The July Team Player

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March, 2008
February, 2008
January, 2008
December, 2007
November 2007
October, 2007
September, 2007
August, 2007
July, 2007
June, 2007
May, 2007

Happy July

As I write this month's newsletter, I have just returned from the Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM") Annual Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas with one of our staff members. There is something quite interesting about being around 22,000 other HR people. We actually met a number of self assured and confident HR people who made us very proud to be in HR. We also saw some that well, didn't look too happy (you know the ones with the permanent frown) and some who clearly were there for the perks provided by vendors, but the number of those whose motivations for being there we questioned, is quite frankly decreasing each year. Why do I mention this? HR gets a lot of flack in many organizations (and even from me) for not being what it needs to be. However, if the number of disinterested HR professionals continues to decrease, maybe we will all stop laughing at the "Catbert" jokes, stop writing "Why I Hate HR" articles and wonder what all the fuss was about? And for those wondering, I lost $40.

I am excited to announce that The HR Team has created a partnership with Tickets at Work. This relationship allows our clients, their employees and friends of the firm (basically anyone reading this newsletter) to access tickets for local and national attractions like Hershey Park, Disney, Six Flags and even some Broadway shows at 5%-30% below the regular price. To set up your account simply visit www.ticketsatwork.com and use the company code "HRTEAM". Since this is a new venture for us, should you use this service, please let us know about your experience.

New Team Members

Please join me in welcoming Maurislyn Green to the team as an HR Assistant. Maurislyn is a recent graduate of Geneva College and is currently pursuing her MBA at University of Phoenix. Maurislyn has 8 years working in health care for various insurance companies.

In addition, Shahan Rizvi has joined us as our summer intern. He is a senior at University of Maryland, College Park.

Minimum Wage Posters

In last month's newsletter, we mentioned that we are in the process of purchasing "All in One Posters" reflecting the new federal minimum wage. These posters will be available as soon as the new minimum wage posting requirements are issued.

Get Them To Learn, Grow, Stay Involved

Do some of your people seem less enthusiastic about their work than they once were? Do they come in late more often or respond more slowly to your requests? Consultants call the problem "warm chair attrition." People are still there, but they wish they were somewhere else. They are disengaged.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that some 70 percent of U.S. employees are disengaged. Some of the problem may be over work from cutbacks in the department, but it's not just that. At Novations Group in Boston, they say a big part of the problem is they are not learning or growing.

As a manager, the consultants say, your first job is developing people. That means all of your people. But because managers and supervisors are so busy, they tend to rely on one or two people or just do the extra work themselves to get projects done on time. They could get much more done if all their people were engaged, and they would be less stressed themselves.

Most of our assumptions about people's abilities aren't true. People are designed to learn new skills. First, make everyone in the department aware that they will be asked to master new situations. Give them assignments that require bigger or more complex skills. Then give them the good or bad feedback about how they're doing. Usually people don't mind doing routine work over and over again if they know that they will participate in something new.

Quoted in Fortune, the consultants say using time pressure as a tool for developing people does take a tolerance for risk. But the greater risk is not doing it. At a time when you're overwhelmed, would-be good workers could be leaving for a more interesting job somewhere else.

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