by adowling on February 10, 2010
So I’m watching Undercover Boss Sunday night just like every other HR nerd out there and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A few things stuck out as odd to me, one in particular was Kevin.
Kevin is the manager in the facility with the policy on docking two minutes for every one minute you were late coming back from lunch. Of course that stood out as odd and all kinds of wrong. What got me the most was how Kevin responded to the question asked by the President/COO regarding meeting the new employee that worked one day in his office.
How do you not meet your new staff? I understand managers are busy and can’t always take time to really get to know their staff but come on, how do you not at least take a few minutes out of your day to say welcome aboard to the new guy?
Even in a company as large as Waste Management on boarding has to be important. My office has 77 employees and I can bet you good money that our Center Director, equivalent to old Kevin, has met every single employee out there.
Managers, get off your managerial high horse and meet your front line employees, learn the difficulties they endure every day to make your shop function. Start at onboarding and grow the relationship from there, your office will be better for it.
by adowling on February 9, 2010
Let me say up front that I’m an advocator of SHRM; I think they’re a great resource for the majority of HR professionals. Do I think there’s room for improvement? Of course, there’s always room for improvement in any organization as large as SHRM and China Gorman is helping to lead the way.
When I first started my career in something other than being in front of customers/members it was in Accounting as a Payroll Administrator. I was obsessed with learning more about payroll and benefits. The American Payroll Association was the first place I went to do my research.
One slow day while waiting for ADP to kick back my reports, I found myself going from the APA site to the SHRM site and it was like someone flipped on a light switch and everything was clear. I spent literally the entire day on the SHRM site reading about legislation, tool kits for policies, looking at sample forms, reading about benefits, and researching certification. I made my way over to the HRCI site and downloaded the certification handbook for later reading. I eventually found the Alabama SHRM site and the Birmingham SHRM site as well; though both took some digging.
SHRM was what sucked me into HR. I don’t visit the SHRM site as much as I used to, mostly because I find what I need via a Google Search or asking my wonderful Twitter friends.
My coworkers, on the other hand, use mostly the SHRM site. They use SHRM for the free webinars and to get sample templates for policies or letters. Even during set up training for our new ATS the trainer talked about adding a link to SHRM on the side bar for external resources.
SHRM is a good tool for those new to HR or those that aren’t as engrossed in social media. Say what you will about SHRM, I blame thank them for where I am today.
