Social media has already changed the way people communicate and interact with each other and it’s changing the way business works – for the better. But still, a recent Challenger, Gray & Christmas study found that 20% of companies have banned social networking sites from employee computers! If your company is one of those 20%, you should seriously reconsider. Here’s why.

It’s called social NETWORKING for a reason

Network, network, network. It’s all you heard from your parents growing up, your professors in college, and every successful person you’ve talked to since. Companies inherently understand (I hope) that employees need to network both inside and outside the company because you never know where that next big sale, or new hire will come from. In a recent press release, Nick Ragone, Director of Ketchum’s Communications & Media Strategy Group says, “Banning these types of sites would be the equivalent of asking your boss, ‘Do you think I really need to make sales calls or network; can’t I just hang out in my office and wait for the phone to ring?’ ”

Of course not! Why then, would any company consider blocking a website that allows all of your employees to be in one giant virtual room with the best and brightest from inside and outside your industry? Sounds like a case of short-sighted management to me.

Social networks are the best place to

One of my favorite applications/sites Text2Go was holding a contest last month. I didn’t realize they were, but I won anyway. 

The rules were the person who used their new speech correction feature to correct the most words in the shared database won a prize.

You see, the new version of Text2Go has a cool new utility where you can correct the pronunciation of words for the TTS voices you use. It’s very fast and shares your corrections automatically.  This is very important if you want to understand the words that the speech engine is reading.

In my normal day-to-day use of the software, I compiled and corrected my own list of words all the time - I simply wanted better pronunciation from the voices.  Text2Go also allows you to upload your corrections to their server - it will also sync other people’s corrections to your library… which is an awesome enhancement.  Low and behold, I had more corrections than anyone.

So what did I win?

the prize was a pair of nice Sennheiser CX300 headphones that I can used with my iPod to listen to spoken word but  the music on my iPod. Here’s a picture FYI:

This sort of mythology bugs me because it minimizes the impact and the responsibility of good role players. The laser focus on leadership as the end all in business kills me. Even if you are a great leader, you have to be a great role player to be successful because you will have to be deferential at some point in your career.

What really sparked this frame of mind was Jason Alba’s post about entrepreneurship. I thought it was thoughtful and it made me take a step back. Jason is a textbook case of how an entrepreneur is born. Thrown into crappy circumstances (he was fired) and not having success doing the traditional job hunt, his despondence turned into business opportunity and he made a conscious effort to risk money, health and career on the opportunity in front of him.

So for Jason to say that people who stay at their miserable job for the (false) financial security, cheap health care and the advantages of following a traditional career path are as much of an entrepreneur as him? Yeah, that got my

Boomers - don't get cute with the resume details - keep it real...

Last week, I overheard someone recommending that a candidate take dates off resumes.  I'm weighing in, because removing dates from your resume is a forced, unnatural, red flag thing to do...

As a HR pro and someone who looks at thousands of candidates a year, I'm not a fan of removing dates  from resumes. One of the things I rely on to make sense of a career, and how it fits our needs, is how many years you performed role A, B or C.  Take the dates off the resume, and it's hard for me to figure that out. If you're really concerned about the age thing, feel free to remove dates from your diploma or degree, because once you've been in the world of work for five years, those things become less important than your experience. 

Let's say you've got 30 years of experience and have worked for six different companies in your career. You should assume HR pros and hiring managers want you to spend 80 percent of your space talking about the last five years of your career. A good way to focus on your recent experience, and deemphasize what you did in the

Jessica Lee recently riffed about pay-for performance efforts in the Washington DC schools, outlining  how the buzz of change has become louder and louder in the past year under the leadership of the new chancellor, Michelle Rhee.

If you didn't read the article by JLee, check it out here.  It's a hopeful account of how hard talent leadership in the public school systems may bring about real change. 

Unfortunately, school systems in America have a mix of elements that make them almost impossible to turnaround - 1) a lack of experience with pay-for-performance or even true merit pay, 2) a base of workers (teachers) who aren't exactly risk takers, and 3) unions.

Not a match made in heaven.  For

The Americans have no such shyness, and it looks as if their love for free and open speech is heading to these shores. US website glassdoor.com allows users to read about other people's salaries - although they have to post their own, too. In its first two months glassdoor has published more than 50,000 company reviews and salary reports from 80 countries. Among these are reviews of over 1000 British-based companies.

Glassdoor insists that it's all about 'constructive criticism', but this hasn't stopped them posting comments from a London Underground engineer who claims that the company is a 'good place to hide if you want an easy life'. Inevitably, chief executives come in for heavy criticism, and the usual negative comments about their salaries - perhaps with some justification.

The site's co-founder and chief executive Robert Hohman maintains that 'People don't talk enough about how they can be more valuable. This should help them. Knowledge is power.' But is that really true? Surely seeing other people's salaries will just lead to discontent and a fall in morale. And I am always suspicious of websites like this - there's a certain type of employee who posts in these places, so the comments will never be genuinely representative. If they have time to write these reviews, and presumably read other people's, are they really earning

Work satisfaction rests on a foundation that joins together the best of who you are with the best of what you can accomplish. Outstanding accountants, teachers, lawyers, welders, and musicians somewhere made a choice that turned into a "best fit" career.

You want to do the same thing. That's why it's important to know the elements that go into a meaningful career.

This is where it's easy to get confused. There are three elements that come together to create an effective career decision. There are coaches, counselors, and helpers who, because of training, education, and personal preference, may lean toward over-emphasizing just one. Each is valid but is only 1/3 of the total picture:

Values: That which you hold dear and represent personal priorities in your life.

Interests: Subject matter that holds your attention and keeps you engaged.

Talents: Those innate gifts and learned skills that allow to perform at peak levels under the right circumstances.

Here is a graphic that I developed for corporate clients who are transitioning inside--or outside--of their organization. I use the same graphic for individual clients. It offers a mental model to think about these three areas in ways that lead to the intersection of "uniquely you."

Take the time to develop an internal editorial calendar. That's one of the first things we help our services clients do is create a marketing PR road map. But writing monthly press releases is only one part of a larger content strategy that helps you increase your visibility, traffic and leads.

One blog post in months, one podcast, one Webcast, one white paper, one case study – all of these activities are important – but isolated in a promotional

Identify - Before you can solve a problem, you need to understand what the problem is. Identify the problem, and give it a name. Look at it from all angles. Make sure you understand the problem, what you believe about the problem, and what you’ve done in the past to try to solve the problem before.

Challenge - Now that you understand the problem, challenge any beliefs you might have about overcoming it. Is it really as big a problem as you thought, or did you just make a mountain out of a molehill? Challenge yourself to step up and tackle this challenge.

Eradicate - Now it’s time to get rid of the problem. If it’s a lack of knowledge, study up. If it’s a problem attitude on your team, help your associate see how it’s impacting the team and ask her how she can improve it. If it’s a personal problem, take whatever steps you need to, one at a time, and eradicate the problem.

An easy way to remember this method: Solve your problems by putting them on ICE.

Do you have any good problem solving methods you’d like to share?

Flickr photo by

Here's a good item to react to - Do you believe it would be good practice for managers to provide a "users manual" of sorts to their direct reports to provide a roadmap of their philosophy, likes/dislikes and pet peeves? 

That's the question from a special feature in BusinessWeek, where Ben Dattner believes a "User's Manual to Your Manager" can cut out office dysfunction.  Dattner feels by letting your staff know how you operate, you can teach them how to deal with you and avoid conflict.

Here are my thoughts:

-Pros of manager's user guide- Gives your staff fair warning to your hot buttons, including how to impress you, what ticks you off, what your standard operating procedures are, etc.  Helpful in that regard..

-Cons of a manager's user's guide - The inclusion of what you don't enjoy (see the section on Feedback below) or dislike as a boss can be used as a crutch.  If the user manual

I talk about being a mom sometimes (like transitional labor even), so if that bugs you, cover your ears. See, the thing is, I talk about moms because I am one and guess what? So is like over percent of the workforce. And people are talking about it. But not in the ways you might think.

I'm talking about those companies that boast that they're the best for moms and families. We've all seen  the brightly colored banners with a very perky new mom, holding alert and happy baby up for the world to see.

"People who've been fired or laid off, or are really flat about their current situation, are coming from a "world of work" mindset. They're still immersed in the sensations and day-to-day reality of their last/current job when they find their way to a coach. By using talents as the primary access, it really honors what's present and right in front of them."

   --Lisa Gates, Career Coach/Leadership Muse

Lisa is so right that it prompted a little continuation of What Should I Be Doing With My Life?

The Myth of the Cumulative Career

Whether you are someone making a transition--or a coach/HR person/friend who is trying to be helpful--realize that the natural tendency when making a career change is to build on where you've been.

It's natural because the most comfortable and socially acceptable way for us to live is in a linear fashion. We're taught to think and build upon what came before; that's the way you "get ahead."

This may, in fact, serve you well if you started out with the right career fit. But  you are making a change! It's a signal to start thinking about yourself, your life, and your career

Think about it...

"Say what you need to say...

Have no fear...you better know in the end that it is better to say too much to never say what you need to say.

Hands are shaking and faith broken, do it with your hear wide open, and say what you need to say."

1. A job change initiated by an employer.This is usually a reorganization or layoff that causes people to evaluate what else might be a good fit within the existing company or what to focus on in the midst of a sudden job search.

2. A personal crisis: “What I’m doing at work isn’t satisfying. There must be more to my life than this!”

Both situations offer an opportunity to find more happiness, satisfaction, and contentment.

If you look around, you’ll find different approaches to career development. Some focus on one’s interests, others talk about skills; you’ll see tools that ask you to clarify your values (what’s really important to you); and finally there is, at last, a valid movement that addresses talents and giftedness.

Much of the work I do is with corporations and individuals involved in 1 and/or 2 above. Both involve having control over meaningful changes in one’s life.

Fortunately there are companies out there that offer support in the event of the first situation. (Unfortunately, there are many that do not, with the result being a lot of wasted talent that could have been used in ways never imagined).

What I think I’ve

Quoting the article:

“When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss’s phone number listed — she assumed she was about to be fired.

So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years’ worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.”

As a manager, what’s the lesson here? I think there are a few we can learn:

• Communicate with your employees, especially ones who hold the keys to your company’s success - If Ms. Cooley deleted all these files after just seeing a job posting, how often has her manager communicated with her that she’s doing a good job, and she has nothing to worry about? More than likely her manager ASSUMES she knows she’s doing a great job, and we all know what happens to those who ass-u-me things, don’t we?

• Know if your employees are looking for work outside of your firm - This one’s a little tougher, but if you know your employees aren’t happy, what are you doing about it? Do you even care, or are they meaningless cogs in your wheel?

• Don’t hire unstable

After a hard week of talking about the benefits of being a communist in the Olympics, beer and HR and future ways to prevent mistakes in the workplace, I'm staying frosty today by imagining how Darth Vader would break down the dress code for new hires in an orientation.

Stay frosty this weekend.  Hat tip to Jason Pankow at Fistful of Talent...

I just read the updated user agreement published by LinkedIn on July 31st.  Alright, I'm first to admit I'm behind in my reading, but vacation was worth it!  I am fairly surprised at this point that it's not the buzz of the recruiting airspace, particularly in light of the fact that when they launched the new groups limitation, that was buzzed about - everywhere. 

There are a lot of "Don'ts" in this new LinkedIn missive that could hit the recruiting industry hard.  I'd  love to provide you a link directly to the agreement, but you're going to have to locate it on your own - that's kind of a "don't" under the new rules - I can really only provide links to my profile to blatantly self-promote, but not link anywhere else within the LinkedIn site except the main page, if I read the "don'ts" correctly.  But if you really want to get an idea of what I'm talking about,

The Talent Management Blog Power Rankings honored All Things Workplace with a #3 in the top Talent/Recruiting/HR/Human Capital Blogs.

This is  genuinely humbling for a number of reasons:

1. Every one of the blogs is on my daily reading list and represents a unique point of view.

2. The panel who voted excluded their own blogs, each of which is a personal powerhouse.

3. It was a total surprise. I didn't know they were up to this.

4. I was in the midst of working on a Talent Management design for a client company when the news showed up in an email.

If you don't yet subscribe to FOT, one click will get you access to folks who are active in their respective disciplines and offer up worthwhile information every day. Kris Dunn spent a huge amount of time getting FOT off the ground and it was a winner coming out of the gate.

Speaking of

The first thing that came to mind was an experience I had about 2 years ago where I first set-up a new Dell Computer, which took me about 4 hours and entailed plugging in seemingly endless number of wires and opening about 10 boxes. Then I set-up a new Mac, which involved opening one box and took about 10 minutes. I also thought of McDonald's which, although not exactly the most politically correct organization, has done a simply brilliant job of scaling-up its brand and stores (with brilliant local customization). Finally, I couldn't help but think of the simply awful experience that I had with ATT setting-up Internet and phone service recently -- I was sufficiently disgusted with them (I spent a total of 4 hours on the phone and was given constant misinformation and they made an astounding number of errors) that I canceled everything and switched to Comcast. ATT, at least from what I experienced, is the master of making simple things complicated.

I'd love to hear other examples of organizations that "make difficult things simple."  I think it is wonderful standard for judging an organization -- or a leader or teacher.

I’m not going to attempt to reproduce his stories because I don’t think I could do them justice. That’s not the point anyway. The point is: great stories connect us to one another. We can relate to stories, they are emotive, they live and reproducing them (well) allows others to experience a part of our lives. That’s compelling.

The relation to blogging is obvious. If you are a great story teller, you can rely on your content to be the foundation of your site. Not to say that marketing won’t help you increase your audience substantially. If your content is great, you have one less worry though. It is also important that when you do tell a story, you are passionate about it. Some people think HR is boring. I couldn’t believe it either. When you write about something you are passionate about, it helps bring your voice to the forefront and helps you connect with your readers.

I am not going to lecture on what is best for blogging. Even I have short-comings in this area so I wouldn’t be very authoritative. This post is supposed to be about work after all.

Places that are great to work at generally have a great story behind it. Sometimes, this is an exercise in employer branding. You’ll see that at some places and it will be completely transparent and

This week there’s a small change in the infrastructure that I wanted to tell you about.

Since the start of this site back in the halcyon days of 07, there have been two parallel blogs that were linked into it. Those who went to the Crazy Bosses site and the Bulls**t Jobs site at the top of the page got a chance to do a lot of stuff - take quizzes, look at galleries of crazy people who have run big enterprises, bask in examples of jobs even more weird, bent and twisted than their own, that sort of thing.

Those links will continue. They live on. I exhort you to try them, if you haven’t already. You will think you died and went to heaven. Sure, they’ve been there for a little while, but as an old ad campaign for a television network once said about their reruns, If you’ve never seen it, it’s new to you.

The meat of those blogs, however, were not the incredibly entertaining and instructive things I whipped up for your amusement and professional delectation. Of even greater interest was the input that came in from you, dear reader.

On the Crazy Boss blog, there was a satisfying and ever-growing assemblage of horrendous senior officers offered by those who suffered under them.

On the Bulls**t Jobs blog, you lobbed in a very interesting group of them, some of which I had, quite honestly, never heard of before.

In virtually all cases, some more than others, reader contributions elicited reader comments, and those were there too.

As of today, both of these entries are now incorporated into this main site. Click on the links to your right - where Reader Crazy Bosses and Reader Bulls**t Jobs are Boldfaced and in Bigger Type–and you will find nicely

According to Goodson, who compared 11,500 female workers to 16,700 male workers across 34 countries, men had no qualms about self-promotion, and were even prepared to lie to get on at work. Women, however, still believe that being pushy is socially unacceptable, and remain convinced that hard work alone will put them on salary and status par with male colleagues.

Goodson found that women in the UK, the US and, perhaps unexpectedly, China were the most likely to speak up for themselves, while those in New Zealand and Sweden were the most reticent.

'Women did not create the glass ceiling, but they help maintain it', claims Goodson, adding that 'Good work is important, but good work alone does not speak for itself - you have to give it a voice'.

Alarmingly, Goodson's research also found that women who work their way up to senior roles tend to sabotage the chances of female workers below them - women executives are failing to support more junior female staff. The result of this, says Goodson, is that 'Many women in the study actually prefer male managers to female managers, claiming that men are more consistent and fair-minded than women'.

But is this true? Surely larger companies today have systems in place so that women feel comfortable and confident in speaking up for themselves? And shouldn't good work speak for itself - what about the employee, whether male or female,

What's the best way to grow talent?  Invest heavily in training?  Go out and acquire the best when you need it?  Cool succession planning software?

Not corporate talent - Olympic Talent....

With the Chinese doing well in the Olympics and our memory of the USSR and East German machines still fresh, many are pointing to the presence of a nationalized sports program as a key to establishing Olympic superiority.  Bela Karolyi came out at the Olympics and pointed to missing teeth among the Chinese gymnasts as proof of a "win at all costs" attitude, as well as the potential superiority of a nationalized sports system, where kids get plucked at a young age and turned into specialists.

As it turns out, medal count almost always comes down to population and GDP, although GDP could be partially replaced by a hat tip to Lenin or Marx.  From the Financial Times in the UK:

Lots of good conversations yesterday related to the FOT Talent Management Blog Power Rankings, with some of the best conversations occurring off-line among FOT members.

Here's one of the topics - why is Jim Stroud at the top of the rankings?  If you look at the vote totals, it's pretty clear that he netted votes from almost everyone voting, which is a rare occurrence across FOT Nation.  We get along pretty well at FOT, but let's just say we have OPINIONS, which means at times we agree to disagree.

But back to Jim Stroud and the Recruiter's Lounge.  Why them?  I'll tell you what I get as a reader, then I'll ask any of the FOT cast to pitch in within the comments, and if you have thoughts - do the same.

For me, it comes down to three factors:

-Voice - Let's face it, Jim writes in a voice that makes you trust him.  He's easy like Sunday morning.  Lot's to learn from this type of voice approach...

-Dives - Jim likes to dig into deep dives in certain subject matters, like sourcing and the intersection of sourcing and technology.  Wish I had more time to learn and use what he lays down, but even if I don't use it, or even read it, on a given day it's nice to know it's there.

-Spanning the Globe - Like Jim McCay, this Jim is spanning the globe to bring the variety to your table.  It's rare that I don't stop and look at "The Week in Recruiting", which usually includes around 15 links.  I usually drag

For the all the hand-wringing about HR wanting to be strategic, the following snippet from Knowledge Infusion's Neil Jensen happens way too much:

"Please print, complete, sign and fax...  Heard these same words three times this week and all in very different settings. The words were clear as day and were inserted into the conversation like it wasn't a big deal. In all three cases, the person saying them simply put it out there like it didn't mean anything. They said, "To make a data change in the HRIS system, you need to find the job action form on the HR intranet, print it, complete all the required information, sign it, and fax it to HR."

In each case, this statement was followed by a lengthy description of all the things that were wrong with the HR data including incorrect or stale reporting relationships, incorrect organization structures, outdated personal demographic information, etc. When we got to the topic of reporting, the tale of woe continued with stories that described the inability to report even basic data and extreme efforts to piece together even basic metrics and analytics."

It's a digital world or at least strongly moving that way in most

A-Rod and his cheating heart... wow.  The news of his divorce was juicy enough, but to further learn it was because he had "an affair of the heart with Madonna?  What a story! I have to agree with the ex-Mrs. A-Rod though - affairs of the heart are just as bad, if not worse, than a physical affair.

Flip to affairs of the heart in the workplace - are any of your employees cheating on you?  Maybe  something sexy hasn't lured them away.. yet... but isn't a lack of engagement exactly the same thing as an affair of the heart? Because when disengaged, where are your employees investing their heart and energy?  Certainly not in you, although they continue to show up to work every day (as you continue to pay them without fail...).

A-Rod's situation reminds me to go back to basics and look at disengagement, or affairs of the heart.  There are tell-tale signs you're being cheated on, and here are my top three:

The laborers, however, stated that the Deputies told them that they could not stand in the area at all. This being California, there was a subsequent protest regarding the sidewalk ordinance and 2 people were arrested. Day Worker Groups, with the assistance with the ACLU sued the city and the Sheriff’s Department in an effort to strike down the city ordinance. It now seems a settlement is in the works.

From the Orange County Register:

Day laborers reached a tentative settlement in a federal lawsuit against the Orange County Sheriff’s Department over soliciting work on public property.

The deal was reached before a trial that was to have begun Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.

S. Frank Harrell, an attorney for the sheriff’s deputies, was unavailable for comment.

According to attorney Jeffrey Dunn, who represents Lake Forest, the city had settled some time ago and the sheriff’s department was the only party left in the suit.

Gordon Smith, communications director for American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said settlement talks were under way and an announcement dealing with the settlement will be made next week.

Definitely a very interesting case, particularly since one rarely thinks of day labor when