Now, for those of you reading this, and if you can bring it upon yourselves to login and post some comments – I think it would only be fair to reflect on “Tips for Getting More Efficiency Out of Male Employees in 2008″.

Here’s the article (and please don’t think any less of me for showing just how far we’ve come in the past 5 decades). I think as a society, we have made great progress with room to go, of course.

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they’re less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn’t be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It’s always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that “husky” girls – those who are just a little on the heavy side – are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

5. Stress at the outset the importance of time the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.

6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they’ll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.

8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can’t shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman – it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.

10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl’s husband or father may swear vociferously, she’ll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.

11. Get enough size variety in operator’s uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can’t be stressed too much in keeping women happy.

Gnews

This is not so much HR related, but I have had numerous conversations with people over the past few years who have had no idea about the show The Great Space Coaster, and specifically Gary Gnu. Gary is known for his infamous phrase “no gnews is good gnews with Gary Gnu”. Perhaps I watched too much TV as a kid, or I’m simply inflicting my childhood memories on a crowd of conversationalists too young for my wisdom. This post is just for fun.

Here’s a clip.

With a little reading, research  and some technical wizardry (well not really that much, as many a soul have trodden down this path well before me), I have finally figured out how to post to this new blog by e-mail.

Yes, that’s right. No more logging into the tool via a web browser. In fact, I am writing this entry in an email via Outlook, I will hit send, and in seconds, you will be reading it in the blog. Very cool.

I also found some great plugins for SEO optimization and whole site XML mapping for the content to be picked up on Google easier. Way cool.

So, here I am, finally caught up to 2005. Next up, maybe some more rich media and video in the blog. Of course, I have Facebook for that too.

On the HR side of things, I am happy to say that I am now pursuing my CHRP. I’ve just had to study up and write some challenge exams in Organizational Behaviour and Labour Relations. Now, the tricky part was that from the date I decided to pursue things, to the date of the exams, was 2 weeks. That’s one week per 800 page textbook. Got through them all, suffice to say, that information retention becomes more difficult when sucking in text like a high speed vacuum. If all goes well, then I carry on to the National Knowledge Exam soon.

I also just finished reading the Opposable Mind by Robert L. Martin (a University of Toronto Rotman Dean). Good book. Some great case studies of leadership and how great minds think.

A couple short inspiration books I am just polishing off, by Mac Anderson, are The Essence of Leadership and The Power of Attitude. The later is very enlightening, while the former shares some wonderful and impactful stories.

-Geoff.

Yay!

I have now officially migrated over to WordPress for my blog.

This should make things a whole lot easier.

Looking forward to more writing.

Geoff.