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Employer Articles
Talent management software is gaining importance because getting and keeping good talent has become critical in corporate performance.
The use of performance appraisals as a tool to improve performance management may be overrated or misunderstood. Hard research shows performance appraisals have negative effects on employee populations more often than having positive outcomes. As a result, employers and human resources departments are having a fresh look at this essential tool of human resources management. This article takes a look at three major myths of performance appraisal that lead to its misuse.
One of the major impediments in managing people and upping productivity lies inside the mindsets of managers and employers, which in turn is a product of the cultural and literary environment of the workplace. Managers and employers are logically worried about productivity, output, resources and etcetera, because they’ve got a business to run, and maintain work processes that help run the business meet its targets.
Even though the recession, downsizing, a poor job market, and declining demand for traditional legal services and billing continues to plague the industry, law firms recognize the need to retain their top talent, and therefore the need to address issues of work-life balance. The simple fact that it seems to be an employer’s market does not deceive law firm leaders that the true nature of things has not changed – it is still an employee’s market, as far as top talent is concerned, and the cost of replacing a key attorney or employee is difficult to measure.
A recent paper authored by Laura Empson of the Cass Business School, titled “Who’s in Charge? Exploring the Leadership Dynamics in Professional Service Firms,” took a refreshing look at some of the top law firms of the world and made some interesting observations.
High-potential employees, as opposed to high-performing employees, or highly-knowledgeable employees, are exceptionally important for talent management. While there is nothing that prevents a high potential employee from being a high performer or highly knowledgeable, quite often these three are not the same. A high performer or highly knowledgeable employee may not be ready for promotion due lack of competence required at the next level up. However, high-potential employees are those who are ready to be promoted, and therefore they need to be properly managed, developed and retained.
Training is the key to creating teams, organizations, and realizing business objectives. We are no more in a world where things are predictable – successful hires are random, unless it is being done by a leading expert in a field and in a narrow field. Generally, the HR people recruit across a broad range of job functions, and truly speaking, there are very few predictors of success of an employee. The only thing that a company might do is to train people to do their jobs and orient them to company culture and objectives.
The new employee-employer relationship that is firmly in place, more so post-recession, focuses on an immediacy of things and lacks permanency. The psychological contract, unsaid things, trust, and other values like loyalty had played a role in the employee-employer relationships of the past.
Like every other company owned asset or process, the HR department would also play a role ascribed to it – and that means it would respond to expectations and try to deliver according to what it perceives its role to be.
In a Workplace Bullying Survey, as recent as of 2007 (when the recession had not yet hit the economy), by WBI-Zogby, and considered to be the largest scientific study of bullying in the United States, certain findings were made that emphasize the need of employer intervention to reduce this malady. Among many findings of the survey, the following are relevant to the present article:
When dealing with the non-salary components of the total compensation equation for employees, two of the most important elements can be visualized as works-pay and perks-pay. Works-pay generally involves payment for things necessary to get the work done and includes both tools necessary for doing the job, as well as things that employees would have had to purchase themselves if the employer did not provide them. Perks-pay, of course, relates with perquisites. While works-pay confers tools of the job to an employee, perks-pay provides status.
In his book From the Bureau to the Boardroom: 30 Management Lessons from the FBI, Dan Carrison eloquently draws attention to how we can learn from the FBI in managing change. He mentions how, following the 9/11 attacks on USA, every priority in the FBI had changed, but Robert Mueller succeeded in making agents accept their new roles and priorities in a manner that shows how it can be done in private organizations, too.
Okay, maybe 'hate' is too strong a word, and there is little reason in the workplace to hate a colleague or an employee. But there are situations where we genuinely dislike certain colleagues, for their conduct or habits, or generally for reasons difficult to define or admit, even to our own selves.
Election Day is NOW, but many small and mid-sized employers may be unaware that in many states, not giving PAID TIME-OFF to employees may be construed as a Class C demeanor, and can attract both a penalty up to $500, as well as other future issues in the employer-employee relationship.
Some issues, though common, are rarely simple, and employee retention is one of those. I have heard quotes like “an employee doesn’t leave a company, but leaves his/her boss,” and while in some cases such an assertion may be true, in most cases it is not. This article focuses on correlations between employee loyalty, employee retention, and the role that money (compensation) plays in attaining company objectives.
An employee handbook is a booklet that documents your expectations from your employees and what your employees can expect from your company. In other words, it states your legal obligations as an employer and their rights as employees. It contains important information on your company’s policies and procedures and has all details that employees would need to know about their workplace.
Workplaces throughout the country today are made up of four distinct generations – the Veterans (1922 – 1946), Boomers (1946 – 1963), Generation X (1963 – 1980), and Generation Y (1980 – 2000). Each of these generations has something to offer in the workplace, such as different values, needs and expectations. As an employer, if you are unable to properly manage and motivate your multigenerational workforce, your Company will soon face challenges in terms of retaining skilled workers and you will fail to leverage the true benefits of a multigenerational workforce. To survive this rare challenge of managing diverse generations of workforce, you need to learn about each of these generational groups, their needs and their motivations.
During a troubled economy, many law firms are forced to reorganize or downsize their organizational structures and strategies. This included things such as layoffs, mergers and acquisitions, office closings, reducing payroll expenses and more. Organizations are often led to downsizing, also called reorganizing or rightsizing, in order to cut costs to stay profitable or maximize efficiency and focus on core business functions.
Do you think that a law firm is generally “unmanageable?” Are most attorneys and staff personnel left to fend for themselves in a sink or swim environment? Are there firms with a collaborative model? Does this dynamic boost employee productivity?
Training costs often become a deterrent for most organizations. It’s easier to throw a new employee into his or her job without giving training, expecting the employee to learn on the job. However, the cost saved by not training employees can benefit you only in the short-term. Costs incurred on account of mistakes done by untrained employees, lost sales, lost customers, and constant supervision on them can be much higher in terms of money and duration.