Author Archives: Ben

Ranty Rant: Life of a Flunkie

my job sucks

Today I have a ranty post inspired by an email from an anonymous reader. Let’s call him Ranty to preserve his current position (sad as it may be).

Update: Krista Francis of Optimistic Workplace has written a helpful set of posts for Ranty. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. Be sure to check them out!

The Life of a Flunkie

My job is horrible. I took a job with the expectation that I would move up to more responsibility within a few months. My supervisor originally made it clear that he wants to make sure my talents and skills are utilized to build up the company and our department. It’s been almost a year now, and I still come in every day and do the same sucky stuff as always.

Most of my time is spent sorting, organizing, and filing papers. Yes, I know it needs to be done, but I have a degree. I have ideas and the enthusiasm to pursue them. Well, I had the enthusiasm to pursue them. When I started this job, I worked on little improvements left and right. I spent time outside work thinking of ways to help my office and my organization to get better. Continue reading →

SHRM Chapter Planning and Marketing

shrm chapter planning and marketing

This post on SHRM chapter planning and marketing is a piece of the SHRM Chapter Leadership Guide.

Today I had the opportunity to meet with the NASHRM Webmaster (anyone else think “webmaster” is the coolest title ever?) to go over some ideas for the upcoming year. In just a few short weeks, we’ll be starting 2010, and I will officially become the “Assistant Webmaster” for NASHRM. We both have some great ideas for making this chapter the best. How many other SHRM chapters are thinking about…

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Rebuilding the site with the user in mind
  • Blogging
  • Email newsletters

Continue reading →

Social Media as a Competitive Advantage

Fads. We have all fallen for one at some time or another. That is why many businesses and people are wary of tools like social media.

What if we put a lot of time and money into this idea and it turns out to be a fad?

I have a question for you: what if you looked at social media not as a fad, but as a competitive advantage?

Many people (I freely admit my own participation) have made it their mission to evangelize and convert people and organizations to social media use. I have an interesting suggestion. Continue reading →

10 Ways Refereeing is Like HR

I can say from experience. That's going to hurt!

In my relatively few free hours, I have a side job as a wrestling referee. I’ve been doing it since I started college, and it has been an interesting experience for me. Among other things, it has prepared me for the life of an HR professional. Don’t believe me? Here are 10 ways refereeing is like HR. Continue reading →

HR Interns-Poll

I’ve been pondering a post on interns by Matt Cholerton from Everyone Hates HR, and I have some questions. I am very curious about the use of HR interns. I’m relatively young in my HR career, and I often think back and wish I had some sort of experience as an HR intern. I’d like to delve into the topic of HR interns and HR internships, but I’d like to know a bit more about your experience.

In my (totally unqualified) opinion, I think that established pros should be actively seeking relationships with HR students and entry level HR professionals in order to provide job opportunities through internships. This might be absolutely crazy, but I can still remember my job search. It was Continue reading →

Students, Federal HR, and Strategic Planning

shrm student chapterA few weeks back, I dropped by another NASHRM student chapter meeting. I was blown away by the amazing speaker. Tim Grey from AMCOM stopped by to give a short lecture on federal HR and its differences from the private sector. I must say that I was amazed. I probably looked like I was ignoring him, because I had my phone out typing on it most of the time. I was making notes as fast as I possibly could. It’s interesting, because that snuck up on me. I was sitting there listening and suddenly realized that he was passing out some golden truths that I shouldn’t be missing! Enough warm fuzzies, here are a few sound bytes from the session:

  • Policies are easy for private sector. Hate it? Change it!
  • Public sector is built on laws and any change is going to take a lot of work.
  • All federal employees have to take the oath of office. I had no idea.
  • We can hire someone off the street tomorrow if we need them to fill a position. The federal sector can’t.
  • “Right to work” doesn’t apply to federal employees.
  • In a weird twist, sometimes Tim gets calls from attorneys for legal advice pertaining to federal employment laws. (Can he bill them at $150 an hour?) :-D

Strategic planning? You better believe it. Make it happen or you’ll always be a clerk.

  • One of HR’s many roles: help managers know the rules so they can be effective (and legal).
  • If you want to have an impact on the future of your organization, you must know the mission and vision first.
  • The aging workforce is a big problem for the federal sector. 25% of employees could retire today, and 40% could by 2012.
  • If managers don’t know statistics like the one above, they could cripple the company by making choices that disregard the upcoming disaster.
  • Effective HR strategies can help to solve problems like the aging workforce.
  • Years ago, HR strategy looked up to 18 months into the future. Today that could be up to 10 years, depending on the size of your organization.
  • I know you may be technology-averse, but you have to see and understand technology changes, because you have to train employees to be ready to meet those challenges head on.
  • You need to be forecasting and planning ahead. Use the data you have. Even a 25 person company with 2-3 years of history can do something useful with the data.

HR is usually an afterthought. It’s actually one of the most important parts of the business. Demonstrate your value.

As you can plainly see, there was some good stuff going on at that lecture. I am thrilled that I had the opportunity to be a part of it. There was also a great little story that Tim shared about a recruiting problem they were having at one location. I hope to be able to expand on it in a future post.

If you’re on Twitter, I usually use the #NASHRM tag when I’m tweeting from one of these SHRM student chapter events. Feel free to follow along.

SHRM Chapter Leadership Guide

5 Christmas Gift Ideas for HR Professionals

Christmas is on the horizon, and I hope you have already started your shopping! If not, don’t lose hope. I have just the thing for you to get for that semi-geeky human resources person in your life. In the last two years, we have transitioned to doing 90+ percent of our shopping online, and it’s SO much easier. Below in all their glory and splendor, you will find five Christmas gift ideas for HR professionals.

Ranging from notebooks to make the HR pro in your life smile to tech ideas and even into personal care, there’s something on this Christmas gift list for every HR leader!

Continue reading →