Why Good Employees Do Bad Things
Laura W. Geller, strategy+business
Kellogg’s Maryam Kouchaki on understanding — and avoiding — ethical breakdowns.
“For outsiders observing a scandal at a company or organization, the situation often seems implausible or incomprehensible. How did leaders let it happen? Why did so many people go along with the wrongdoing? And for so long? The bigger the fallout, the more we shake our heads in disbelief.
The view from the inside of a scandal-plagued organization is considerably different. We know that, in business as in life, good people sometimes do bad things — whether it’s a small lie or a giant fraud, a one-time act of dishonesty or an ongoing deception.”
The Pros and Cons of Competition Among Employees
Anna Steinhage, Dan Cable and Duncan Wardley, Harvard Business Review
“Some research studies suggest such competition can motivate employees, make them put in more effort, and achieve results. Indeed, competition increases physiological and psychological activation, which prepares body and mind for increased effort and enables higher performance.
However, employees can achieve their results in different ways. At Wells Fargo, for example, employees delivered higher sales numbers by secretly creating millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts — an unethical path toward results that has very high long-term costs.
But employees can also outperform their competition through innovation. If employees compete by finding new opportunities for providing service to clients or devising a way to bring a new product to market faster, then internal competition can translate into a real competitive advantage for organizations.
What distinguishes competitions that unleash creativity from competitions that cause unethical behaviors? It depends on how the competition makes employees feel.”
Disappointing news about employee engagement from Gallup
China Gorman, ragan.com
Workforce engagement isn’t getting any better, and employees are actively searching for new jobs. Check out the numbers from Gallup.
“The data are clear. Engaged employees—use any definition you like—have lower turnover, lower absenteeism, higher customer metrics, higher productivity, higher sales and higher profitability. As I have been quoted saying, “Everything we measure that we want to go up will go up, and everything we measure that we want to go down will go down when we create a culture that values its humans.”
Recruitment Marketing: From Trendy to Necessary
Roy Maurer, SHRM
SmashFly’s Mike Hennessy talks about how companies are recruiting top candidates—before they start their job search
“Study after study shows that best-in-class talent acquisition functions begin the recruiting process long before a candidate applies for a job or future new hires even think they need a new job. Increasingly, organizations are adopting consumer marketing strategies and tactics for recruiting to more effectively engage with potential talent and educate them on the employer and its job opportunities. This shift to more strategic, proactive recruiting is the reason that recruitment marketing technology is one of the fastest growing areas of HR tech, with nearly 70 percent of enterprise companies investing in these capabilities, according to Aptitude Research Partners, a Boston-based analyst and advisory firm.”
Related: 10 Recruiting Tips for First Time Managers
The Most Effective Way to Keep Star Employees From Leaving
Marcel Schwantes, INC.
“So how do you keep your star employees, the ones who make up that rockin’ 30 percent club, from being infected by the other 70 percent, and quite possibly leaving you for your competitor?
The research behind Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” (which documents strategies for having very happy employees and bottom-line impact) finds that the work environment at these companies focuses on growing a high-trust culture and developing people.”
The Threat from Within
Anne Freedman, Risk & Insurance
Employees are the most vulnerable point in any organization’s computer network, but many companies fail to pay enough attention to this risk.
More noteworthy HR news
- When companies don’t treat their job applicants well, they lose out in more ways than one
- Job descriptions count (but not as much as you think) in ADA cases
- How HR Can Promote Flexibility in Blue-Collar Jobs
- Do you see onboarding as a two-way street?
- Six jobs are eliminated for every robot introduced into the workforce, a new study says
- Artificial Intelligence’s Real Role in Business
- Five Leading Trends in Managing Leaves of Absence
- Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute
- Too Much Experience To Be Hired? Some Older Americans Face Age Bias
- 10 hard skills to learn that will last a lifetime
- 11 ways to deal with people you don’t like
- 10 Things Managers Should Never Ask Employees to Do
The lighter side
1,000 working ducks with a job to do
Humans aren’t the only ones who go to work every day. You may enjoy this fascinating story about an army of working ducks. Reuters features a must-see pictorial called Quack Squad on the Hunt. The story includes an amusing video of ducks on the march – turn on your sound for the full effect – and a slideshow of photos.
And last but not least – two charmingly cute videos to hit you in “right in the feels.”