Staples isn't the only one - age discrimination lives!

See yourself or your managers in any of the language here? http://www.hrmorning.com/age-bias-cost-staples-how-much/ I am confident that Staples is not the only organization where this kind of thing occurs. $26M is a huge award to one person - think about what it will cost your company?

Performance Appraisals - Yeah or Nay?

From Holly Jones at the Legal Review: Skepticism about appraisals is not unusual. A Google search on performance appraisals will return numerous articles calling for the death of the performance review, a defunct management ritual that is merely a sign of stale leadership and a lack of innovation in HR practices. Various surveys report that 98 percent of employees dread them, 14 percent of employers don’t even have them (and even among those employers that do, 12 percent of employees still don’t receive feedback), and more than half of employees who do receive evaluations believe that the results are not fair or accurate. Yahoo's use of ranking, the so-called "Rank and Yank" is an even less accurate performance system for most companies. Especially in Silicon Valley, the manager has the answer at the start - somebody has to be on the bottom, and each manager is using (for the most part) his/her individual standards for performance. My take is that most organizations do a miserable job of performance appraisals. They often miss the key component of success : The CONVERSATION between employee and manager! That's what the system hinges on - the accuracy and openness of the conversation. That's my 2 cents. Send me a comment if you like.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

What's left of the recruiting industry is ready for 2010~
So many agencies have given up the ghost- it is enough to depress even the most optimistic recruiter. But many of us have been shining up ours shoes, so to speak... and investing in our infrastructure, and working on making 2010 our best year ever. And your 2010 much better than 2009!

So, make it your New Year's resolution to :
*As a candidate, reach out to network with recruiters as well as others who can facilitate your finding the next job
* As a hiring manager, reach out for the help of independent recruiters to fill those positions you have been toiling with on your own and not filling (now that you realize it is not as easy as you thought :^)
* As a CEO, recognize how much time your managers are wasting in the recruiting process - they are not getting their own work done because they are not using outside, smarter resources for these activities
* As a Corporate HR Leader, ditto the above - you are in charge of smart resource allocation, so start practicing it!
As a Corporate HR Leader, think about smart ways to leverage your current staff through other use of outside HR Consulting resources (you don't need to hire employees - use a consultant for just the projects that you need completed now)