Author Archives: Ben

Swoop and poop management

pooping on peopleSwoop and poop. We’ve all seen it before. The manager is perpetually disengaged. They are doing their own thing and staying out of the way. Then, without warning, they jump into a situation and use their power to force a decision. Or maybe they drop a lot of criticism on team members and second guess their every action. And, just as quickly as they arrived, they take off again without a moment’s notice, leaving the rest of us to deal with the aftermath.

Sound familiar?

It’s one of the common types of bad management that makes us all cringe. So why is it still around? The instances where I’ve seen it are where teams are scared to stand up to someone or when the person’s in a senior position that is above reproach. Let’s kill this thing once and for all, please?

Ever been in your own personal swoop and poop situation? Let’s hear some details on how things went and how they worked out (or didn’t!) in the end.

How to write a corporate blog

Corporate bloggingBlogs. They are everywhere, and their numbers are growing by the hour. Lots of companies are being encouraged to blog as a way to market themselves and reach candidates, but it’s a sad fact that most corporate blogs are terrible (84%, in fact). They are filled with press releases and other one-way communications that are not helpful in building a community or encouraging conversation. Let’s remedy that.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long, long time now. While I haven’t had the opportunity (yet) to write a corporate blog, I have been writing this blog for over a year and a half. In the past 15 months, I’ve also been writing my SHRM chapter’s blog as well. I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve learned a lot and made enough mistakes to see what works and what doesn’t.

It’s all about authenticity and value

If it reads like a press release, people won’t be interested. Press releases have their own place, but it’s not in a blog. Content from a press release can be used in a blogging context, but it needs to be as a sidebar or commentary item, not the main fare.

So, if you’re not just spouting PR stuff from the blog, what do you talk about? Two of my favorite corporate blogs are by MailChimp and EventBrite. I’m not a full time email manager or event planner, but I still subscribe to both of these blogs and read them religiously. Why? They provide a great mix of customer-focused  “how to” posts, comments on their industry in general, and information about new features (plus how they impact you as a customer). Much of what they post is written to educate readers and encourage conversation.

The main thing: It’s great content that helps every reader, whether they are customers or not.

The root problem

Just like with this huge social media blocking craze we’re seeing these days, companies are hesitant to put their trust in their people. You know, those same people who can go to their homes, the local bar, or a child’s sporting event and talk about the company’s horrible, evil ways in public. But you’re going to block them at work. Doesn’t make sense!

Empower your people to have a real voice and let them make things happen. The more you water down the opinions and strip away the humanity in your corporate blog, the worse off it will be.

Like I said, they can already wreck your company publicly at any time they choose. Giving them a social media platform to share from doesn’t change that fact.

The mechanics

Blogging has a lot of pieces to it, but it’s possible to focus on just a few areas to make sure you are hitting the high points.

  • Writing the right types of posts to get links/comments
  • Interlinking and other SEO tips to get more views
  • Creating an editorial calendar
  • Building sneeze and squeeze pages
  • And plenty more!

One of the best tools I’ve found to help you learn to cover each of those pieces and integrate them into a powerful blog is the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook. If you really want to get your corporate blog going and make it shine, then I highly encourage you to check out the book. I just found out that if you use “november25” as your discount code at checkout, you’ll get 25% off the price, but it’s only good through the end of November. Click here to learn more.

Growing awareness and engagement

In his book Culture Convo, Chris Ferdinandi makes this great point about how to grow awareness and engagement among your audience:

Whether you\’re looking to increase the number of people who read your blog, follow you on Twitter, or are your fans on Facebook, the strategy is always the same.
Have conversations worth listening to.
Being an interesting conversationalist – creating fun posts, photos and videos, sharing interesting news and useful insights – is the only way to have long-term success using social media. It\’s really that simple.
That doesn\’t mean that it\’s always easy. Figuring out what your target audience is interested in can take some time. But there\’s no magic formula to growing your awareness and engagement.
If you\’re a good conversationalist, then your circle of conversation will grow slowly and organically (and exponentially!) over time.

Final thoughts

If your corporate blog sucks (and it looks like about 84% of them do), it doesn’t have to be terminal. Most of the time the situation is not irreparable. Connect with people. Help them. Interact. Learn. And stop shoving press releases down our throats. It’s not working.

Anyone else have a good corporate blog they’d like to plug? Drop it in the comments below.

Policies, startups, and small HR departments

Pants policyTwo great comments stood out to me when I attended the session on running a small HR department recently, but they prompted a related question I need a little help with.

Don’t create a policy just for the sake of having one.

Fantastic. We have too many policies as it is. Totally agree.

Don’t create policies to deal with outliers.

Another good one. Use coaching and one-on-one feedback to handle issues with onesies and twosies; don’t punish the bunch because of one bad apple.

So… When do you?

The question I have is when do you create a policy? When does it go beyond personal one-on-one coaching and become “official?” One of my friends has a saying, “Don’t make me create a policy for that.” :-) While it’s said in jest, there has to be a time where a policy is necessary (right?).

So… When?

Let’s hear some thoughts and suggestions!

PHR Study Materials (cheap and free)

show me the moneyBecause of my involvement in the HR certification scene, I get asked often about PHR study materials. More often than not I recommend one of our courses along with another book or inexpensive study material, but the message below prompted a thought.

Hi! I am signed up for the PHR and looking for study materials. Since I’m in transition, my budget is super tight so I’d love to get something for less than retail prices. Thank you! Amy in Orlando

If I had to start all over again and study with the limited budget I have, what would I use to prepare?

Studying on the cheap

First of all, I’d look through the various resources for the PHR and SPHR exams I’ve gathered over the past 24 months. There are some great tools in there that are totally free and would be a good place to find some help. But you’ll only get so far with free stuff. In truth, I’d probably just use the same resources to study as I did for the PHR exam last year.

  1. Two pack of HRCI practice exams $70
  2. Anne Bogardus PHR/SPHR book ~$40
  3. Any other practice exams available

The bare essentials

I know there are a lot of people in transition right now and some of them are looking at certification as a way to help increase their marketability as a candidate. The bare essentials: Anne Bogardus book and the PHR/SPHR Self Study Course. You’ll get enough content in those two resources to successfully pass the exam.

How to get your employer to pay for it

If you are working and don’t want to pay out of pocket, here are some ideas on how to make that happen. I recently shot this video for the subscribers to the free SPHR/PHR email newsletter. It might give you some thoughts on how to reduce your cost and maybe even get your employer to pick up the tab!

Email subscribers may need to click through to view the video.

Trust, Clear Communication, and Project Management

This week’s been wild and crazy, but I wanted to share some fun (and thought-provoking) pictures I’ve seen in the past few days. Anyone else seen anything particularly neat/interesting this week?

Ain’t that the truth? Found here

Silly, but a good reminder of how important it is to communicate well! Found here

Where’s the HR part of this one? What would it look like? Found here

The proper care and feeding of employees

Managing employees is tough, but there are some fundamental principles that weave through the manager/employee relationship we can all benefit from remembering. Check out the short video below (transcript below that if you prefer reading) to learn more.

(Email subscribers may have to click through to view the video.)

Proper care and feeding of employees

  • People come to work for the money, and leave because of their manager (the research backs that often tossed-around phrase) .
  • All of the data comes from research done by the Corporate Leadership Council. They\’ve found that providing fair/accurate informal feedback has a 39% impact on performance. (The problem? We don\’t know how to give feedback for the most part!)
  • Never really thought of it this way, but the manager acts as a conduit whose primary role is to connect employee with company. They can directly shape the employee\’s perception of the organization, their team, and their job. (I\’ve really noticed this a lot when I didn\’t get the right tools and attention from my manager.)

Anything else you’d like to share that goes along with managing better?

HR Roundtable Discussions

My friend Steve Browne is known as the facilitator for the HR Round Table Discussions up in Ohio. The neat part about his efforts? He shares the notes with anyone and everyone so we can all benefit from the work of the group! Cincinnati News actually wrote a piece on Steve’s role in the Roundtable a while back. It’s an interesting read.

(He made me promise to remind you that it’s the group that does the heavy lifting and he just adds his own thoughts, but we all know he’s doing a great service to the HR community with this stuff.) :-)

This morning, he let me know that it was okay to share the notes with everyone, so if you’d like to see the archives of the discussions from the past few years, click the link below to check them out. A few topics they’ve covered over the years:

Click here to see the HR Roundtable notes (and get your learning on!)

Follow Steve on Twitter if you don’t already! @sbrownehr