Stuff to think about
Everyone is talking about COVID-19, infection rates, and mortality rates. But is anyone thinking about it "infecting" the robots? COVID-19 is an unprecedented situation. It is challenging every policy, playbook, and expectation related to work and how we engage in our daily work. Not long ago, the topic of focus was automation: artificial intelligence, machine [...]
What's fair to one may not be fair to another. It doesn't need to be entirely rational, either. The recent story of golfer Matt Kuchar and his temporary caddie for a tournament in Mexico put pay fairness in the sports news spotlight. For those unfamiliar with the story or with how golfer compensation works, here [...]
I love Josh Bersin's ideas and perspective on HR. Usually. But his recently published article, A New Paradigm For Corporate Training: Learning In The Flow of Work, misses something major in my mind. His New Paradigm is about formal learning moments showing up in your natural flow of work, with an emphasis on workers not needing [...]
Artificial Intelligence is a lot like teenage sex. Everyone talks about it. Nobody really knows how to do it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it. So everyone claims they are doing it. The above was presented* by Bryan Briscoe at the recent WorldatWork Total Rewards conference, where Bryan and I presented a session called [...]
As a compensation professional, going to conferences about compensation like the World at Work Total Rewards conference is exciting for me. And as a nerd, I like to try to find ways to analyze the available information for an exciting trip. When I take my family to Disney World, I buy the 800+ page [...]
There is a lot of discussion in the HR community about the impact of new salary history laws (here is a previous list, which you should assume will change). As these laws are now “live” in certain markets, employers are confronting the changes necessary to comply. I’m also seeing and hearing a lot of conversation [...]
Think about that. In a labor market that is fully mathematical (wages are based on a gender-blind algorithm) where the work is seemingly identical (an Uber ride is an Uber ride), there is still a 7% gap in hourly wages between men and women. This shows us why "solving" the gender pay gap is going [...]
Set aside your politics for a minute. Tax reform in the U.S. is now law, and this is not the setting to debate if it is good or bad. It simply is. So now what? Of course, there are the areas where we need to respond. Relocation costs that used to be tax free are [...]
Not literally - consultants are generally good people. But their marketing teams might be sharing information that is making your job harder. In the Fall, media outlets love to publish storied about the raises American employees can - or shouldn't - expect. This article was in December, citing research from one firm's salary increase survey. [...]
If there is one buzz phrase I've heard a lot in my career, it is "pay for performance." We like to apply it in all sorts of scenarios - commission design, consideration of piece-rate pay systems, merit systems, even health care management. We love the idea rewarding those who are producing, both as an incentive [...]
If you haven't heard of Lucy Adams, you are missing out. Lucy Adams is a reformed HR practitioner, formerly the HR Director at the BBC, who has written and consults on transforming the way HR works. The honesty with which she writes is refreshing to me - she is willing to call out the [...]
This morning I was listening to a podcast, which included the host commenting on the results of a recent research study. The research findings included a number of things high performing companies were more or less likely to do or use, with one particular finding being this: High performing companies are 29% more likely to [...]
Employees aren't satisfied or motivated. Managers hate the work and the communication. And HR knows it doesn't solve the problems it should. So why do we do it? This is a question we've been asking ourselves at Commvault, not because we know we want to change it but because we see the imperfections in the [...]
Last night I attended and made some brief remarks at the Chicago Comp+Cocktails event sponsored by Payfactors. Payfactors is doing some interesting things in the world of compensation management, with the overall message of a compensation revolution. I'll have more to say about that at some point in the future. My remarks last night were [...]
I received some great email feedback from the last past on measuring quality of hire. There seems to be a hunger for more clarity and specificity in the HR metrics space, and particularly a call to move beyond measures that create the wrong incentives. Given this feedback, you can expect more posts in this area, [...]
I've been thinking a lot lately about how to measure hiring quality, and I'm hoping to test an idea with you. Over time I have grown a bit frustrated with the focus on "time to fill" measures. It can lead recruiters to shorten cycles that need to be longer, and it can encourage managers [...]
This is the second part of a series of posts relating to the gender pay gap. Last week, we pointed out that nearly all data sets are subject to the proverbial “garbage in, garbage out” principle, and that principle applies poignantly to the equal pay discussion. As we noted, statistics show the gender pay gap can [...]
We work with a lot of data. How often do we question whether it is good data? Big idea: if you don't start with the right data, you can get the wrong conclusions. Let's illustrate with a story. Abraham Wald was a mathematician born in present day Romania. He was educated at the University [...]
I am struck by the contradiction between how businesses run their business and how those same businesses run their HR organization. The product development teams operate in an Agile fashion, embracing a requirements change and constantly learning. They deploy incremental features, observe how customers engage with those features, and then refine them. They test marketing [...]
I'd lose my HR nerd card if I didn't occasionally read some academic articles about HR. My wife needs to get in her eye roll when I get excited about the delivery of a new issue of Human Resources Management Review or the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. I will also admit I'm [...]
The prior post in this series provided some warnings from Jurassic Park about how letting machine learning run amuck could cause unintended consequences. In this installment, we’ll go further into the process and talk about the challenges of interpreting the data and its usefulness. The second most dangerous thing about machine learning systems is too [...]
George LaRocque recently published some great data on his site detailing recent investments in HR technology. If you don't follow George or listen to his podcasts, you are missing an opportunity to be smarter about HR technology. There have been a bunch of deals lately, and the summary in George's post is worth reviewing. [...]
As I am preparing a separate post about recent investments in the HR Tech space, I was looking to categorize the investments into the Tech Landscape shared a month ago. It's not a trivial exercise - more on that when the future post arrives. A number of deals are for firms that specifically focus on [...]
This is the first part of a series of posts relating to the gender pay gap. There is little question about the accuracy of the statistic: in America, the median pay of full-time, working females is about 77% of the median pay of full-time working males. It's been reported by the media, quoted by Presidents, [...]
A few weeks ago I published the introductory piece to this called “The Robots are Coming! (Why HR Should care about machine learning). In the next few posts we are going leap into more of what you need to know to embrace this change and make it a part of your future. If you are [...]
A 2013 press release from WorldatWork declared that 90% of companies use Excel in their compensation processes. This became a (commendable) call to action for WorldatWork to beef up its emphasis on Excel training to equip rewards professionals with the skills needed to use its tool of choice. But here is another 90% statistic. [...]
Did anyone hear that there is a tech explosion happening? My email inbox certainly has. Just yesterday I received 13 separate emails from HR technology vendors looking to change my life with their latest app, for me personally or for my company. 9 the day prior (one duplicate). Capterra produced an "Infographic" (I wouldn't call [...]
Depending on who you listen to, between 7% to 75% of the jobs we know today will disappear in the next decade because of automation. For HR professionals that’s naturally a double-threat because (a) our jobs are among those being automated and (b) it won’t take long for the new robot overlord’s the realize [...]
Is it time to kill engagement surveys? Some prominent figures in the space would say so. The Deloitte Human Capital Trends 2017 report describes a transition toward the employee experience, which is a more holistic view of what it feels like to work every day in your job. Engagement is described as a silo within [...]
As promised, here is a set of links to the resources mentioned during the session – plus a few more. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to stay connected! […]
Every so often someone will ask me about a book I've read lately... or I'll have a conversation and end up saying "you should read this book." In this vein, we've created the GetNerdyHR Bookshelf to capture books and categorize them by topic area. The links also take you directly to Amazon top buy [...]
Welcome to a new beginning to an old journey. For years the HR function has pressed for relevance and inclusion at the leadership table, with moderate but often temporary success. The shift toward business partnering has generated gains, as it is understood that HR isn't just the hire and fire and can advise on matters of [...]
The Human Resources function has come a long way. It's not all fluffy stuff and simply filled with conversations managers don't want to have. In fact, it hasn't been that way for a while. But we still have a way to go. We need to change to meet the changes in our organizations and in [...]