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I see articles every single day teaching job seekers how to use social media to get a job. On the other hand, I also see a lot of legal types doing their best to scare the pants off HR/recruiters who use social media to find candidates.
I\’m sure you\’ve heard that the headline sells the newspaper. Well, I was sucked into watching a recorded webinar the other day based solely on the title. How could I resist something called Blogging, Social Media, and the Workforce? :-)
Anyway, I realized my mistake pretty quickly. I spent 75% of the webinar listening to someone ramble about laws, phones, and email. Ugh. The last few minutes dealt with what the whole webinar should have been about–blogging and social media. Just a few gems I picked up from the webinar, if I might paraphrase:
If you go to a blog and you decide not to hire because you find out that they are of a specific race or religion, that can be a problem. Whoa, you don\’t say! Wasn’t that already illegal?
Don\’t let the people who make hiring decisions be the same ones who are using social networks like Facebook. Going to these sites can provide too much information. Huh? That doesn’t even make sense!
Those quotes make me a little queasy. Thankfully I have an antidote in this great comment by Mike Haberman.
When HR people tell me they are too busy in their jobs to use social media, I tell them it should be part of their jobs to use it. The tools are just too valuable to ignore.
I agree completely. Constant growth is a big part of this profession, and putting your head in the sand isn\’t exactly a strategy I\’m a fan of. Think about it. If coaches and other career professionals are telling job seekers to use social media to connect with companies, and you\’re hiding in the basement hoping it will blow over, where does that leave you in the long run? Yeah. Not good.
A lot of us get frustrated when we want to do work on a level of 10 (while we’re stuck doing work at a level of 1). Â In this video I give you a suggestion I’ve learned from experience about how to make that level 1 work suck less.
This post was written last week, and I have since written about HRevolution (the HR unconference) and announced the new look for the blog. But you still want to see me in action, right? Continue reading →
Hey, everyone! Prepare to be less-than-astounded by the quick video below. Circles under your eyes are the newest in fashion, by the way. Be sure to check out the sponsor links below, too. They “get” what social media is about and have believed in this event from the very beginning. Continue reading →
I’ve been reading a lot about culture at work recently, and I have to say that I’m intrigued. Before my current job, I would never have thought that it made much of a difference, but now that I have seen the benefits of a solid, positive corporate culture, I am convinced of the value it brings to the organization.
If someone tells you that culture doesn’t matter, they probably don’t have a good one.
Instead of being treated like a child or a criminal where each movement is tracked and must be given a specific reason, I now have the freedom to come and go pretty much whenever I please (as long as I get the job done).
I have never laughed so much in my entire working life as I did in an HR department meeting a while back. Do you ever laugh in meetings? I hope so, because it’s a heck of a lot of fun.
At any time I can walk into my supervisor’s office, sit down, and tell her anything at all. While we have fun together most of the time, we also share some serious moments that impact my career and the business. I love the wild changes in tone. I’m definitely someone who needs to laugh at work, and she is happy to oblige!
I can talk about zombies whenever I want.
These are just a few examples (and looking back, most of them are about humor–interesting) of what my work life is like and how it is different from my previous jobs. But I absolutely love it, and there’s so much room for growth and improvement on my part. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Can you say "instant relief?" I can.
VHRG and Leadership
I don\’t know if you\’re a regular reader or not, but Venting HR Guy is a funny human resources blog that showcases some of the daily events we all face. The difference is that VHRG can be a little more forthcoming in detailing his workday, because his identity is a secret. It makes for an interesting blog, that\’s for sure.
Anyway, VHRG often has issues that he tries to deal with at work. However, the response from his boss, known by the clever name “The Boss,†is often to side with the employee for some reason. Have an employee getting payroll advances several times a month for more than a year? Instead of cutting the guy off, VHRG will probably be forced by The Boss to give into the demands of the financially moronic employee. And that’s just one example.
While you might not have that specific problem, I\’m pretty sure that plenty of you have seen this in your own workplace (and if not, count yourself lucky!). You want to handle a situation that is within your realm of influence, but someone upstream gets word of the issue and wants to handle it a different way. How in the world can HR be taken seriously if they\’re constantly hamstrung and second-guessed by senior leadership?
They can\’t.
That\’s why I think VHRG needs some leadership. He needs a change. He is already looking for a new job, and I know that many of us would love to help, but with the whole “cloak of anonymity†he has going on, it\’s a bit tough to do. If you have suggestions for how he can deal with his spineless leaders, please drop them in the comments below. I\’m going to collect and pass them along to him.
In contrast to VHRG’s leadership problems, I spoke to a friend recently who was looking for a new job. She was ready to move on from her current position, and she had her eye on several positions. Then a new leader was brought into the organization, and it’s been amazing to see the change. She’s more positive, excited about her work, and the “leaving” part has completely been pushed out of her mind. It’s amazing to see what positive leadership does, but it’s also sad to see what happens when that leadership is absent, which is what’s going on in VHRG’s situation.
I\’m not picking on my pal here; I just know that there are lots of other HR professionals who have the same issue, and they know that their “leaders†won\’t back them up when a tough issue comes along. And if you have any tips on how he can move into another job, please post them in the comments, too. Every little bit helps, and the HR community is well-known for its helpfulness!
Culture
I’ve been reading a lot about culture at work recently, and I have to say that I’m intrigued. Before my current job, I would never have thought that it made much of a difference, but now that I have seen the benefits of a solid, positive corporate culture, I am convinced of the value it brings to the organization.
If someone tells you that culture doesn’t matter, they probably don’t have a good one.
Instead of being treated like a child or a criminal where each movement is tracked and must be given a specific reason, I now have the freedom to come and go pretty much whenever I please (as long as I get the job done).
I have never laughed so much in my entire working life as I did in an HR department meeting a while back. Do you ever laugh in meetings? I hope so, because it’s a heck of a lot of fun.
At any time I can walk into my supervisor’s office, sit down, and tell her anything at all. While we have fun together most of the time, we also share some serious moments that impact my career and the business. I love the wild changes in tone. I’m definitely someone who needs to laugh at work, and she is happy to oblige!
These are just a few examples (and looking back, most of them are about humor–interesting) of what my work life is like and how it is different from my previous jobs. But I absolutely love it, and there’s so much room for growth and improvement on my part. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
I recently received a copy of “The Pursuit of Something Better” to review. I have a fairly large queue of books to review, so this one sat on my shelf for about a month. Now I’m kicking myself for waiting. The company that the story’s centered around, U.S. Cellular, reminds me of my own organization in several ways. And seeing that company take the problems they faced and turn them around helped me to have hope.
A little bit of background: U.S. Cellular is a relatively small cell service provider. In 2000, the company was going down the tubes. In some parts of the company, the job abandonment/walk off rate was as high as 20%! It was then that a new leader took the helm. Jack Rooney held some beliefs that he knew could save this company if given the opportunity. Those beliefs include, but are not limited to, the following sections.
Employees treat customers like their leaders treat them. Continue reading →
