The word fun might be a stretch, but rather than a formal contribution I thought I would pass along a couple of my favourite inspirational short pieces of reading along with a great little video clip.

First up. A few years ago I read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It was originally written in 1936. I believe I read a reprint that was produced many years after that with some more recent and relevant references and examples. Well, with more relevance than in 1936, but still outdated by todays standards. Although the references may have been outdated, the messages, principles and concepts I thought were time tested. If you’ve not read the book, I highly recommend giving it a whirl.

After I got through the whole book, and it is a quick read, I put together a one page summary of the 30 points found in the 4 parts of the book. To this day, I still keep that one page summary posted nearby for inspiration, confidence building and quick reminders. It only makes partial sense if you have not head the book, but HERE‘s what the summary looks like.

Next up is the Issue 97 (August 2005) article from Fast Company called “Why We Hate HR” (link goes to original article). HERE is a PDF version as well. I really cannot say too much more on this article other than if you have not read it, and you are in HR, you should read it. The author makes many good points, some which may be valid and some which may not, but all are points that should generate some thinking points for you.

Finally, I’ll finish this entry with one of my favourite short videos of all time. We’ve all experienced situations where bringing together resources or combining processes and/or technology has made us feel like we’re “herding cats”. If you’re not quite sure what I mean, ask someone who has at least one cat, if not more, how easy it is to reason with a cat or to get them to do something at will. Well, back in 2001, EDS put together a television advertisement for one of their technology solutions (eBusiness) lines of business based on the “herding cats concept”. I’m not sure why I love the video so much, but I still get both a chuckle and a warm cozy feeling out of it eevry time I watch it. I have a low resolution version of it HERE. With a high speed connection it should take less than 2 minutes to download. You may choose to right click the link to either open it in a new window or to save it locally. Enjoy.

That’s it for today. I think my next contibution will tackle the concept of Employee Engagement.

‘Tis the season of celebration, snow, colds and the flu.

I thought I would make a quick entry to talk about business continuity planning and emergency preparedness – specifically related to a potential influenza pandemic. Research and information was collected from various published sources on the web.

Is it time to worry? Over the past couple of years, scientists have been piling up papers and papers on the “inevitable” bird flu pandemic. Although, at present, nobody can quite predict when it will actually occur. Pandemics are said to come around, on average, every 70 years or so. There were small ones in 1957 and 1968/9, when the “Hong Kong flu” (strain H1N1) spread around the world, and one million people died. Apparently that number is small by pandemic standards.

Fortunately, the current “bird flu” strain H5N1 can only pass from chickens to humans and not from human to human. If, or should we say when, the virus is able to mutate to be spread from human to human by cough, sneeze or contact, then it will have the potential to go pandemic.

It’s good that we have some time. At current production rates by the limited producers of Tamiflu that hold the rights to manufacture the flu fighting drug, it would take more than 10 years of stockpiling to have enough Tamiflu for 20% of the world’s population. If the strain mutates significantly into a new strain, then it’s back to scratch on research and production for a new vaccine or alternative antiviral cocktail.

The gloomy picture is that a pandemic flu brought on by H5N1 is far different from a typical annual flu. The “annual flu” affects the entire population, however most healthy adults will recover with a one or two week period while small children and the elderly may not survive. With a pandemic flu, the severity of illness associated with the strain will affect all groups of the population and not just the “at risk” groups. Even healthy adults are at risk of death.

I already mentioned the lack of vaccine. The challenges for society and for employers will be in limiting spread of the flu and keeping businesses and essential services operating. As morbid as it sounds to try and keep the wheels turning while people are dying – without businesses operating, our just-in-time society would not function very long without grocery stores, gas stations, phone companies, various other products as well as the manufacturing and distribution that allows those products to be replenished. Furthermore, with a limited supply of vaccine, it will be important to decrease exposure opportunities to the flu so that fewer people run the risk of contracting it. Now is the time to start thinking of what you need to do. Here are some suggestions from a BMO Nesbitt Burns article:

1.Check that existing contingency plans are applicable to a pandemic.
2.In particular, check to see that core business activities can be sustained over several months.
3.Plan accordingly for interruptions of essential governmental services like sanitation, water, power, and disruptions to the food supply.
4.Identify your company’s essential functions and the individuals who perform them. The absence of these individuals could seriously impair business continuity. Build in the training redundancy necessary to ensure that their work can be done in the event of an absentee rate of at least 25-30 percent.
5.Maintain a healthy work environment by ensuring adequate air circulation and posting tips on how to stop the spread of germs at work. Promote hand and respiratory hygiene. Ensure wide and easy availability of alcohol-based hand sanitizer products.
6.Determine which outside activities are critical to maintaining operations and develop alternatives in case they cannot function normally. For example, what transportation systems are needed to provide essential materials? Does the business operate on “just in time” inventory or is there typically some reserve?
7.Establish or expand policies and tools that enable employees to work from home with appropriate security and network access to applications.
8.Expand online and self-service options for customers and business partners.
9.Tell the workforce about the threat of pandemic flu and the steps the company is taking to prepare for it. In emergencies, employees demonstrate an increased tendency to listen to their employer, so clear and frequent communication is essential.
10.Update sick leave and family and medical leave policies and communicate with employees about the importance of staying away from the workplace if they become ill. Concern about lost wages is the largest deterrent to self-quarantine.

There you have it.

As I have been doing with most of my entries, this is just simply some brief blog thoughts of mine to share a small bit of insight and to get you thinking big. I’ve once again just scratched the surface. I’ve presented only highlights of the information you need to be educated on to make some smart planning decisions. I’ve shared only a small handful of insights and tips from experts. As this is an HR related blog, this is your call as HR experts to partner with your senior operation folks to review existing contingency plans or to put plans in place. Few companies have dedicated departments or expertise to be following up on some of the issues that I have brought to light in this article. It’s time for HR to step up and help get our economy, our employees and our citizens prepared.

Here’s one more quote, from Dr Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota “It is sobering to realize that in 1968, when the most recent influenza pandemic occurred, the virus emerged in a China that had a human population of 790 million, a pig population of 5.2 million, and a poultry population of 12.3 million; today, these populations number 1.3 billion, 508 million, and 13 billion, respectively. Similar changes have occurred in the human and animal populations of other Asian countries, creating an incredible mixing vessel for viruses. Given this reality, as well as the exponential growth in foreign travel during the past 50 years, we must accept that a pandemic is coming – although whether it will be caused by H5N1 or by another novel strain remains to be seen.”

I was going to title this entry “Trends in privacy legislation and data security” but then I figured I would go with something a little more catchy. The other issue I had with the original title is that security and privacy do not have varying degrees progression – maybe effectiveness, but not so much trending. I liken it to breathing – you either breathe or you don’t. Your body adjusts your breathing to running vs walking, but you must breathe. With employee records and privacy of data (there’s different legislation for consumer data protection that I won’t get into here – leave comments if you’d like to see more on PIPEDA later) it’s the same thing, you have secure records or you don’t. There’s enough people out there who are smart enough to hack into even the most sophisticated of security systems if all of the holes are not plugged – so a “half way there” solution may as well not be in place at all.

Let’s talk about the holes. Here’s a laundry list of exposures that you might have:

1.Employee laptops with sensitive employee or company data on the local hard drives
2.Consultants or auditors with laptops with sensitive employee or company data on the local hard drives
3.Inappropriate use of employee SIN numbers for purposes other than government related income reporting
4.Unsecure firewalls on the corporate website
5.Windows lockout not used on computers when employees walk away from their desks
6.Poor access card systems or door locks on the physical facilities
7.Lack of screening of maintenance individuals (computer service techs, plant maintenance, building maintenance, etc)
8.Filing cabinets not locked properly
9.Exposed paper or binders on desks or in unlocked desk drawers
10.Desktop computers sensitive employee or company data on the local hard drives
11.Unsecured internal network (ability to get into the network drives without a secure logon)
12.Phone lists available to or visible by visitors in meeting rooms
13.Unattended reception areas with access to computers or company directories
14.Recycling, garbage or “to be shredded” materials left in an unsecure area

Worried yet? You should be!

There is very little legislation that covers the privacy and security of employee information. Most of the legislation covers the protection of consumer data. However, MOST employers do apply the same standards to their confidential employee data that they would apply to their customer data. Where most companies are at risk is in standard policies and procedures the govern the distribution and use of data by employees and consultants.

In 2005 and 2006 alone, there have been countless cases of mass losses of employee data in the US and Canada. All you need to do is a Google search on “employee data loss” or “employee data security breach” to find a few of them. Most cases involved the theft of a laptop computer from outside of the employers premises (usually a car or a home). The subsequent aftermath in these cases involved large expenses to help affected employees (200,000 – 1.2 million in some cases for larger national or global employers) do several credit checks, monitor financial statements, allow time off to follow up with financial institutions.

As an employer concerned about the safety and security of employee data, you should have a privacy policy governing the use of confidential HR information including where and how it can be stored (remember those laptop hard drives). The policy should help minimize the likelihood of data exposures and ensure that there are processes in place to regularly audit and quickly identify of a breach has occurred. Finally, you should have a plan in place and know exactly what steps will be taken if a breach occurs, including participation from functional areas such as HR, IT, Finance, Audit.

Here’s a couple of good practices to keep in mind to get you going:

1.Don’t collect data elements you don’t need (ie. Drivers license numbers)
2.If you do collect secure data elements, segregate them as much as possible from other data sets (ie. Don’t include unnecessary data on reports or expose on local computers or desktop files)
3.Avoid using secure data elements as identifiers (ie. SIN as a benefits ID)
4.Don’t secure data elements for any longer than they are needed for the purposes for which they were collected
5.Ensure policies and training address the risks and legal obligations involved in handling secure employee data elements, and that policies and training is provided to all employees and managers who have authorized access to the data
6.Ensure key cards and system access are terminated in a timely fashion when employees are transferred between locations or leave the company

Bottom line. Most companies are not taking all of the above precautions. Most companies have got away with it so far. I won’t name names, but you don’t have to walk very far up Bay street in Toronto to come across a company that has had a breach in recent years. Don’t wait for your company to be next. Start taking a look around at who uses data, how it’s used and where it’s stored (on paper and electronically). You wouldn’t leave home in the morning and not lock your front door, then why leave confidential data at risk in the workplace?

Further to my comments in the blog yesterday (although if you are reading this top to bottom, you’ll be seeing things backwards) there are a lot of great experiences I have had over the last couple of weeks as well that are great recruiting practices. Yesterday I focused more on the developmental opportunities that companies are running up against.

I have dealt with agencies and in house recruiters that have been exceptional with feedback and very timely. Ones who have been very helpful and genuine. One’s who have taken time to build a relationship with me. Even if they did not have a job to offer at that given moment, they have seen the value in networking and building a relationship that may be of business value in the future or perhaps simply sharing of knowledge and expertise down the road.

I ran some metrics not too long ago, looking among other non-traditional HR metrics, at performance ratings and retention of employees by source of hire. I can’t say that the results were shocking, but very much re-affirmed some anecdotal thinking and a hypothesis that I had already formulated – that referrals made better hires than any other source. The results of the metrics that I ran over the span of a couple of years continued to indicate that this was the case. Runners up were recruitment agencies followed by internet sources.

If you are in an HR position and reading this, consider your sourcing mix and how much you promote and use your employee referral program – it will probably yield you the highest performers and most loyal employees. If you are an employee reading this, get out there and do your part – you can help out both your company and your network of friends, peers and colleagues. Finally, if you are a job seeker reading this, get out there and talk to your friends and colleagues in other companies – because if their HR departments have already figured out what I have, then they are placing a high value on employee referrals as well!

Gotta run – seems I have a few phone calls to make!

Okay, so I mentioned I would do data security and privacy as an article. I changed my mind and will do that one next week.

Rather, I’ve been out job hunting recently as I will be leaving my current company towards the end of the year due to a restructure. I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of my own thoughts about what has been happening and will continue to happen with labour market trends, then to bring that down to the candidate level. You see, for the past many years I have operated on the employer side of the big recruitment “machine”, and it has been very eye opening for me recently to be on the other side.

The ominous “they” are saying that we can expect a labour crunch (crisis, shortage – many words could describe this) by the year 2010. The main reason attributed to this is the bulk of the baby boomer generation retiring in that timeframe, combined with limited immigration and slower population growth over the following generations – that is to say that boomers did not have as many kids as their parents and the X’ers and Y’s are not having nearly as many as the boomers. Voila! Fewer new workers to enter the market.

You say “why not just increase immigration”? Well, the main reason being that most industrialized nations in the world are experiencing the same demographic trends as Canada and the US, and in some cases are trying to attract our workers as much as we are trying to entice immigration from their countries. It’s a compounding problem that has been on the radar screen for a couple of years now. The US is expected to have a shortage of 10 million workers in 2010, while Canada’s rate is in the hundred thousands. There is LOTS of additional reading on this topic and plenty of pretty graphs out on the internet, so I’m not going to go into any more detail here. What is my point and where am I going with this?

I have had a full range of experiences recently in my new found role as a job seeker. I have spent several minutes on some corporate websites trying to navigate to the Careers pages. I’ve spent upwards of 15 to 20 minutes typing my way through applicant tracking systems for companies, pasting and re-pasting repetitive data just to submit a resume – some of the systems have generated automated responses, some nothing, and in many cases I’ve still not heard anything back from some of these companies.There have been one or two positions posted that I have pursued to find out that it has been cancelled for one reason or another. I’ve had a telephone interview with one company only to be told that I would probably hear back within two weeks if we were proceeding further, but if it takes longer than that, then they are probably not proceeding and I should get some sort of acknowledgement of that within six weeks (authors note : I think it’s been about that long now from this particular company, and still nothing). Wow! Imagine treating your business customers that way – “We’re not sure if we can make that shipment of the product you need by the end of the month, if we can we’ll let you know sometime in the next two weeks, but if not we’ll try let you know sometime after that, but we may not be able to because we’re really busy”. Probably not a supplier that would leave a good impression in your mind. In fact, in many cases these days, job applicants are in fact customers as well – making it even more important to ensure that the recruitment brand and CRM (candidate relationship management) commitment is equal to or better than that of the company’s business commitments and customer relationship management.

Alright – small rant done. You know what? I’ve been on the corporate side of that! I know how busy recruiters get. I know how hard it can be to stay in touch with hundreds or thousands of candidates. Now, let’s do something with this new found knowledge and link it all together…

Big companies, large recruiting “machines”, inefficient processes (not good at recognizing top talent within a database/pool of average performers), CRM that needs improvement. While talent may not be plentiful, but is still available in 2006, companies can get away with this sub-optimized processes. Active candidates may be willing to jump the hurdles but will become weary, passive candidates will not tolerate them. However, as we approach 2010 and beyond, the only companies that are going to be able to survive the “talents wars” are the ones who figure out Recruitment 2.0 (think of it as the interactive aspects of Web 2.0 versus the original internet). The ones who figure out how to maintain relationships with top talent, how to get beyond the resume, how to have the cream rise to the top of the database are going to be staffed with that same top talent and be industry leaders. There needs to be a HUGE shift in the recruitment mentality over the next 3 years. Technology and business processes need to keep up.

I’m glad I’ve gone through this experience and seen things “from the other side”. It has helped put things in perspective for me and will be invaluable as I move forward at light speed in the HR world. I hope to be at a company who recognizes these insights and is able to realize the benefits of “Recruitment 2.0” to be successful in 2010 and beyond.

Blogging is becoming more and more popular. Heck, I’m writing one right now (okay, I’m pasting it in from a previously edited document). A stat I saw in late 2005 indicated that 50,000 new blogs were appearing every couple of days. I think it is safe to say now that there are probably that same number of new blogs added to the internet daily! When you think about it, most sites like www.myspace.com, www.facebook.com and gmail offer free blogging tools – and that’s just to name a few of the trendy popular sites. I could get much more into the social networking aspects of some of those sites and how they relate or can tie to employee behaviour, but we’ll leave that for another day.

Oh yeah, if you don’t know what blogging is, you can stop reading right now and go look it up then come on back. If you think you’ve got the concept, keep reading.

I thought I would take a few minutes today to pen some notes on the potential risks, concerns and benefits to employers of employees blogging their thoughts (on their own OR company time).

Here’s some bullets on several recent high profile cases:

~January 2005 Google termination based on the employee’s accounts of “life inside the company”, even after he removed posts at the request of the company
~Delta Airlines flight attendant lost her job after posting candid (no explicitness) photos of herself in her uniform within a blog

So, where is the line crossed? What warrants action by an employer?

Some might consider the following to be unacceptable behaviour, driving either disciplinary action or even termination:

~Company or co-worker criticisms
~Revealing company secrets
~Offending customers
~Damaging brand image

Of course, the content of an external blog is going to determine what actions you might take. What if he company is not mentioned, but the blog condones some sort of immoral behaviour?

Here’s my .02 cents worth…

To mitigate risks in the above areas, employers should consider preparing and publishing guidelines on acceptable behaviour related to employee blogging. And yes, I said guidelines – not policies. Note that an employee who does not know enough to keep company secrets will do so with or without a blog. Employees seeking to harm or de-face a company will find a way even if blogs are forbidden.

The trick is not to eliminate blogs, but to harness them as a tool. Perhaps go as far as regulating them, supporting them and encouraging the useful ones. What is a useful blog? One that supports the company, gives insight to prospective customers and employees, builds morale and/or motivates other employees or helps build brand image. You might even be able to tie employee blogs into alumni networks and leverage them to attract back lost talent.

If you do go the route of sanctioning and regulating blogs, be sure to monitor them (yes, monitor not police) to keep a pulse on the work environment and what hot discussion topics are. Use the opportunity to improve programs, change policies and customize company events.

If you choose not to monitor or guide the internal use of blogs, then you should at least keep a pulse on what is happening in the outside world. Pop over to Google or mySpace every now and again to run a search on your company name. See what comes up.

Feel free to click on the comments and leave some of your own personal thoughts or comments on the use of blogs by employees inside or outside the workplace. Indicate if you have formal policies or guideline governing the use of blogs.

Next up – we’ll look at data security as the use (and breach) of employee personal data has been in the news a lot lately.

So, I’ve been doing this HR gig for quite a few years now. If you’ve read through some of the functional areas and competencies I have listed on the site that I have worked on, you will see that they are quite varied.

However, there is one area of focus of HR affecting the employee lifecycle that I think has one of the biggest impacts on employees and can not be handled in one single administered event. What do I mean by an administered event? That would be the act of delivering a performance appraisal or attending a session of training. The broader event that I am speaking of is what has been recently coined as “employee onboarding”.

Employee onboarding (you can look up the various definitions – try the Wikipedia via Google) can begin as early as initial contact with an employee and can extend at least to the end of the employee’s first year or sometimes beyond.

I recently had the opportunity to write an light hearted article on the imprtance and impact of getting onboarding right. You can access a PDF copy of the article HERE.

Happy reading!

Geoff.

Welcome to my blog.

I have blogged before both on my own sites and as a guest on the sites of friends, peers and colleagues.

I figured I would take this opportunity to start a fresh blog from a professional perspective and share a little more about what I do in the Human Resources world. I will also link from time to time to articles I have written or work that I have produced.

Feel free to leave comments on any of the entries or to “vote” for an entry using the karma feature.

I’ll try to keep things interesting and updated periodically, so check back from time to time. If you are an HR related professional and think you may have something to contribute, let me know and I’ll either submit the content for you or set you up as a contrubutor.

Happy reading!

Geoff.