Be a fun-loving leader
Chip R. Bell, Smart Brief
“Would you buy from you?” is one of my favorite questions. It reframes the perspective to focus on how prospects view you. I offer a similar question to all leaders: “Is it fun being led by you?”
Fun is the WD-40-like lubricant that makes cultures innovative and productive. It yields winning work environments in which leaders are gifted at letting go, turning on and ramping up.”
How Do You Keep Your Sense of Humanity in HR?
Martha Finney, Human Resource Executive
“Let’s face it: HR is where the drama is inside any company. If it doesn’t start there, it inevitably ends up there—employee conflicts, disappointing talent or culture alignment, misunderstandings that become threats, unreasonable expectations and demands, and truly heart-wrenching pathos that might have started at home, but now floods over into the workplace. These stories show you the worst of humanity at times, but often the best as well … As an HR professional, it’s up to you to deal with it all.”
This is what you should say instead of “no” at work
Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company
“The ‘no reflex” instantly creates an argumentative position,” he says. “It’s a negative message that says you’re not interested in trying. You’re too busy—not a team player. I can’t imagine a worse message to send to a colleague or boss. The next time you need help, you may not get it.”
How bosses waste their employees’ time
Robert I. Sutton, Wall Street Journal
“Leaders don’t mean to waste their employees’ time. Unfortunately, many of them heap unnecessary work on the people below them in the pecking order—and are downright clueless that they’re doing it.
They give orders without realizing how much work those directives entail. They make offhand comments and don’t consider that their employees may interpret them as commands. And they solicit opinions without realizing that people will bend over backward to tell them what they want to hear—rather than the whole truth, warts and all.”
The motivating (and demotivating) effects of learning others’ salaries
Zoë B. Cullen & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Harvard Business Review
“Pay inequality is common in most workplaces. You get paid significantly more than your subordinates, your boss gets paid more than you, and your boss’s boss gets even more. In many large organizations, some employees can take home paychecks tens or hundreds of times more than others.
Whether you like it or not, your employees have wondered at some point about your salary — and their peers’. Should you be worried about that? Our recent research sheds light on this question, and our findings may surprise you.”
Free Webinar: Roadmap to Create Your Own FMLA & ADA Manager Training
Jeff Nowak, FMLA Insights
“In what has become my annual FMLA mega webinar, I will be joined again by my friend, Matt Morris, VP of FMLASource, for “Six Ways Your Managers are Causing FMLA & ADA Lawsuits, and How to Train Them to Stop.” This webinar will be held on December 12 at 12 noon CST.
Our complimentary webinar will use a case-study format to show how your managers undermine otherwise compliant corporate policies and HR practices. More importantly, we then will give you the content to create your very own FMLA and ADA training program.”
More HR News: Quick takes
- How to help those affected by the California fires
- Municipalities subject to Age Discrimination Act regardless of size
- Survey finds US companies have ‘made almost no progress’ in advancing women
- Nurse who witnessed murder-suicide speaking out about domestic, workplace violence
- IRS bumps up 401(k) contribution limit for 2019
- The future of work won’t be about college degrees, it will be about job skills
- Top tips for engaging remote employees
- It’s imperative you stop this one bad habit we all do all the time because it’s ruining us all
- State-by-state labor & employment post-election roundup
- 6 Drugs that should raise red flags on any workers’ comp claim
From the lighter side…
- We missed this article pre-Halloween, but thought it was worth recycling: Tales from the crypt, scary hiring stories from HR practitioners.
- New technology sometimes takes a while to catch on, but there were a lot of early adapters lined up to replace their messy fountain pens with new-fangled ballpoint pens. While we take pens for granted today, they were a sensation when brought to market, offering the promise of a “fantastic, atomic-era marvel” and “a rocket in your pocket.” Read the fascinating story of Vintage Tech: The Ballpoint Pen.
- Also in the “new technology” theme – although it seems like the web has been around forever, 20 years ago, it was just taking baby steps. Visit the Gallery of Web Design History to see screenshots of websites created between 1995 and 2005, primitive antecedents of the rich web of today. .
- And in yet more emerging technology — are you ready to hire your first robot? Watch Spot the robot inspecting building construction sites in Japan.