they often surface extremely important information that, especially in larger organizations, you may not have been aware of. Finally, remember that for reasons of both confidentiality and fear, getting access to this sort of information is not always easy. It’s therefore important that organizations create mechanisms by which examples of social media use (and abuse!) can be regularly shared with the broader employee base.
Photo credit iStockphoto
About the author: Steve Miranda is Managing Director of Cornell University’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS), a leading partnership between industry and academia devoted to the field of global human resource management. He is also a faculty author of the new eCornell certificate program,Social Media in HR: From Policy to Practice. Prior to CAHRS, Miranda was Chief Human Resource and Strategic Planning Officer for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest professional HR association, serving over 260,000 members in over 100 countries.
I've Got the Music in Me!
There are some things in life that truly tie us all together. I think that one of them is music!! Seriously, think about it.
We can remember a certain song or group that defined high school, college, weddings, etc. I distinctly remember the rush of emotion I would get when the High School pep band would play “Jet” by Paul McCartney & Wings during the warm up. Geeked !!
Music follows all people and when you look at that in the context of HR, there is a gold mine of tunes that resonate with all of us. Paul Smith, author of Welcome to the Occupation, gathered some great lists of HR/work related songs that we can all see ourselves in. Check out his post here: Songs About Work 3-D.
Along those lines and to get you hooked, I want you to try these:
THE song when you're thinking about the potential termination of a team member from The Clash!!
Or, when you've had one of those days that seem to drone on and on, there's the new wave classic by Trio – “Da Da Da”
My “go to” song lately has been what I see happening to employees as they come to work each week - ”I Don't Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats.
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Those are just a few that hit me and you can probably guess what type of music I tend to listen to. What does that say about me? That's up to your interpretation. The thing to remember in this is that the great people around you everyday have music in them too!! They are full of different styles, genres, and themes that get them through each day.
Too often in HR we want everyone to “be on the same page” which really means that we want people to conform to a certain direction or movement. We often aren't looking for their input. We just want them to get in line with everyone else. Wouldn't it be better if we let them express themselves and bring their ideas, approaches and insight to situations? It doesn't mean that we won't reach consensus or agreement.
In fact, it's just the opposite. By involving the diverse reality of employees around us, we come up with better conclusions and strategies.
So, this week, let your music flow!! Let others see the great tunes you love and take in the symphony of those around you. You'll love the mix that comes from it!!
Remember, You've Got the Music in YOU !!
About the author: Steve Browne is the ultimate connector and social media guidance counselor and also works in the trenches of Human Resources. Steve is the Executive Director of HR for LaRosa’s. He has responsibilities for the strategic direction of over 1400 employees. In his spare time, he is active in Ohio SHRM and runs a subscriber-based newsletter called HR Net. Connect with Steve on Twitter as @sbrownehr and on LinkedIn.
Life After Hurricane Sandy
I live in a small commercial fishing town at the beach. When Hurricane Sandy was gearing up and making news, we heard, “this town hasn't been breached since 1962, everything will be fine.” Folks weren't panicked since Irene mandated an evacuation and not one light bulb flickered. These families' incomes are on the water so their lives are driven by the weather.
Then came Sandy. She was on a mission to tell her own story.
I live in Barnegat Light, NJ which is a small community at the most northern point of Long Beach Island. Also the highest part of the island with a man-made jetty and built-up sand dunes.
Here's a picture of our street at high-tide.
The water was rising and it was terrifying. I was following Twitter for updates. Our phones were all we had to communicate. By morning and low tide, the water had receded. Barnegat Light was dry again.
We jumped in the car and started checking on friends and neighbors. Possessions were blown around and I was tweeting pics from our town and surrounding communities. Random folks were tweeting back and asking me to check on their house. We did.
What I didn't realize is that we would be doing that for the next 3 days. Not only did we check on homes and take pictures, we were turning off gas lines, emp
tying out freezers and trying to put homeowners' minds at ease.
When I'm working I feel like I'm moving 100 miles an hour. But I've never really known what it feels like to move at 100 miles an hour until those days following Sandy.
So while I sit here in a hotel room in Pennsylvania seeing the devastation caused by Sandy for the first time on television, I'm off-kilter in every way possible. The wide range of feelings and emotions that I experienced from the building of the storm, going through the storm and what we saw after the storm have left my soul feeling like one of those tiny knots you get in a thinly-threaded necklace. You have no choice but to let time, patience and perseverance loosen it.
How do folks decompress and process this experience?
While we have been displaced with a few belongings, it's nothing more than a string of inconveniences. After all, we have an intact home to go to and so many others don't.
Like other tragedies, we get our temporary wake-up call and then move on. Do we ever truly realize and appreciate what really matters?
I bet the folks who lived here will.
About the author: Kimberly Roden is an HR pro turned consultant and the founder of Unconventional HR. She has 25 years of progressive experience as a strategic HR and business leader. Her hands-on and innovative approach allows her to create and deliver HR solutions to meet business challenges and needs by managing human capital, talent acquisition and technology.
Eliminating Business Card Clutter
You know the routine. You attend a networking event, professional conference, association meeting and collect a bucket load of 2 x 3 inch business cards from a collection of professionals, ranging from the gentleman who sat next to you at breakfast to an engaging mentor-worthy executive. Then the event ends and you transport the business cards from your suit pocket to your work bag and forget about them until you arrive to work the next morning.
Now what?
Traditional networking wisdom would tell you to take the time in the next couple of days to log each contact’s information onto a spreadsheet and then follow up with an email (and log that too). Sound like a lot of work? Probably because it is and the fact that it is time consuming and really not top of mind (after all the conference is over and you have a stack of work to get to done) leads to a high likelihood of business card abandonment.
A better way to deal with a stack of business cards is to embrace social media to make your life easier. I constantly hear colleagues, friends, and family lamenting the main social sites calling them a time-zappers when really if used effectively they can be a time saver.
Below are a couple of tips for how to manage newly made contacts that will not consume your time for half a morning.
- Business card reader apps. If you have a smart phone or tablet then you can utilize this immediately. After collecting a business card you can take a photo of it and it will automatically be added to your phone contacts. Some of these apps go so far as finding the contact on LinkedIn and sending them a connection request. How is that for a time saver?
- In the moment notes. Immediatel
y after you collect someone’s card, take 30 seconds to jot down something you learned about them on the back of the card. This will help you remember what was meaningful about this particular person. Trust me after a long day of networking many of these contacts will blur together and you may remember that someone has a daughter at UCLA and loves mountain bike riding but deciphering if it was Cindy at GM or Greg from Target will be more challenging.
- Connections through LinkedIn. Instead of taking the time to enter contact information on a spreadsheet, invest that time by finding your contacts on LinkedIn and sending a connection request with a personal message that refers to something you learned about them (jotted down on the back of the business card- see point 2) when you met.
Remember, the point of sharing business cards isn’t to increase the number of contacts on your spreadsheets. Business card exchanges are solely for staying connected. Utilize social media and allow relationship building and productivity to co-exist.
What has worked for you?
Photo credit: iStockphoto
About the author: Maggie Tomas works at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota as Associate Director and Career Coach in the Graduate Business Career Services office. Her background includes teaching and career counseling at the college level, namely at the University of St. Thomas, University of California Santa Barbara, and Brooks Institute, where she served as Director of Career and Student Services. She is a contributing writer to several blogs and publications including Opus Magnum, Women of HR and Job Dig.
5 Networking Tips When You Don’t Have Time to Network
The statistics spouting the importance of networking are sprinkled in every career article from the small college newsletter to major international publications. We all feel the pressure to expand our network, meet new people and make a stellar first impression.
As a career coach working with MBA students who are looking to get connected in the business world, the most common question I encounter is about networking. In this tough economy many of students I work with are also juggling multiple roles such as full time professional, involved parent or caretaker. I often get an exasperated look when I bring up the importance of networking because the thought of adding another item to an already full to – do list is overwhelming.
Here are some of the best, most applicable, tips on how to network with limited time.
- Be prepared. You don’t have time to waste so come to any networking event with a plan. Know who is going to be attending, look them up on LinkedIn, find any commonalities you have to discuss, and then make the connection. This creates meaningful networking and allows you to leave at a reasonable time because you had a plan of attack.
- Be focused. I say this because I have been there, in the moment at a networking event, and all I can think of is my kids waiting for me at home, the school project that needs to be done or the paper that isn’t yet written. That makes the networking meaningless because your mind is elsewhere and you won’t appear genuine. You might as well have not been at the event at all. If you have taken the time to attend, then make sure to make it worthwhile and be present.
- Utilize an established network. When you have children at home, going blindly to a networking event outside of your network will be more challenging and take more time, and you may not find others there who are in your same situation (i.e. balancing mult
iple roles). It makes most sense to attend a networking event affiliated with your school (undergrad or grad), company or passion (think volunteer groups).
- Join a professional association. Yes, the dues are high but you have access to a ton of networking events each month and you can pick and choose which events best fit your life and schedule. Many are breakfast events which are the best way to squeeze in a little professional networking during a jam packed day without impacting your “at home” or “at work” responsibilities.
- Network everywhere. A dear friend of mine from California recently networked her way into her dream job. How? She met the hiring manager at her daughter’s toddler dance class! She started chatting with the other parents, made a great contact, kept in touch, one thing led to another and voila! Networking as a parent is unique in that many of the people who are sitting next to you at your son or daughter’s after school events are also professionals and may be able to impact your career.
Ultimately networking is about building relationships. As a business professional there is nothing that will impact your career success more than having a strong network. Make time for growing your network in a way that works for you.
Photo credit: iStockphoto
About the author: Maggie Tomas works at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota as Associate Director and Career Coach in the Graduate Business Career Services office. Her background includes teaching and career counseling at the college level, namely at the University of St. Thomas, University of California Santa Barbara, and Brooks Institute, where she served as Director of Career and Student Services. She is a contributing writer to several blogs and publications including Opus Magnum, Women of HR and Job Dig.
Don't Laugh Too Loudly
I can say without reservation that most HR folks I know are really nice people who do a respectable job.
I can also say without reservation that most HR folks I know are not wild party animals live life on the edge and who routinely break company policy.
But does the term “respectable” go hand in hand with, shall I say, “boring”?
A few years ago, my firm did a “What HR Likes” survey, and to my great surprise, the respondents’ favourite TV show was Two and a Half Men.
I liked Two and a Half Men, a lot, but up until seeing those results, I really thought I was the only one, and kept my love of it a secret. I watched it by myself, low volume, lights out. It was not something I admitted publicly.
Why? Because Two and a Half Men at its core was and is still offensive to some people. It is full of outlandish situations that the HR profession cannot condone at work. Sex, sexism, adultery, fraternization, debauchery, harassment, alcoholism, double entendre—you name it, the show had it. I laughed loudly when Alan needed Charlie to cover as the Receptionist at his clinic, and within hours Charlie had turned the office into a seedy massage parlour. As
an HR Professional, how can I be expected to hold high standards if secretly I think certain escapades like this are funny (actually hilarious)? After all, we’ve all had a “Charlie” in our workplace we’ve had to deal with before, right?
There used to be “rules” about what could be said in mixed company. In some people’s lives, these rules no longer apply and anything goes. The challenge is in some cases, for some people, these rules very much still do apply, and at work, there is still a need for a decorum that respects higher standards of behaviour.
I guess I’m trying to say that if you’re in HR, it is hard to have overly liberal views. Basically, there is no way of winning, which is probably why our profession is full of closet Two and a Half Men fans.
Photo credit: iStockphoto
About the author: Bonni Titgemeyer is the Managing Director of The Employers’ Choice Inc. She has been in human resources for 20+ years and works in the international HR arena. She is the recipient of the 2012 Toronto Star HR Professional of the Year Award. You can connect with Bonni on Twitter as @BonniToronto, often at the hashtag #TEPHR.
Not So Terrible Twos: 2 Years of Women of HR
Today commemorates the 2 year anniversary of Women of HR. 2 years, over 300 posts, 50 some regular and guest contributors. Dudes, can you believe it?
2 years ago, I was lucky enough to kick off the site by encouraging you all to be subversive in our inaugural post. 1 year ago, I told everyone they got puppies and ice cream in celebration of our first anniversary. Hmm, what should we do for our 2nd anniversary then?
Unicorns! You, and you, and you…everybody gets a unicorn! Or not, whateves.
In all seriousness though, thank you
, everyone, for your continued support, contributions and readership. The thought provoking posts, the encouraging comments, and this wonderful community.
We do this for you. Because we've got your back.
Huge love and hugs to our Editor-in-Chief Lisa Rosendal, and my lovely fellow co-founders Trish McFarlane, Sarah White, Charee Klimek, and Jennifer Payne. There are no words to express how grateful I am to share in this great project we started one fun night in Chicago.
I know that this next year is going to be just as amazing and exciting as the last two. I hope you will all be there to experience it with us.
Are You Interested Beyond Your Own Wants and Needs?
I have two pieces of jewelry that are unique in that they were designed and made for me by a master jeweler.
Recently I was in a petrol station and the attendant commented on the jewelry. This was not unusual as I receive many comments when I wear the pieces. It was his genuine interest in not only the pieces but what inspired me to have such unique jewelry made for me that got my attention. He really wanted to understand me! In the end, I had to tell him that I needed to leave as I was running late for an appointment.
My partner and I regularly eat at the same coffee shop and we know some of the wait staff. We were attended to by a person we had never seen before recently and she had an interesting accent. My partner asked her where she was from. When she replied “Estonia” we began a conversation around traveling and her experiences in Australia. She was genuinely excited and grateful that we had shown an interest in her, beyond ordering our breakfast.
My favorite thought leader, Seth Godin, posted recently about the 4 TED imperatives and how they can also be applied beyond TED. With the previous two stories swimming around in my head, I was drawn to imperative number one, “Be Interested.” You see, I don’t think many people are that interested beyond their own wants and needs.
Perhaps with so much information so readily available we have become less interested as we scan items without really engaging with them, rush to get projects completed on time and see people as resources rather than human beings. How many times do you stop and just talk with someone? How often do you ask interesting questions of a colleague? Do you know the major challenge that is facing your child/partner/colleague/manager at the moment?
Think about a typical day and how much time you spend “telling” compared with “asking.” If you spend the majority of your time telling, consider what you might be missing out on. This is as relevant for the workplace as it is for your home life.
Ask questions, be interested. Life is much more meaningful that way.
Why We Need Women of HR
This first week of the new year we are featuring some of our top posts at Women of HR. Enjoy!
Tim Sackett doesn’t think we need a website called Women of HR.
Maybe he is right.
- We have the Equal Pay Act of 1963,
- the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
- Title IX,
- and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
We’re not any closer to seeing the Paycheck Fairness Act come to life, but some say the gender gap in compensation is sorta closing.
Women comprise the majority of HR professionals. We own the function of HR even if we only represent a fraction of HR professionals who are responsible for a budget and have organizational authority to make decisions.
What more could we want?
According to Sackett, HR women don’t need special accommodations and we don’t need a calendar. We’re a majority. We should shut up and appreciate our status.
Except no one here at Women of HR is asking for an accommodation.
I don’t hear my colleagues requesting special treatment or a helping hand. We’re not asking for favors. No one wants something for nothing. We are a self-identified group of women who’ve joined together to talk about Human Resources, leadership, recruiting, and training.
That’s still legal in America, especially since we include men.
What I like about Women of HR is that it’s a unique example of technology, community, and conversation. This site includes HR professionals who are at the beginning of their careers and seasoned HR veterans who are thinking about their second acts. There are women from the recruiting community speaking to women from the technology community. And there are women who love Human Resources and women who hate HR coming together in single space to advance the profession.
Call it Women of HR or call it something else, but it’s unique and kind of revolutionary.
I think it’s also revolutionary that we didn’t crucify Sackett when he suggested that Women of HR wasn’t needed. If this website does anything, it shows that shortsighted opinions on gender and power will be carefully and respectfully considered by the majority. There were no shrill voices. There were no false cries of sensationalism or stereotypically aggressive responses.
There was nothing but good old-fashioned inclusion and debate.
Who says we don’t need that in Human Resources?
