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5 to 11 March, 2012

Leadership
A CEO Succession Horse Race Isn't Such a Bad Idea
Joseph L. McGill via Harvard Business Review
When Johnson and Johnson named vice chairman Alex Gorsky as its next CEO, the company concluded a very public succession race that began in 2010 between Gorsky and fellow vice chairman Sheri McCoy. It remains to be seen if Johnson and Johnson will be able to retain McCoy now that she has been passed over for the top job. However, one thing is certain: if she leaves, many governance experts will blame the loss on the company's "horse race" succession strategy. Read the full article here on Harvard Business Review.

Battle Fatigue and HR - Pressure from all Sides!
Ian Welsh via Toolbox for HR
Human Resources is tough. The better we are the easier we may make it look, but it is always precarious. It just needs a few major organization change things, a few crises, plus some particularly complex employee and union issues and we can be swamped. Human Resources is never staffed to deal with peak time demands and the better we become, the more we handle with less HR people.
Just dealing with sheer volume can sometimes seem like a battle and if you add some real conflict situations between HR and other factions, the problem can reach breaking point. There may be problems with Executive Management who try to manipulate and control us and with certain employees and the union who constantly aggravate and challenge us. In the best of times we are all working together towards the common good, but when our definition of “common good” is miles apart, the stress can bring some of us close to breaking point. Read the full article here on Tool Box for HR.

Who Are You When Things Go Wrong? | Tapping Into Gratitude
Dawn Lennon via Business Fitness
We don’t always get what we think we deserve. Situations can take a downturn in a blink. Promises made aren’t always kept. That’s just the way life is and has always been. There are times when we may expect things to go wrong. Usually that means we’re prepared for it physically and mentally. We still may not like it, but those situations go down easier than stunning surprises. We learn a lot about ourselves when our stress level is exceeded–and so does everyone around us. Read the full post here on Business Fitness.

Recruitment
Interviewing for Critical-thinking Ability
Greg Fall via ERE.net
One of my clients, an accomplished CFO involved with global M∓A responsibilities, wanted to make sure that his new finance hires could really use all the brainpower they had been blessed with, so he incorporated a critical thinking test as part of the interview process. He was pleased with the results, seeing an increase in the problem solving abilities of his new team members. However, when he decided to take the instrument himself, there was a different reaction... “I don’t understand why I only scored in the fiftieth percentile!” he thundered. Read the rest of this article on ERE.net here.

Attrition, a Key Worry for HR Managers
Special Correspondent via The Hindu
Hiring and employee retention have been identified as the “key challenges” in managing and measuring employee productivity, according to a survey conducted among more than 200 HR managers across industries. Releasing the Workforce Productivity India 2012 report on Friday, James Thomas, Country Manager – India Operations, Kronos Inc., said the survey revealed that HR managers in many Indian companies were “too caught up in firefighting” attrition that they were less able to focus on the more strategic objectives of their business operations. “While measuring productivity among the blue collar workforce is relatively easier, HR managers complain that measuring productivity of the mid-level managerial segment proves difficult,” Mr. Thomas said. Read the full article here on The Hindu.

Peyton Manning's Lessons In Career Strategy
Mark McNeilly via FastCompany
This week, in a much-talked about move, the Indianapolis Colts released their future Hall-of-Fame, four-time MVP quarterback Peyton Manning to go look for work with another NFL team. Moving quickly to avoid paying Manning a $28 million bonus due this week, the Colts owner Jim Irsay is now looking to the future and drafting a top college QB (most likely Andrew Luck from Stanford) to lead his team.
While one might think regular folks in the business world have little in common with NFL superstars, there are four things we can take away from Manning's situation. Read the full article here on FastCompany.

At the Work Place
Four Ways to Deal with Sudden Criticism at Workplace
Anand Altekar via ET Bureau
It isn't easy to deal with criticism but it hurts a lot more when it catches you off guard. What's important, though, is how you react, for it can have a serious impact on your career. ET explains how you can take criticism in your stride, and make it work for you. Read the full article here on The Economic Times.

The Bonus Rules
Tim Sackett via Fistful of Talent
If you’ve been in HR for at least 30 minutes you’ve heard someone in your organization bitch about a bonus. It comes part and parcel with the gig – from the beginning of time when the first caveman decided he needed some additional incentive for his cave drawers and developed the 5 drawings and you get an extra brontosaurus burger bonus, have we had to deal with bonus issues. “But wait, his drawings aren’t as detailed as mine, and he makes them faster just to get the extra burger, that’s not fair…” We. Know. The. Drill.
I’ve always believed we need some professional conduct or etiquette rules when it has come to workplace Bonuses. Not the bonuses that you are measured against, but the bonuses that are just given to you, for being an employee of the company, or for having more tenure than another employee, or for just showing up on an idle Wednesday and the owner/manager/supreme ruler thought it was a good idea, today, to give you a little something extra. I’m not talking about the year-end-scorecard-we-reached-our-financial-goals-even-though-you-probably-did-very-little-to-help bonuses. Bitch all you want about those. My guess is you probably had some say in the measures of those goals anyway, or didn’t, and they were probably artificially low so that “everyone” would get it – alas this is how we manage performance in corporate America today – and government, and schools, and little league – oh, hell – just give one to everyone! Read the full article here on Fistful of Talent.

Clever Game Turns Taking The Stairs Into A Hiking Competition With Co-Workers
Mark Wilson via FastCompany
No one wants to take the stairs. It’s true. Even that guy at your workplace who says he loves the stairs? He secretly loathes them. Stairs are why we invented elevators. Stairs are why we’re willing to suspend our lives from a cable in a tiny box full of strangers, 40 stories up. But in an era when we’re all stuck behind desks housed in tall buildings, stairs are this absurdly obvious solution to fitness at the workplace. If only, you know, everyone didn’t loathe taking the stairs. Read the full article here on FastCompany.

HR Trends
Cloud Computing to Create 2 Million Jobs in India by 2015, Says Study
via ET Bureau
Cloud computing will generate some 14 million new jobs worldwide by 2015, and India alone will create over 2 million, predicts a study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC). Pointing out to a strong linkage between cloud, innovation and entrepreneurship, the study said most companies look at migration to cloud computing as a way to free up existing resources and work on more innovative projects. Freeing up budget allows organisations to shift some of their legacy work to the cloud and invest such freed budget in IT innovation that supports business innovation and in turn create new jobs. Read the full article here on The Economic Times.

How Star Women and Star Men Fare Differently in the Workplace
Boris Groysberg via Harvard Business Review
With today's 101st anniversary of International Women's Day, it's a good time to reflect on how companies are doing with respect to their female employees.
The focus of IWD tends to be on headcount — what percentage of women are on boards or CEOs, for instance. The numbers of not encouraging when it comes to number of women in leadership positions in the United States. According to a recent study from Catalyst, women are no further along the corporate ladder than they were six years ago. Women still held just 16.1% of board seats in 2011, for instance, and women of color only 3%. Women held 14.1% of executive officer positions last year, and 7.5% of executive officer top-earner positions. Read the full article here on Havard Business Review.

Why We Self-Sabotage--Are You Doing It Too?
Christine Comaford via Forbes
George wants to double his company’s revenue this year. He’s been stating this goal for the past 3 years and still hasn’t achieved it. Why? Because it’s not ecologically safe for him to have this outcome. In my blog Why We Do What We Do I explained the subconscious tug o’war we all experience between our desires and our ecology. Our ecology formed our belief system, our frame of reference, our identity, our capabilities—and it also prevents us from getting what we want. Until we know how to change it. Read the full article here on Forbes.

HR EVENTS
Creating the Living Employer Brand
Subject Matter Expert: Yu Yu Din
Venue: Your Computer
Date: Friday 16 March, 2012
Time: 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM IST
To register go here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/973755790
In this webinar we will explore the potency of employer brands, how they are strategic HR assets, and how to manage them through the people who live and breathe it everyday. We will talk about monitoring the employer brand and how to create stories that tells great things about your employer brand online and off. Read more here.
Getting Headhunters Within: Turning your Employees into Recruiters
Subject Matter Expert: Ashish Tiwari
Venue: Your Computer
Date: Friday 23 March, 2012
Time: 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM IST
To register go here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/879087654
In this webinar we will be discussing that how the employees in an organization can be the best recruiters. We will also be looking at the best ways to motivate the employees to provide the best talent and what is the cost saving done by this kind of hiring. Learn more here.
Smartsizing as a Cost Effective Alternative to Layoffs
Subject Matter Expert: Sarabjeet Kaur
Venue: Your Computer
Date: Friday 30 March, 2012
Time: 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM IST
To register go here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/931255310
In this webinar we will be discussing that how we can use smartsizing to handle layoffs for cost optimization. We will be discussing the various practices of smartsizing. We will also be discussing that how smartsizing is replacing downsizing. Learn more about it here.