The Talent Show

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour we will welcome the team from the TalentedApps blog - Meg Bear, Amy Wilson, and Mark Bennett to talk about 'Talent'.

The show starts at 8PM ET and the call in number is 646-378-1086, you can also listen online using the player below:

I would describe Meg, Amy, and Mark as 'talented' if it were not such a bad pun.

But in a way, I wonder if the prevalence of the term 'talent', and the way it is applied in so many contexts and circumstances has had somewhat of a devaluing effect.  Do we even know what anyone means when they refer to 'talent'?

There was the 'War for Talent', which may or may not be over, there is 'Talent Management', which may or may not be the same as Human Capital Management, and there are plenty of software solutions promising to deliver 'Integrated Talent Management', which possibly or not will help organizations integrate processes and better manage talent.

For sure 'talent' is a complicated notion, but the team at TalentedApps consistently takes these complex topics and ideas and makes them accessible, understandable, and by sharing their insights and ideas they help us all get better at navigating the talent game, and putting us in a position to win, (or at least judge) in the talent show.

So tonight on the HR Happy Hour we will look get behind some of the complexity and talk about how organizations can better assess talent, why ideas like 'job fit' are so important, and maybe even the changing nature of jobs and work and organizations.  That may be a tall order for a one hour show, but I think if anyone can help make sense of it all, it is Meg, Amy, and Mark.

I hope you can join us for what should be a fun and interesting show with our 'talented' guests from TalentedApps.

Going Small

Tonight at 8PM EDT on the HR Happy Hour show, we are talking 'HR On Your Own', a show about the HR function, and the HR professional in a small business environment.

Lots of great HR people are out there, on there own as the sole HR professional in an organization, or as a part of a very small team.  We will talk to some of those people tonight, people like Franny Oxford, Paul Smith, and Kimberly Roden, and hopefully a more people will call in to share their stories as HR lone warriors.

Listen in tonight on the caller/listener line 646-367-1086 or using the player below, or on the HR Happy Hour show page.

When we announced the show topic and guests, I did see quite a few messages from folks, mostly along the lines of 'Yep, I have been there', and 'That is what I live every day', and 'I'll never go back to a giant company again.'

Small is the new big, in business and in life.  Yesterday in the NBA, longtime coach Don Nelson broke the record for most career coaching wins, primarily by implementing a 'small ball' strategy.  The theory is in a fast-paced and unpredictable game like basketball, smaller, quicker, more agile players would have an advantage of seeming bigger and stronger teams.

Sounds quite a bit like the modern business world as well.  Speed, agility, ability to adapt (the capabilities of many small firms), may well win the day over many of their large, plodding, established competitors.

And these nimble small companies often have a sole 'HR hero' in the trenches, and those are the people we will be talking about tonight.

I hope you can join us.

The Culture Show - Recap

Last night on a fun and engaging HR Happy Hour show, Charee Klimek from Vocii, and Meghan M. Biro from TalentCulture joined us to discuss organizational or company culture; what it means, why is it important, and how companies and candidates can better understand and leverage culture.

If you missed the show, I encourage you to listen to the replay here:

 

The show brought up quite a few interesting topics, and honestly one hour probably was not enough to cover such a wide-ranging, slightly ambiguous, and diverse subject such as company culture.

For me, a few points really resonated:

One - There has never been more of an opportunity for organizations to communicate the message of what they believe in, how they see themselves, and the kinds of attitudes, behaviors, and values that the people that inhabit the organization exhibit, and by extension what types of people would be good candidates in the future. With all the free and low-cost tools and mechanisms available to organizations, if your message is not getting out the way you desire, either you simply don't care, or you are not really trying hard enough.

Two - Culture is not just about having a cool company blog, or a CEO that likes to Tweet.  There actually were great company cultures and places to work at before Zappos came along, (I am not sure anyone actually said that in the show, but I think it is true).  Culture is woven into the everything the organization does, from what products and services it offers, to the way it deals with its stakeholders, even to the way it is reflected in its physical surroundings, the way it treats the environment, the community, and even the world at large.

Three - And thanks to Mary Ellen Slayter from SmartBrief from the SHRM VIP Tweetup in Washington, we learned that SHRM (at least at this week's Legal-themed event) is doing a solid job promoting fear, restraint, and a firm grip on the status quo with respect to the use of social media.  Rather than rehash it all here, go check out Mark Stelzner's blog for his take.

Thanks once again to Charee and Meghan and all who called, listened, and tweeted!

Show Me the Money

Last night on the HR Happy Hour show we took on the always interesting, sometimes controversial, and seemingly universal subject of Compensation, or put more simply - money.

Now I know that compensation is not just about cash, that the total value that an employee receives from their employer is a complex mixture of cash, benefits, development, opportunity, and probably a million other things.

Or maybe it is really just about the cash.

That is in a way why the subject, and to some extent the show reflected this, can be so frustrating. 

Compensation seems much of the time a 'Me vs. Them' kind of struggle, the little guy employee fighting for his or her fair piece of the pie, against the faceless corporate monolith bent on sharing as little as possible, all the while funding exorbitant executive comp packages. For some reason the value in the exchange always seems tipped in favor of the employer, that cash, benefits and perks always seem to be perceived as having more worth than the employee's time, attention, dedication, and commitment.

Whenever the conversation turns to compensation, there is bound to be some discomfort. Whether it is a deal to buy a car, sell software, or negotiate a salary and benefits package, there are some people that will feel uneasy, mostly due to an imbalance of information and power.

The newest new hire does not know what kind of a deal the last person in their situation was able to swing, so they often go in blind.  The 'man' has the information, the leverage, and the ability to, for the most part, to control the deal.

Don't like what is being offered?  Ok, walk away then, and good luck.

Oh, and by the way, the outgoing CEO just walked away with a $25 million package.

We did not have time to really solve any of these issues on the 'Show Me the Money' show, and I wonder if we talked for another few hours if we really could have.

But it was, and remains a fascinating topic, and one that will never be completely solved as long as corporations and individuals exchange time and effort for compensation.

Have a listen to the show, and let me know what you think. 

Why are these issues so complex, sensitive, and enduring?

Can we ever just be honest and open about compensation and with each other?

The Best HR City Show

Is clearly Rochester, NY, right?

Seriously, I don't know where the 'Best HR City' is, but tonight on the HR Happy Hour show we will attempt to find out.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 26 'The Best HR City' is live tonight 8pm EST. 

Call in on 646-378-1086.

Think your city rocks in the HR and Recuiting world? 

Call the show tonight and state your case.  The 'winning' city gets a visit in 2010 from the HR Happy Hour, a live on-location show, and the right to wear the 'Best HR City' crown for all of 2010.

Who will win - DC, Portland, Minneapolis, Cincy, NYC, London, Canada (yes I am calling Canada a city), or some other dark horse location yet to chime in on the debate.

Here is the criteria we posted on the HR Happy Hour site to get you thinking about how to defend your turf:

1. The number of talented HR and Recruiting pros that live in the city now. And that means now, you can’t claim people who used to live in your city, went to college there, or stopped in the Waffle House once on the way to somewhere else (Birmingham, this one is directed at you).

2. Examples of some companies, large or small, doing some interesting and innovative things in the HR, Recruiting, and Talent Management space. And honestly, the way things have been going the last two years these may be hard to find. The city that can claim the least amount of mass layoffs will probably win this category. Since government jobs still seem like they will be plentiful for, well forever, Washington DC has a major advantage here.

3. How well your city has represented on the previous shows, and if you show up this week. And I am not just talking about volume of calls (although that helps). No, your city has to bring something to the mix beyond, ‘Portland rules!’. And speaking of Portland, you were once the runaway leader in this category, but have since kind of disappeared from the radar.  If it weren’t for some abominations from the 513, they would have this one sewn up already.

4. Number of active bloggers, tweeters, big time LinkedIn or other online dominators. Some cities definitely can claim pretty high numbers of active participants in the ‘Digital HR’ space. That will carry some weight in the final determination.

5. Conferences, events, tweetups, random meetings with strangers where you talk about HR or Recruiting. More weight will be given to the smaller and more ‘organic’ kinds of events. San Diego does not get any credit for simply ‘being San Diego’ with perfect weather all year thus becoming a place everyone wants to visit. Same for New Orleans (except for the weather part).

So that is it - hope you can join us tonight!