Young professional guide (free eBook)

china gorman HRYP comment

I\’ve been working as the chair for the SHRM YP (Young Professional) committee since August of 2010. Chuck Salvetti at SHRM put together a great team of people to work on connecting young professionals to chapters and to the SHRM organization as a whole. At this point we are working on a short guide for chapters to use as a tool for attracting and engaging the young professionals in their area.

My mission

When I first started writing this blog, I wanted to help those people who were in my shoes. They were just getting started in the HR field. They knew that school didn\’t teach them enough to be successful. They were ready for an adventure. While my audience has shifted somewhat over time, I\’m always looking for ways to point back in that direction and offer something of value to someone in that situation. This guide is one of those ways for me to be true to my original vision for upstartHR.

My hopes for this guide

I hope it helps young pros to answer a few of the big, scary questions we all face. I hope it helps more experienced professionals to connect with the people who are looking to them for leadership. I hope it helps chapters see how they can serve young professionals by meeting their needs.

Geeky glee

I was overjoyed to see China Gorman, former COO of SHRM, endorse the guide the other day (see photo above). It really meant a lot to me and I can\’t wait to meet her at HRevolution.

Click here to download or print the free young professional guide.

4 things learned from cubicle life

funny cubicle humorCube-dwellers are made fun of on a daily basis in many forms of media. And while I love reading “Dilbert” cartoons, some of the situations hit pretty close to home. If you\’ve never experienced the glorious experience of cramming yourself into a tiny space filled with office supplies and a back-breaking chair, then you are totally missing out on the fun. (Okay, maybe I\’m lying.) Read on to see a few things that I have learned from living in a cubicle.

  • Sickness-It may completely defy the laws of physics, biology, and chemistry, but a sneeze from twenty feet away can instantly give three people the flu. I have no idea how it works, but it’s universal!
  • Laziness-To me, laziness is spending Saturday afternoon laying on the couch watching TV. I am such an amateur. There are people that I have “worked” with before who never actually did anything work related after walking through the doors.
  • Sucking up-I am pretty much always cordial with my supervisors. Keeping that open, candid relationship healthy is a great way to have work you enjoy. While I think I\’m plenty friendly there are others that would happily staple their own forehead to stay on their boss’ good side. I just want to say to them, “Come on people, it’s your boss, not your spouse.” :-)
  • Weirdness-I have photos and other things decorating my space, and it helps me to feel more relaxed at work. I once worked with a person with a little dog that bobbed his head all day long. No, it\’s not a bobble head doll. It has a little light sensor that helps the pooch to shake his head at you like he knows something you did wrong…

So, while you may think that it is boring wherever you happen to be, there are always things going on that can turn that around in a hurry. So, if anyone in your workplace is carrying a disease, brown nosing the boss, or freaking you the heck out with weird desk ornamentation, I’d love to hear about it! Drop a comment below with your own funny office story.

A special bonus

And now, a funny short clip from Office Space, one of the best movies to illustrate office life at its nitty gritty core. Email subscribers need to click through to see the video.

Collaboration, passion, innovation, and growth

Free ebook innovation collaborationAfter that title, I bet you’re wondering if I have a game of business buzzword bingo up my sleeves for the day. Well, sorry to mislead you, but there’s something even better on tap.

The 2011 version of the free Do Amazing Things eBook is here!

There are 21 great, short stories and ideas to get your year moving in the right direction. I already made a copy for my manager and put it on her desk.

A suggestion

Instead of trying to scarf it down in one sitting (which is easy to do!), hold off and read one of them per day. Then try to find a way to do something different that day to align with what you’ve read. Whether it’s simplifying the way you work, looking deeper into your motivations, or innovating your way through a new process, try to make real, actual change in the way you do what you do. I’ve personally seen amazing results from that and hope you do as well.

Click here to download Do Amazing Things in 2011 for free.

Thanks to Chris for putting this together. His efforts are definitely appreciated!

The 1% Solution For Work and Life (Book Review)

how to make your next 30 days your best everToday I get to review the book The 1% Solution for Work and Life by Tom Connellan. I have been doing a lot of reading on working smarter, being more productive, and developing solid work habits lately. With all the balls I juggle, it is often more than a little crazy. When my friend Rebecca reached out to me to see if I wanted to review this book, I couldn’t wait. The last book review I did for them was fantastic, and I hoped this one was on the same level. Lucky for me, it certainly was.

I am a fan of business books written with a narrative story embedded. It helps to put yourself into the situations the character is facing. You can sympathize with the troubles and celebrate with the triumphs. So before I was two pages into the book, it already had that going for it. :-)

The plot

The basic storyline is this: Ken’s life is barely hanging on by a thread in some places. He is sick and tired of just struggling to maintain that level of performance, and that prompts him to start a conversation with a friend who is doing quite well. The friend shares with him an interesting phenomenon illustrated by Olympic athletes. Apparently the best athletes in the entire world are approximately 1% better then those who are just really, really good. It’s not a 50% difference or even 10%. And if they can be the that good by being 1% better, why can’t we be 1% better at lots of little things in life? Continue reading →

DriveThruHR-remote training, certification value, and more

Whew! As you can tell by the title, we covered a lot of stuff today. Wait, you didn’t hear? I was the guest today on DriveThruHR with Bryan Wempen and William Tincup. We talked about the day job (manager training and selecting a performance management tool), HR certification and its value to employers and professionals, HRevolution, Project:Social, and more. I highly recommend it not because I talk a lot, but because there are some great tips in there for getting involved and making a difference in your own piece of the world.

Click here to listen to the episode

Frustrations can be blessings in disguise

Sometimes you are totally blown away by how things turn out. That’s what prompted the video below. I was totally frustrated with a situation that was going on in my life. However, when I looked back after some time, I realized that it was actually quite a blessing that things turned out like they did. After you watch the video, I’d love to hear some ways that might have happened in your own life!

Subscribers need to click through to view the video.

Xtreme HR Career Story Challenge

My friend Chris Ponder at XtremeHR is asking people to share their own career stories. I’ve talked about my HR career before, but I thought it would be fun to participate in his project as a showing of support for this great idea. The back story of the challenge. I was supposed to answer the questions he asked in several shorter videos, but after being snowed in this week and having all kinds of crazy stuff come my way, I just shot it in one long video (my longest ever). This is my career story thus far with more detail than you ever imagined. :-) At the very end I am on the verge of a coughing fit and you can barely understand me. Sorry ’bout that!

Email subscribers will have to click through to view the video.

This series was a lot of fun, and he will be doing something like this quarterly if you ever want to participate. Just in case you wanted to find them, here are the 3 sets of questions I answered.