by Caroline | Oct 14, 2015 | Assessments, Company Culture, Management, Non profit HR, rewards, teamwork
Last week I heard a TED talk by Margaret Heffernan about productivity and chickens. In a study mentioned in the talk, a researcher cultivated several generations of chickens, eventually culling the most productive into one coop and leaving the others in a different...
by Caroline | Sep 23, 2015 | Company Culture, Management, Training
There was a story in the Wall Street Journal recently that I just don’t think got enough play. It was about Wal-Mart’s decision to “upskill” its employees. In other words, it plans to train its entry-level workers. People expect managers to be trained. They expect...
by Caroline | Sep 16, 2015 | Company Culture, Hiring, Management
People always say: Hire slow and fire fast, but I don’t think most people understand what that really means. I think it’s construed as “Be careful who you hire and when it turns out they’re not great, get rid of ‘em.” That’s not the point of Hire slow and fire fast....
by Caroline | Sep 9, 2015 | Company Culture, Management, Non profit HR, teamwork
I heard a story today about the changing culture of work. They talked about the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant that was formed in Fremont, California, between GM and Toyota. The old GM plant had been one of the worst plants in the history of auto...
by Caroline | Sep 5, 2015 | Company Culture, Hiring, Management, Non profit HR, People Evaluation, Recruiting
One thing that candidates often tell me when they’ve been interviewed by a company I work with is: “I know a lot about the company now. But they didn’t ask me anything about myself.” Argh! I know exactly what happened in that interview. The hiring manager and others...
by Caroline | Aug 26, 2015 | Company Culture, Hiring, Non profit HR, People Evaluation, teamwork
The only thing worse than making a bad hire is dragging your feet about getting rid of them. Yes, it’s upsetting to realize you hired badly and then start questioning your judgment and the judgment of others who gave this person the thumbs up. You try to think about...
