The HR Cafe

Leadership Credibility -- free e-learning module

Click here to view a  9-minute rapid learning module for free:Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base.  Act now. The link will expire in 10 days.

Dear HR Executive:

One of the toughest things we do in our lives is figure out what we're really good at.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But it's not. In fact, if you look at your employees, or perhaps at your own family members, you'll find examples of 30, 40 or even 50 year olds who still don't really know what they're good at. And there's something a little tragic about these people, who often seem unfocused and adrift in their lives and careers.

Contrast them with people who discovered early in life exactly what they're good at. It's usually something they loved to do and were happy to devote the 10,000 hours of practice that experts say are required to master any skill or activity. No surprise, these people are far more likely to be successful and land in leadership roles. One of my favorite examples is New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who at age 14 traveled to Israel and discovered what he'd do for the rest of his life -- write about the Arab/Israeli conflict. Today, few people can talk about the Middle East with greater insight and authority than he does.

Another example is Gary Hoover, CEO of the wildly successful Hoover's database that salespeople use to research companies. He tells a story about how at age 11 he asked his dad for a subscription to a magazine. It wasn't Sports Illustrated or Boys Life. It was Fortune. Why? Because as a pre-teen he'd already discovered the love of his life ... researching companies.

Friedman and Hoover have what we call a Confidence Base, and it's an important concept for HR executives and managers who recruit and make promotion decisions at their companies. If you're filling any kind of leadership role, you want people who have a strong Confidence Base in the activity they're leading. That doesn't mean they talk a good game and use all the right buzzwords. It doesn't mean they spent their careers doing something "close" to what they'd be doing in the job you're filling. It means they've done exactly what you need done and mastered it. People who have a Confidence Base exude credibility. Others are eager to follow them. And they succeed.

It's obvious why this is important, but it's surprising how many recruiters and executives don't "get" the concept of the Confidence Base, and hire and promote people who will inevitably fail.

We'd like you to view a Quick Take rapid learning module on this topic for free. You'll find it's a valuable addition to your recruiting and leadership toolbox. Just click on this link and the program will launch instantly on your computer: Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base.

Here's what just a few HR executives have said about our Quick Take rapid learning programs:

• "The Quick Take format is excellent. I enjoy that snack-sized training. Thanks." Laurence Diamond, Sprint
  
• "The Quick Take format is perfect for busy managers as myself ~ good tips in a few minutes. As a manager of many employees in my center, I need to do just what the program said...follow up with each one occasionally, not just at their "annual review" to make sure they are effectively using their teacher training." Melissa Raney, Sylvan Learning Center"
  
• I've never seen any product that's as meaty and real-world as Quick Takes. I see all kinds of  training materials that are academic and theoretical. The Quick Take learning modules in the HR Cafe are really practical. They talk about problems you're having right now, and tell you how to handle them." - Diane L. Parker. International Recruiter, Samaritan's Purse.
• “This learning module was better than I expected. I will use it with senior managers at our work site. The Quick Take format is great – I like that it’s short and probing.”  - Debra Koch, The Boeing Company.

Click here to view  Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base. The link will expire in 10 days, so act now.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference , "No More Performance Reviews! A Revolutionary Approach to Performance Feedback" Most employees hate performance evaluations. Most managers dread giving them. Yet more than 70 million U.S. workers receive them each year. Why? Advocates of performance reviews say they raise productivity, differentiate salaries and protect against lawsuits. But it’s not true. No wonder just 5% of HR professionals are “very satisfied” with their performance management systems. On Wednesday, June 24, our speaker, Gary Markle, one of the nation’s most outspoken experts on performance management systems, will explain how you cope with this challenge.

Motivating employees: How do you inspire workers?

Dear HR Executive:

What motivates employees to do their best? We recently hosted an audioconference with Dr. Michael Burchell of the Great Places to Work Institute – the organization that compiles the annual rankings for Fortune magazine.

At great companies, Burchell says, people are inspired by their work. They arrive every day energized by what they do and go home knowing that they’ve made a difference.

But motivating employees isn’t a matter of soaring rhetoric, feel-good videos or those often-mocked motivational posters touting Teamwork or Persistence.
 
Inspiration, Burchell said, “connects the head and the heart and the hands with whatever the work is.” It draws a straight line between what workers do and how that work affects the world.

Show them the end result
Take Medtronic, for example. It manufactures medical devices, and many workers spend their days sealed off in clean rooms, assembling tiny parts into highly complex products. Yes, the work is important. And it has to be done right. But it would be easy for these employees to start thinking that their job is about whatever happens in the clean room.

So a couple of times of the year, management at Medtronic have a unique way of motivating employees.  They bring all their employees together and have a patient or physician talk about how those devices impacted their lives. Workers sit face-to-face with people who are alive because of the work they do. And it makes a huge difference. People feel connected. Even though they do a job where they’re focused in little parts that go down a conveyor belt, they can see how it all fits together.

As an HR manager, you can have a big impact on how people feel about their jobs. The question to ask: Can every employee reasonably make a straight-line connection between their work and some tangible metric or outcome that the organization really cares about? You can take steps – like Medtronics’ patient meetings – that help employees gain that line-of-sight. And when they do, they’ll be inspired to do their very best.

Michael Boyette
Editor, HR Café Training Center

Study: Why it's so important to handle layoffs right

Dear HR Executive:
Some HR Cafe readers have probably been through plenty of reductions in force (RIFs) in the past. You're totally prepared for the layoffs your companies might have to make in the months to come.

 

But do you remember the first time you did one? A member of an executive forum I attend recently had to lay off about 1/3 of his 100 employees. You know the reason: They'd staffed up quickly in the past year to handle a growth spurt, then in September the orders just dried up.

Any employee who thinks companies are cold-hearted and care only about money should have seen how the 40-ish president of this company agonized over what he had to do. It was obviously the first time he'd ever had to make such a decision, so the emotions he felt were new and raw. He realized that the way he handled the RIF would define his company going forward. It was a horrible thing to have to do, but he was determined to do it the right way -- which meant he would treat the fired employees with dignity and maintain the morale of those who stayed on board.

New survey results
It remains to be seen whether he succeeded, but according to a recent survey from Leadership IQ, the stakes are high when you conduct a RIF. The survey of 4,172 workers revealed that 74% of layoff survivors in the past six months said their productivity declined, and 69% said the company's product or service got worse after the RIF. Some other stats that'll chill your bones:

• 87% said they're less likely to recommend their company to others
• 77% said they were seeing more errors and mistakes being made
  
• 61% said they were less optimistic about their company's future.

The good news is that if you handle every RIF as earnestly as my executive forum colleague did -- "This layoff will define who we are, and who we'll be in the future" -- chances are you'll get through it fine, with energized employees who are motivated to help get their company through tough times.

Here's some advice for handling RIFs:

1. Do it once, if possible. Think through your workforce requirements very carefully and make one round of cuts.
2. Communicate to survivors that you "don't plan" more layoffs. That will decrease the anxiety level while leaving open the option to lay off more people if you absolutely must.
3. Be honest. The absolute worst, most morale-draining thing you could possibly do is create a communications vacuum. It will inevitably be filled by gossip and misinformation. The truth usually isn't so hard for people to understand -- "This economy stinks, we're hurting, we need all of you to help us get through it, and we're not going to lay people off unless it's necessary. The harder we work, the more focused we are, the less likely that'll be."
4. Coach your managers to be visible, approachable and candid. The Leadership IQ survey showed that at companies where bosses showed these qualities, workers were 72% less likely to report a decrease in their productivity and 65% less likely to report a decline in the quality of their company's product or service.
5. Treat laid off workers fairly. Your survivors are glad they didn't get sacked, but they need to believe that they work for a company with strong values that walks the talk. And make no mistake about it, they'll know every detail of about your severance packages.
   

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

UPCOMING AUDIO CONFERENCE: Don't miss B21’s upcoming audio conference, "Low-Cost, High-Impact Recognition Strategies When Money is Tight."  On Thursday, January 8, our speaker,  Valerie Grubb, will lay out the most common mistakes companies make with employee recognition. And she’ll give you a blueprint for creating a recognition program that’s aligned with your company goals and in sync with the needs of your workforce in today’s economy.

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Cultivating emotional maturity

Dear HR Executive:

We’ve all come across brainy and brash star performers who want to rise way too fast. Here's a counterintuitive suggestion: Suggest to your managers that these fast-trackers be put on a team where they have no authority.

Let me explain. It’s tempting to move people up the ladder quickly these days. After all, strong performers have options — if they don’t get the job they want at one company, they’re bound to get it somewhere else. Why risk losing them to a competitor by delaying a promotion?

Trouble is, putting unseasoned managers into the big chairs too quickly robs them of the chance to develop emotional competencies that come only with time and experience.

Bosses may be delighted with such managers’ intelligence and passion — and may even see younger versions of themselves — but peers and subordinates are more likely to see them as arrogant and inconsiderate, or, at the very least, aloof.

And that’s the problem.
Research has shown that the higher a manager rises in the ranks, the more important “soft” leadership skills become, and the more critical to the manager’s long-term success.

It’s one thing to understand the importance of relationships at an intellectual level, and to learn active listening. It’s quite another matter to develop the full range of interpersonal competencies like patience, openness and empathy.

One solution leadership coaches advocate is assigning promising young managers to cross-functional teams in which they do not have much direct authority. That can help develop critical “soft” skills like negotiating with and influencing peers. It can counter the brash tendency to pull rank to get things done, or ride roughshod over other people’s feelings. What’s more, working on a team also teaches young managers not to “shoot from the hip” when making decisions. 

Payoffs for your organization: Young managers who learn to work on teams are more likely to ask for help when they need it, and to cultivate relationships with people who can be useful to them in the future.

John Hiatt
Executive Editor

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Do you have a 'No Excuses' Culture?

Dear HR Professional:

When it comes to complaining and making excuses, the 80-20 rule doesn't apply. In a healthy culture, 95% of your excuses come from 5% of your people, the ones who simply don't understand your "just get it done" culture and don't respond to peer pressure to stop whining. In an unhealthy culture, one that tolerates excuses, pretty much everyone participates .

I've worked at both types of cultures. In the healthy one, busy people always seemed to jump at the chance to do more. In the bad one, under-worked people always complained that they were overwhelmed.

Do you have a "No Excuses Culture"? If not, here are some ideas from Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of several best-selling books. This article appeared in B21's newsletter Human Resources 21. Read on.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

Help create a culture of ‘no excuses’

How often do you come across people who seem to spend more time explaining why something can’t be done than working to fix problems?

If managers allow excuses to stand in the way of change for the better, your company does not merely fail to improve. You risk losing out to those who see obstacles as challenges to be overcome.

Keep excuses at bay
There are specific skills managers can use that will get people to quit complaining – and jump-start performance. As an HR pro, you’re well-positioned to help managers put these ideas to work:

• Lead by example. Programmers at software giant SAS quit complaining about impossible deadlines when CEO Jim Goodnight rolled up his sleeves and sat down at a terminal to write code that helped them achieve their goal. Similarly, Rudy Crew, head of Florida’s Miami-Dade school district, sat next to a struggling fourth-grader to help him with his schoolwork.
• Do not accept surrender. On the spot, Crew fired a principal who blamed his school’s lack of performance on the fact that most of the kids came from nearby housing projects. It may be hard to fix problems, but it’s impossible if people blame the status quo.
• Find reasonable solutions. There’s plenty of research showing that a manager’s expectations, for better or worse, affect performance dramatically. Positive expectations promote confidence, and confidence results in superior performance, dulling the effect of complaints.
• Focus on those who “get it.“ Research shows that, in any change initiative, 30% will get it right away, 50% will go along, and 20% will never buy in. Focus your attention on those who buy in, and have them help “sell“ the other 50%. Don’t waste energy on the 20% who will never get aboard.

Based in part on “Breaking Through Excuses,“ by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Business 2.0; www.business2.com.

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Overtime and Leadership

Dear HR Executive:

You've probably never made a connection between overtime and leadership. But a recent legal case -- where the court ruled a company had violated overtime laws -- reveals an important lesson for anybody who leads people.

First, here's what happened in McGrath vs. Central Masonry Corporation, an April 2008 decision by the 10th Circuit: 

Employee James McGrath sued Central Masonry because he didn't get paid overtime for attending mandatory foremen meetings, mandatory Spanish classes, and picking up employee paychecks. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) clearly states these activities are compensable. The company's defense: McGrath didn't indicate any overtime on his time sheet, so payroll couldn't pay him the OT.

That was true. But it also came out in court that:

1. It was widely believed throughout the company that the CEO adamantly opposed paying overtime.
2. McGrath didn't fill out his time sheets correctly because he believed the CEO would be angry if he did.
3. The VP who supervised the company's foremen had received numerous complaints from foremen about unpaid overtime.
4. The VP had never reported these complaints to the CEO because he knew the CEO's position on OT and arguing with him would be futile. (In his deposition he said,  " ... when the CEO pretty much says, 'This is the way it is,' that’s the way it is, and he doesn’t bend very much at all."

The overtime angle in this story is mildly interesting. You must follow the law. But as the leader of a company, I find this a fascinating example of how a leader can create a dysfunctional culture (and get a company in legal hot water).

Early in the career of anyone who's ever led people, a revelation occurs. You realize that because of your positional power, people listen very carefully to what you say, and they'll often DO exactly what you say, even if what you said isn't what you really meant. Let's be really charitable toward the CEO of Central Masonry and assume that what he said was, "I don't want to pay overtime," but what he meant was, "I don't want people working more than 40 hours."

Let's assume he never told anyone, "I want to violate the FLSA and cheat our employees," and that he never meant that. But in court it was apparently very obvious to the judge that that is exactly what everyone HEARD, and it's why Central Masonry lost the case. The VP in this case is guilty of ... well cowardice. He knew full well that the employee complaints were legitimate, but he was afraid of his boss the CEO. At the very least, the CEO is guilty of poor communication and bad judgment. He should also get a serious deduction for having employees who are afraid to tell him he's breaking the law.

Don't they teach this stuff in Leadership 101?

By the way, for you legal eagles, here's why the judge said he ruled that the company had to pay the OT:

“An employer who is armed with knowledge that an employee is working overtime cannot stand idly by and allow an employee to perform overtime work without proper compensation, even if the employee does not make a claim for the overtime compensation.”

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

The "Closing Doors" game follow up

Dear HR Executive:

If you didn't read the last post, take a minute or two and play the "Closing doors" game before reading this.

If you played the game you know the point of it. There's a downside -- both in the game and in life -- to keeping all your options open. We do better when we allow doors to close.

What's it mean to HR executives? A lot, actually.

First, the health of your company depends on the ability of the CEO and other top executives to close doors. Strategy gurus tell companies that they need to define what they're really good at and be better than competitors at that one thing. A popular model says companies must choose between "operational excellence," "product leadership" or "customer intimacy." But some of the greatest strategy insights are revealed when we ask, "What aren't we?"

Every CEO gets flooded with ideas about new markets, products, mergers, acquisitions, and so on. The ability to close doors, to say, "No, that's not who we are," is essential to success. HR executives who want a spot at the executive table also need to understand what the company "is not," and a key part of their job is making sure that knowledge cascades throughout the organization.

Second, the "closing doors" concept is relevant to HR executives in recruiting.  There's no bigger turnoff than a job candidate whose resume shows he did 10 different jobs in 10 years. And there's nothing more attractive than finding a person who did one job for 10 years and achieved mastery of exactly the skill set you need. The latter candidate knows how to close doors, the former does not. When you ask the latter candidate that age-old question, "What are you NOT good at?" she'll tell you, "I'm an accountant because I'm a whiz at numbers. But I'm just average at writing. And I don't really have the personality to be, say, a salesperson or a customer service rep." The job hopper will squirm in his chair and end up telling you he's good at everything. Which means, of course, that he's spent his whole life keeping doors open, and he's GREAT at nothing.

When I recruit I'm acutely attuned to how focused people are. Candidates who have deep levels of self-awareness are more expensive and more demanding. They know exactly what they want and have no time for you if you can't offer them an opportunity to sharpen their skills. If you make a promise and don't deliver, they're gone. But I'll pick this type of candidate every time. 

I believe it was Aristotle who said, "Happiness is using one's skills and abilities in the pursuit of excellence." He understood closing doors. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman understands it. At age 14 he went to a kibbutz in Israel and understood instantly that he was not going to fulfill every Jewish mother's dream and become a doctor or a lawyer -- he was going to spend the rest of his life writing about the conflict in the Middle East. Bill Gates closed the door on a Harvard degree, quitting after his freshman year to deploy the remarkable programming skills he'd discovered at age 12.

I constantly bore my two teenage daughters with lectures about this stuff, hoping they'll figure out their passion -- that thing they could truly be excellent at -- and close the door on distractions like becoming a famous actress or being the next Donna Karan. It's not working. But maybe when they're 30 they'll remember all my yammering and it'll motivate them to figure out what they are, and what they aren't.

Anyway, I hope this has given you something to think about. "Closing doors" is a powerful idea that has real application in the workplace. Not to mention our private lives. But that's a different story.

Feel free to share your thoughts about your experience playing the game and what "Closing Doors" means to you. Just click on "comments" below.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

The "Closing Doors" game

Dear HR Professional:

Let's play a little game ... a purposeful game that will tell you something important about yourself and perhaps  give you insight into why you are, or aren't, an effective HR executive. It might even tell you why you are, or aren't, happy in your life.

The game comes from an experiment being run by Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at M.I.T. who's interested in how people make choices. Click here to play the game, which takes about a minute and then gives you your results. Make sure you read the directions very carefully. If you don't, the results could be skewed.

In my next post, I'll talk about what all this means. Have fun.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Accountability: Why it's so important

Dear HR Executive:

If you've been in HR a while, you know the importance of accountability in organizations. You've hired managers you thought had the accountability gene, only to learn later on that they refused to take responsibility for results, didn't "own" projects, and pointed fingers at others when things went wrong.

And you've seen low-level employees soar through the ranks because they had that gene -- they got things done no matter what. They spent money like it was their own. They admitted their mistakes, learned from them, and never made them again.

I'm the CEO of my company, and the bigger and more complex the organization becomes the more I realize how few tasks I can be directly accountable for. A company can't survive without highly competent managers who totally "own" their jobs. If something goes wrong they take responsibility. Even if a direct report caused the screw up, accountable managers are thinking, "It happened on my watch, I didn't deploy my resources correctly, I didn't get it done. How can I make sure it never happens again?"

Here's how Webster's defines accountability:

Accountable: Subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.

I think people feel accountable for two reasons. A minority of your employees have outrageously high standards for themselves, and when they screw up they feel they've let themselves down (Tiger Woods would fall into this category). But I think more of them recognize that they're part of a team, and they feel if they fail they're letting the team down. It's the pain -- maybe even fear -- of being "answerable" to a team  that drives them. If managers don't have either that insanely high internal standard, or the fear of letting others down, they'll prove disappointing in a management role.

Next time you interview someone for a manager position, try to come up with some questions to determine whether they've got that accountability gene. They'll be better managers if they do.

A final thought: It's not enough for an organization just to have accountable managers. At great companies, accountability cascades down through all levels of an organization. Even entry-level receptionists "own" their relationships with customers and have a personal stake in meeting their needs. Here's an article that will help individual managers create a culture of accountability within their own departments. It's called "The Seven Deadly Sins of Managers," by Robert Lauridsen. Read on.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Draconian measures from SHRM

Washington D.C., April 1, 2008

SHRM announced today draconian new measures to improve the image of HR executives worldwide. It has ordered its certification arm, the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI), to revoke the PHR, SPHR and GPHR certifications from all HR executives who:

• Create a company policy manual, shove it in a drawer and forget about it
• Develop training programs that take up employees' time but deliver no value
• Ignore employee complaints hoping they'll just go away
• Send out a memo announcing a major change in a benefits program, then act surprised that no one read the memo.
• Fire a troublemaker without adequate documentation
• Propose HR initiatives without running the numbers and demonstrating a positive ROI
• Come up with compensation plans that reward stars and poor performers equally
• Allow supervisors and managers to inflate the performance evaluations of poor performers
• Fail to benchmark salaries by industry, geography and company size, and thereby end up paying their workforce too much, or too little.
• Pay severance to a terminated employee without making the person sign a release
• Assume that if somebody's title is "Assistant Manager," then by definition she must be an exempt employee and you don't have to pay her overtime
• Fail to send out the COBRA forms!
• Conduct meaningless exit interviews that reveal absolutely nothing
• Rely strictly on want ads to recruit talent and believe recruiting is about sorting through resumes
• Can't explain how their companies REALLY make money.

Obviously no reader of the HR Cafe would be fool enough to fall into any of these HR traps ... or to believe that SHRM has any intentions of revoking certifications. But April 1 is a good time to think about the foolish mistakes many HR professionals make that can crush their effectiveness and stall their careers.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."