Tag: HR

Organizational Development? Start with the Janitor, says Al Gore

Challenge # 4: Organization Development [Go here for challenges 1 to 3.] Gore worked on the "reinventing government" program at the country’s largest employer, the US Government. He says the key to finding better ways of doing things is to start at the bottom. His teams met first with the janitors and worked their way […]

Terminations: ‘Maybe’ Involve HR? No, Always Involve HR

Consulting with HR before any termination should be an absolute. And not just to help with the firing itself; HR needs to be involved long before that. What sorts of things can go wrong when HR’s not involved in the decision to terminate? Let’s list a few of the expensive problems that can crop up: […]

Put the Performance Review Out of Its Misery

Culbert, a professor of management at UCLA, goes on to say that the performance review is "a pretentious, bogus practice that produces absolutely nothing that any thinking executive should call a corporate plus." In Culbert’s book, Get Rid of the Performance Review!, he advocates instead the performance preview, which he says will actually accomplish what […]

SPIFFs Turbo-Charge Your Salespeople? Experts Say ‘Yes”

Colletti is Managing partner of consulting firm Colletti-Fiss, LLC; Fiss is a partner. They shared their tips at the WorldatWork’s Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition, held recently in San Diego. What’s a SPIFF? Several phrases have been proposed as possible origins of the acronym SPIFF (e.g., “Sales Performance Incentive Fund,” and “Special Pay Incentives For […]

Avoid Common Electronic Recordkeeping Missteps

In yesterday’s CED, we covered issues surrounding electronic recordkeeping. Today, more principles — plus a valuable recordkeeping desk reference, specifically for California employers. Electronic recordkeeping is wonderful in many ways but the pitfalls are varied and deep, as we saw in yesterday’s issue. To skirt those danger zones, here are more of the principles of […]

Travel Pay Rules in California: Not Always Clear-Cut

If an employee injures third parties while working, you as the employer can be held liable for those injuries. Normally, an employee’s regular commute to and from work is not considered to be “working” time, so employers aren’t responsible for accidents that happen then.

Sorry, You Didn’t Get the Promotion

If Mike (less successful as a salesperson but more qualified for sales manager) gets the promotion, how do you minimize the risk that Sara (the superstar salesperson who was less qualified to be manager) will be upset? (Go here for the first part of the story.) Janove, author of the  The Star Profile, suggests that […]

Avoid Peter Principle Promotions with Star Profile

Janove created the "Star Profile" to provide a basis for mutual understanding between direct reports and their supervisors. One of its benefits, outlined in Janove’s book, The Star Profile, is that it helps management avoid dreaded "Peter Principle" promotions. Peter Principle Promotions Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull‘s 1968 book, The Peter Principle, theorized […]

Health Insurance—What Are Best Employers Doing to Control Costs

For years, BLR has surveyed HR and benefits professionals to find trends in benefits. We appreciate your participation in our monthly series of brief, targeted benefits surveys. Today’s survey topic: Health Insurance. (We’ll publish the results in a future issue.) Please participate in this brief survey and we’ll determine what employers are doing with this […]

Where’s My Raise?—How to Handle Tough Pay Conversations

Teresa Murphy and David Wudyka have some ideas about how to make those conversations go a little better. Murphy is the principal consultant for HR Partner Advantage, an HR advisory firm based in Raleigh, N.C. Wudyka, SPHR, MBA, BSIE, is the founder and managing principal of Westminster Associates, a Massachusetts-based human resource and compensation firm. […]