The Week That Was in HR recaps HR news and views around the world. You are receiving this because you have visited EmployWise.com and have expressed interests in receiving HR news. EmployWise™ is an award winning HR software delivered on the cloud or the SaaS model. It's easy, affordable, and quick to implement for organizations of any sizes. If you've enjoyed this, you can forward it to your friends and colleagues here. You can also share on and .

19 to 25 December, 2011

Leadership
The Biggest CEO Screw Ups of 2011
via Forbes
To put together our list of 2011’s biggest CEO screw-ups, we combed the past year’s coverage and consulted two professors at Kellogg School of Management, Daniel Diermeier and Harry Kraemer; Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld; a list provided by Sydney Finkelstein, who teaches management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth; and Richard Levick, who runs Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis communications firm in Washington, D.C. Read the slide show here on Forbes.

Be More Productive by Making Better Daily Choices
Ana Dutra via Harvard Business Review
The quest for efficiency and productivity improvement that permeates the corporate world trickles down from entire organizations, to teams, to projects and, finally, to individuals. At the most personal level, we make many choices that affect our productivity. Choices as simple as whether we use on-line banking, have a face-to-face meeting or set up a WebEx or Telepresence conference, send a written thank you note or an e-mail. Most of the time, the same technology that enables each and every one of us to multi-task and be always "on call" and consider trade-offs that didn't exist in the past. Read the full post here on Harvard Business Review.

Internationalism, Sexism and Other HR Evolution
Ian Welsh via Toolbox for HR
What I really like about HR Toolbox, is the high level of participation of HR professionals from so many different countries. Responding to a community question, there may be remarkably consistent opinions offered from HR people from every nation. This is very healthy and increases the experience base from which responses are drawn. What one person may speculate, another person may be able to confirm based on local experience. We are different in some respects, but linked, it seems, by similar principles. Universally, we seem committed to the well being of employees and achieving the balance between respect for people and supporting the organization to achieve superior results. We are all at different stages of advancement, but in practical terms what does that mean? I remember early interviews in the UK when I was asked about my religious and political beliefs and the profession of my father and grandfather! Are those type of questions still asked anywhere? Read the full post here on Toolbox for HR.

Recruitment
How to Ace a Google Interview
William Poundstone via The Wall St. Journal
Imagine a man named Jim. He's applying for a job at Google. Jim knows that the odds are stacked against him. Google receives a million job applications a year. It's estimated that only about 1 in 130 applications results in a job. By comparison, about 1 in 14 high-school students applying to Harvard gets accepted. Jim's first interviewer is late and sweaty: He's biked to work. He starts with some polite questions about Jim's work history. Jim eagerly explains his short career. The interviewer doesn't look at him. He's tapping away at his laptop, taking notes. "The next question I'm going to ask," he says, "is a little unusual." Read the full article here on The Wall St. Journal.

Oddball Interview Questions
via Forbes
Glassdoor.com, an online jobs and career community where people share information about their workplaces, just released its list of 25 oddball questions that job candidates were asked this year. It turns out that job seekers shouldn’t prepare only for common interview questions like “What are your strengths?” and “What are your weaknesses?” They should anticipate less conventional queries, too. Watch the complete slide show here on Forbes.

How to Make Video Job Descriptions and Why You Should Be Producing Your Own
Jim Stroud via The Recruiters Lounge
How to make video job descriptions (and why you should be producing your own) is the topic when Jim Stroud interviews Will Staney of VMware and investigates how they are successfully using video job descriptions to recruit active and passive candidates online. If you are not using video job descriptions in your recruitment strategy, no doubt you will consider it after this episode of The Jim Stroud Show. At the very least, video job descriptions are an employer branding opportunity your company cannot afford to miss. Watch the full video here on The Recruiters Lounge.

At the Work Place
Challenges SME Owners Face
Nigel Copsey via EmployWise
SME owners generally face a host of operating problems and the few I will touch upon here, I am sure, will fall far short of a complete list. However, they are some of the major challenges I have come across whilst working with or talking to owner-managers. One major issue is really due to the results of several others: there always seem to be 1,001 things to sort out as far as operations are concerned. As a result, it becomes very difficult to find the time to focus on the “big picture” and to lead the organisation forward. Read more here on EmployWise HR Best Practices Blog.
Five Ways to Avoid Being in Charge of Everything
via The Economic Times
It's a commonproblem that most of us find difficult to admit. Blame it on nature if you will but the temptation to do it yourself is always more powerful than the ability to let go. How then, do you rein in this desire to control outcomes and take the easy way out? Vikas Kumarhas some pointers. Read the full article here on The Economic Times.

Put HR Skills on Your Performance Improvement Team
Brad Power via Harvard Business Review
If you picked a dream team to improve the way your organization does business, who would be on it? I know who would be on my team. Besides front-line people who know how things work today and process improvement experts who know how they could work tomorrow, I'd want team members who could contribute to improvements that would stick. My team would have people with deep functional knowledge and skills (strategy, sales, marketing, finance, and information technology) to align surrounding processes. And I'd also want team members who knew how to get people to adopt new skills and attitudes — experts in incentives, training and development, culture, communication, stakeholder management, and redeployment. These are "people skills." Read the full post here on Harvard Business Review.

HR Trends
Performance Reviews Lose Steam
Rachel Emma Silverman via The Wall St. Journal
It's that time of year again: Many workers and managers are preparing for the dreaded performance review. But some companies are deciding not to do them. While most continue to perform the awkward rite of passage once or twice a year, a few companies—about 1%—are scrapping the formality altogether, according to the Corporate Executive Board. The thinking is that performance reviews are angst-provoking and even ineffective in actually motivating workers. Read the full article here on The Wall St. Journal.

Can Autonomy Mastery and Purpose Work in Today’s Business Environment?
Paul Hebert via Fistful of Talent
We’ve all been beat over the head for the last 18 months or so with the idea that incentives don’t work. We’ve watched Wall Street bonuses become the “it girl" for bad incentives. We’ve read and listened to Dan Pink talk about how incentives are not the best way to drive performance in an organization. As HR people we get it. We know a more holistic and enlightened approach is the best way forward. Read the full post here on Fistful of Talent.

Working Through the Holidays, Sort Of
Melissa Korn via The Wall St Journal's The Juggle
A new report from office-space company Regus PLC says 64% of U.S. employees will be working the week between Christmas and New Year’s, with 56% actually coming into the office. But is anyone really productive? According to the survey of more than 12,000 employees worldwide, just 39% of U.S. respondents say they expect workers to actually do much work. Read the full article here on The Juggle.

HR EVENTS
Webinar: Why Is HR Transformation the Need of the Hour?
Subject Matter Expert: Prachika Poonia
Venue: Your Computer
Date: Thursday 29 December, 2011
Time: 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM IST
To register click here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/249984854