Archives

Talent Management: Your Hammer Is Your Screwdriver

Talent management isn’t about software, says consultant Ron Katz. That’s just a tool. And it’s not about hiring or succession planning. It’s about positioning the organization to move powerfully in a positive way. To do that sometimes you have to use a hammer as a screwdriver, he says. Katz made his comments at BLR’s Strategic […]

Are Your Leaders Trained to Avoid These 4 Mistakes?

Leadership expert John Hamm, author of Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint, February 2011, www.unusuallyexcellent.com ), has spent his career studying the practitioners of unusually excellent leadership via his work as a CEO, venture capitalist, board member, high-level consultant, and professor of leadership at the […]

Employees required to prove what they didn’t steal

By Kyla Stott-Jess A recent Alberta Court of Appeal case, 581257 Alberta Ltd. v. Aujla, is good news for employers. The court reversed the normal onus of proof, requiring the employees to prove that certain monies they deposited into their bank account were not stolen from their employer.

Finding a way to drive gender diversity in STEM fields

Most employers would agree that STEM careers—jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—are on the upswing in both numbers and importance. Most also would agree that there are far more men than women in STEM jobs. A 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Commerce, “Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation,” signals a […]

Sex, religion, and retaliation

by Mark I. Schickman I keep waiting for the day that employment discrimination claims disappear. We spend a ton of time training employees to prevent and avoid discriminatory conduct, and the proper behavior is pretty intuitive. So, logically, employment discrimination should have been eradicated, like polio and smallpox. It would be terrible for my business […]

Lessons from an office ‘kick me’ prank

by Robert P. Tinnin, Jr. Q I recently read a newspaper article concerning a lawsuit filed in federal court in Albuquerque by an Intel employee who is suing his employer for race-based harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Coworkers secretly taped a “kick me” sign to his back and then kicked him as others […]

DSM-5 offers new opportunities for disability accommodations

by Tobias S. Piering and Andrew Moriarty What do menstrual cramps, temper tantrums, and getting old have in common? They’re all symptoms of new mental health disorders recognized in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)―a controversial but widely used authority on mental health diagnoses. New disorders Published by […]

Do Your Employees Go to Dr. Summeroff?

At a recent presentation by two colleagues on the ADA, the subject was doctors’ notes in support of leave as a reasonable accommodation. One of the audience members said, “Well, you know what doctor the employee is going to visit, don’t you? Dr. Summeroff.” The line got a huge laugh from the audience, but it […]

Biogenesis and the (Bad) Boys of Summer

For some people, summer evokes thoughts of sunshine and long walks on the beach with sand under their bare feet (sounds like the setting of a Nicholas Sparks novel … or so I’m told). For me, I think of baseball. As an annual subscriber to MLB Extra Innings, I think of the plethora of games […]

Corporate Training Trends to Watch for in the Coming Decade

“This next decade is really crucial to the way we develop our people,” says Cottone, a founding faculty member of The Leadership Conservatory and a managing consultant in the Chicago area. “I think a lot of changes are going to take place in the next 10 years.” For example, Cottone expects that employers will identify […]