The Total Cost of Your Workforce
Stacia Garr, Bersin by Deloitte: “Headcount figures are important, no doubt, but this data alone only tells part of the story. Executives and line managers want to know how much they are spending on talent, and how different decisions will impact these costs. HR, in partnership with Finance, needs to take the initiative to calculate and report these costs.”
The Art of Not Working at Work
Roland Paulsen, The Atlantic: “Two years ago a civil servant in the German town of Menden wrote a farewell message to his colleagues on the day of his retirement stating that he had not done anything for 14 years. “Since 1998,” he wrote, “I was present but not really there. So I’m going to be well prepared for retirement—Adieu.” The e-mail was leaked to Germany’s Westfalen-Post and quickly became world news. The public work ethic had been wounded and in the days that followed the mayor of Menden lamented the incident, saying he “felt a good dose of rage.”
Signs You’re Being Passive-Aggressive
Muriel Maignan Wilkins, Harvard Business Review: “And while it’s easy to recognize a passive aggressive co-worker — the colleague who is agreeable to your face but badmouths the idea behind your back or the sarcastic direct report whose constant retort is “but it was just a joke” — recognizing one’s own passive-aggressive behaviors at work can be quite difficult.”
Fostering women leaders: A fitness test for your top team
Lareina Yee, McKinsey Quarterly: “I’ve distilled some forward-leaning practices into five questions that can serve as a fitness test for your top team. In my experience, an organization that is making progress on such issues tends to explore them in concert. At the very least, these questions can help generate the kinds of challenging conversations that executive teams around the world should be having. The stakes are too high not to have them.”
Most Companies Miss Easiest Ways to Boost Workplace Cybersecurity
Hilary Tuttle, Risk Management Monitor: “Despite increasing attention to cybersecurity and a seemingly constant stream of high-profile data breaches, the primary security method used in businesses worldwide remains the simple password. According to a recent study, the average person now has 19 passwords to remember, so it is not surprising that the vast majority of passwords are, from a security perspective, irrefutably bad, including sequential numbers, dictionary words or a pet’s name.”
Happy and productive workers
Wally Bock, Three Star Leadership Blog: “Are happy workers productive workers? The academics have rolled out their heavy artillery on both sides of that one. A lot of companies have bought the idea that if they make their workers happy, they’ll become more productive.
Usually, when they do that they load up on the hygiene factors. They look at salary and benefits and ping pong tables and perks. But the reality is that hygiene factors don’t make people happy. People get used to that new salary pretty quick. After they spend the bonus, they still have to go back to work.
If you’re thinking about productivity, that’s where you have to look. You have to look at what it’s like to go to work.”
Mortality risk ‘two times higher’ in people with mental disorders
“A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry finds that the risk of mortality among people with mental health disorders is more than two times higher than that of individuals without such conditions and the general population.”
Executive Compensation 101: What to Consider
Bridget Miller, HR Daily Advisor: “Creating an appropriate executive compensation package is vital to getting and keeping the best-suited executives for your organization. As with any role in the business, the compensation package should be tailored not only to the skills required but also to organizational needs. It should also factor in market-driven criteria such as competitive pay scales.”
Pros & Cons of Unlimited Vacation Time for Employees
Brian Anelante, Undercover Recruiter: “Companies around the world including Virgin Group, Netflix, Groupon, Glassdoor, HubSpot & many others offer their employees unlimited vacation time. If this vacation policy goes as expected, Virgin Group’s Richard Branson plans to recommend it to his company’s subsidiaries as well as companies all around the world.”
Smoking’s Death Toll May Be Higher Than Anyone Knew
Richard Harris, NPR: “The U.S. surgeon general lists 21 deadly diseases that are caused by smoking. Now, a study in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine points to more than a dozen other diseases that apparently add to the tobacco death toll. To arrive at this conclusion, scientists from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and several universities tracked nearly a million people for a decade and recorded their causes of death.”
Brief takes
- 39 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Bad
- DOL map: state and federal employment protection laws for workers who are pregnant or nursing
- Inredible company perks
- Can you require vaccines for your employees?
- Four signs of the improving U.S. jobs situation
- Do you hate your employees? Here’s a guide to making them hate you enough to quit
- Top 10 Employment Discrimination Claims
- One of the most dangerous jobs in America
- 15 Life Lessons Learned From Primatologist Jane Goodall
- Anthem Offers Customers ID Theft Protection for 2 Years
- CFO Survey: Few Companies Making Special Effort to Attract Millennials or Achieve Board Diversity Targets
- Got ‘snow stress’? Psychologists offer tips to cope
- Rising Workplace Stress Has Big Impact on Comp
- Map depicting the most overrepresented job in every state