upstartHR

Making HR better. One HR pro at a time.

  • Essential HR Skills: Communication, Conflict, and Change

    Last week I published part 1 of this series of essential HR skills focusing on Organization, Dealing with “Gray,” and Negotiation. Here’s the followup. The remainder of the items in our list include the following traits: Communication Discrete and Ethical Dual Focus Conflict Management and Problem Solving Change Management Communication Every job requires some proficiency…

  • How I Fell in Love with Guatemala

    This is a report detailing my some of my experiences visiting Guatemala as part of a mission team from 12/28/13 to 1/4/14. This has nothing to do with HR, management, etc. But hopefully you’ll enjoy it anyway. If not, you know where the “delete” button is. :-) I’ll start off by saying that it’s very…

  • 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…

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