upstartHR

Category: General

  • Essential HR Skills: Organization, Focus, and Negotiation

    Recently I ran across an old article on “essential” HR skills. It was an interesting read, and I wanted to break it down and show how it’s true (and, in some ways, maybe not so much). Today we’ll tackle the first half of them. Here’s the original list: Organization Multitasking Dealing with Gray Negotiation Communication…

  • Free Stuff

    It’s the giving season around these parts, and I wanted to take a minute to remind everyone of some of the great (free) resources that have been published here over the years. Building your HR department-some of the key tips and tricks for getting the HR function up and running, how to gain credibility, and…

  • The Biggest Killer of Teams Is…

    I have been studying the performance of several teams both within and outside our organization, and over time I have seen one key predictor of success or failure for team performance: community. When community is lacking, or in more common terms, when the team members don’t have care and concern for each other, failure will…

  • Social Media Recruiting (Guest Post)

    One of the highlights of my early career days was a year spent in a group called NMU–NASHRM Mentor University. I learned much, developed some amazing friendships that I still appreciate to this day, and got to participate in a pilot program to improve the career prospects of local HR professionals. This year the group…

  • Split Testing Internal Communications

    Split testing is a marketing tool that companies use to evaluate the impact of their marketing messages. They will take a key message and test variations of it against two (or more) groups, then compare the results to see what worked best. It helps over time to define the best and most effective communication method…

  • Anonymous Review-Are You Worried?

    Recently one of our departments initiated an anonymous review to determine how the staff perceived its performance. There were questions on processes and people, and it generally revolved around the employees’ satisfaction with the performance of the department. It made me wonder a few things: Would HR be bold enough to initiate an anonymous review?…

  • Work Ethic and a Great Quote

    Yesterday I was speaking with a good friend about the work ethic of a mutual acquaintance. He said the person was usually good to pull an all-nighter when necessary to get the job done, but at the same time wasn’t really committed on a daily basis to the required work. Then he said a great…