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How can we resolve the US’s 3-million-person labor shortage that may last the decade without raising unemployment? Simple. We can do it by making smart changes to immigration policy. Employers, by large majorities, believe the US immigration system should be…
Read More Spark economic growth by modernizing the US workplace immigration system
According to The Conference Board, US workers have never been more content, despite the pandemic, quiet quitting, quiet firing, and the forwards and backwards over hybrid working. Overall job satisfaction among US workers increased in 2022 to its highest point…
Read More Job satisfaction at all-time high thanks to hybrid working and job switching.
Google researchers launched Project Oxygen 15 years ago to understand what makes people great managers. In 2018, some 10 years after Google’s original report, its researchers looked again at their results to understand if the initial findings had held true…
Read More Google’s 10 Behaviors of Great Managers continue to succeed!
Innovation cultures at six US Department of Energy (DOE) Labs surveyed differ significantly according to a study conducted by InnovationOne, LLC, in concert with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Department of Energy put a bullseye on innovation. The results…
Read More Department of Energy puts a bullseye on innovation!
Welcome to the Pivot2First Podcast, your go-to source for all the latest trends, tips, and strategies in the world of recruitment. Join us as we chat with the leading experts in the industry about the latest recruitment tools, best practices,…
There is hot global debate —maybe even an arms race — about Open AI and the blockbuster San Francisco-based start-up app ChatGPT. Is it the harbinger of humanity’s doom as predicted by Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking in 2017 or…
Read More Open AI Arms Race: Doomsday or Productivity Godsend
More and more companies require remote and hybrid workers to spend more time in the office, despite knowing that US workers prefer hybrid work, are more productive, and the US is in a decades-long labor shortage. You can join the…
Read More Avoid the return-to-office stampede and hire and retain great employees
Our research with the DOE Ethos Project shows that a culture of innovation is the path to a three-fold increase in core technology transfer metrics. We are honored to present our research results twice at the 2023 Federal Laboratory Consortium…
Read More Culture of Innovation: Path to a three-fold increase in core technology transfer metrics.
Earlier this month, a Delaware court found that McDonald’s Corp. board members and the company’s chief human resources officer did not violate their duty to shareholders in handling sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, ruling that the directors’ response was legally…
Read More CHRO’s can be held liable for not stopping rampant sexual misconduct.
Many organizations are implementing cost-cutting measures. I have been stunned to learn that some companies are trying to cut costs by recalling hybrid and remote employees to the office and are thinking about implementing forced ranking with the intention of…
Read More Don’t allow these two strategies to be part of your cost-cutting plans.
During the current recruiting slowdown, smart organizations are using their talent acquisition teams to source new talent in preparation for the economic recovery in the second half of 2023. Are you building your talent pipeline during the downturn? This is…
Read More Are you building your talent pipeline during the downturn?
The following ten years will be what we at InnovationOne (Dobni and Klassen (2020)) describe as the decade of innovation execution, which is now the central challenge organizations face. Executing innovation agendas is not easy. McKinsey (2022) reported that 84 percent of executives…
Read More Six Questions to Measure and Drive Employee Behaviors and Actions for Innovation
The 2022 North American Candidate Experience Benchmark Research Report by Talent Board comes at a time of continued business anxiety. It also comes at a time when we need improved recruiting practices to improve recruiting success and company revenues. While…
Read More Ten takeaways to improve recruiting and company revenue.
Last week, I was fired up by an article in the New York Times, “Laid Off in Your Living Room: The Chaos of Remote Job Cuts.” I posted the article and my comment on LinkedIn. From my profile page and…
It is time to forget about Quiet Quitting and Quiet Firing. Instead, think about the Pareto Principle from physics and microeconomics, commonly known as the 80/20 rule. Your goal should be to figure out how to expand the 20 percentage…
Executives are in a quandary. The economy is growing but the Federal Reserve is determined to reduce inflation to two percent. With US workers in short supply, it is not wise to lay off this precious resource unless your business…
Many leaders believe that “culture” is soft and difficult to measure. It isn’t. In fact, it’s the ultimate performance driver. And you can manage what you measure. InnovationOne’s research shows that companies ranking in the top quartile as scored by…
Read More Improve your financial performance by improving your culture
Organizations typically conduct their annual performance reviews and make decisions on merit pay increases and pay adjustments at the end of the year. Employers need to remember that the most effective and innovative teams are built on trust. Executives need…
Read More How to ensure your performance management engenders trust
Surveys show that the war over hybrid, remote, and office-based work continues. It is a conflict that about two-thirds of current remote and hybrid workers are willing to quit over. And the number of employees working remotely or in hybrid…
Last week’s announcements by Meta (11,000 employees let go), Twitter (3,700), Stripe (1,100), and Lyft (700) turned heads as the high-tech stalwarts of the US economy stumbled. Previously, Coinbase, Shopify, Netflix, Microsoft, Snap, Robinhood, and Tesla had cut employees. When companies…
Read More Don’t be stupid with layoffs. Follow these 7 best practices.
This week we celebrate Veteran's Day so let's remember our Vets. According to the US General Accountability Office, about 200,000 US veterans leave the military and enter the civilian workforce each year, and they have excellent skills. Hiring veterans is…
Read More Six strategies to improve your ability to attract and hire veterans
As HR Departments finalize their strategies and budgets for 2023, their workforces face daunting challenges. According to The Conference Board, the US economy will continue to restrict and achieve only 1.5 percent GDP growth by the end of 2022 and…
Read More Seven HR Strategies in the War Between Executives and Employees, 2023
The labor shortage has pushed more companies to recruit employees who have served time in prison, according to NPR and The Wall Street Journal,. There are more than 70 million formerly incarcerated people in the US. But, for employers, their…
Read More More companies are hiring the formerly incarcerated with success
Last week’s The Wall Street Journal article on Quiet Quitting and Quiet Firing includes observations from me on this popular topic. The very next day, Friday, I was interviewed by Fox26 Houston to provide advice to employees who find themselves being a…
Read More It’s foolish to punish quiet quitters in this small-growth economy.
Updated on September 27, 2022 Three national human resources professional organizations have released their predictions of salary increases for 2023. Their results show that while recruiting and turnover are expected to ease slightly, high salary increases will continue into 2023.…
California may join Colorado in requiring companies that post jobs to disclose hourly pay rates and salary ranges. Washington and New York states may soon follow. Fortune 1000 companies frequently follow the trends of large states like California and New…
At least half of the workforce is quiet quitting, according to a report published last week by Gallup. Weeks before, The Wall Street Journal reported on the viral spread of the topic on social media, especially TikTok, by Gen Z…
Since the 2008 recession, corporations have tried to reduce costs and offer headline-grabbing perks with respect to benefits strategies. Not anymore. Companies are switching their benefits strategies for 2023 to attracting and retaining employees and helping them deal with costs…
Read More Companies are shifting their benefits strategies for 2023
After two years of burnout from Covid-19, Gen Z employees have begun to set boundaries, focus on a life outside of work, and have a better work-life balance. They call it “quiet quitting.” Their viewpoint also comes with less enthusiasm…
Companies have been using a variety of innovation methodologies and technologies to improve their innovation capabilities for more than a decade. Now, empirical research is identifying the ways that are the most effective. Is design thinking universally helpful to organizations…
Read More Which method or technology will help improve innovation in YOUR industry?
Criteria, a research and talent success company, has published its 2022 Candidate Experience Report. It shows the top job candidate priorities for 2022, a year of the great resignation, the US’s lowest unemployment rate since 2019 of 3.5 percent (tying a…
Read More Better work-life balance tops list of seven job candidate preferences
US inflation is at 9.1 percent, the highest level in over 40 years. While wage increases are also at their highest level in four decades — 4.8 percent according to a new Pearl Meyers survey — they are not high enough…
Read More Three Strategies to Help Employees Fight Inflation
US companies have doubled the number of interviews they conduct — despite inflation and worries about recession, as indicated by June 2022’s hiring numbers. The US Department of Labor recently reported that employers added 74,000 white-collar jobs in June 2022.…
Read More How you can do better, more successful job interviews
It is essential to use a people-oriented approach to implementing AI to keep the human emotions and work front and center in the change. A people-centric approach involves the impacted employees and clients in the design of digitizing workflows and…
Read More Use a people-orientated approach to implementing AI
When I worked for Medtronic businesses in Santa Rosa, CA, in 2012, implementing a remote work environment, we learned that requiring innovation workers to come into the office every day was unnecessary. In fact, we discovered that virtual teams and…
People started questioning whether email was dying in the mid-2010s with the rise of channel discussions such as Yammer. In 2018, Inc. Magazine declared that “Email is already dead” because Gen-Z won’t bother with email and the rest of us…
As the great resignation rages on, employees have made it clear they want to work for organizations that provide great pay and benefits, flexible work option -- and career paths. Career pathing doesn't provide the organization with excellent leaders without…
Today on #MemorialDay, we honor all the men and women who sacrificed life and limb for our nation. Please remember to recruit veterans. Have a safe and enjoyable day.
Change is imperative for organizational success. The bedrock of organizations that achieve success is a culture of innovation. Yet many leaders resist these cultures of innovation. They may believe culture is too mushy to measure and manage or takes too…
Read More Cultures of innovation improve company performance
A higher innovation culture score at R&D Labs leads to dramatically higher organization performance. That is the conclusion of a joint study by InnovationOne® and the US Department of Energy (DOE). The study hypothesized that the higher the innovation culture scores…
Read More Higher innovation culture scores dramatically improve performance
College recruiting is back after two years of the pandemic. According to new research, 65 percent of companies are increasing their investments in technology related to college recruiting, 57 percent are increasing the number of events, and 55 percent are…
Read More Here’s how to improve your return to college recruiting
Gallup reported this month that US employee engagement has dropped in each of the last two years, from 36 percent in 2020 to 32 percent in 2022. However, employee engagement is higher for organizations that focus on culture. Gallup’s reporting…
Read More Engagement is higher for organizations that focus on culture
Finding candidates is difficult now. Once you’ve scheduled an interview, don’t weaken the chances of hiring the ideal candidate by making these four classic interview mistakes. Job candidates now have choices, and you want to be No. 1 on their…
Read More Are you making these four classic interview mistakes?
Are you the type of leader that loves to provide positive feedback? Or, are you the type who prefers to tell people what they did wrong? Long-standing research shows that the leaders who provide positive feedback more often than negative,…
Read More How better feedback will help employees — and CEOs
A global client confided in us that they suspended their annual employee engagement surveys for three years to save costs due to an economic downturn. Now their business is growing again, and they plan to restart their surveys. Instead, we…
Read More Organizations can do better than employee engagement
In past columns, I have advised business leaders to take precautions against the next wave of Covid-19. It keeps mutating. Although it appears to be transitioning from a pandemic to an endemic, it can still be epidemic and very dangerous.…
Read More Covid-19 endemic or epidemic? Smart firms need to be agile.
CEOs are asking their human resources leaders to implement talent management strategies to beat the Great Resignation and attract new employees to their brands. This request is not a nice to have. It is essential for business growth. Talent management…
Read More How the War for Talent looks different in the 2020s
Andrew Burak, the CEO of Relevant, shared his belief that without an active innovation culture, organizations fall into stagnation and lose to more innovative competitors. Today’s supply chain crises from Covid-19 and the Ukrainian – Russian war require ongoing organizational…
Read More Creating a culture of innovation is essential today
In a 2022 report on HR Trends, Trust Radius has concluded that most HR professionals are pleased with the success of remote work implementation and employee wellbeing. But, at the same time, HR professionals have been challenged and exhausted by…
Studies by Pew Research and the Labor Department show that as work reopens, most employees prefer working from home, especially women. After the pandemic, women lag men in rejoining the labor force, exacerbating our labor shortage. Preference has replaced fear…
Read More As work reopens, studies show workers prefer remote work, especially women
Many executives we speak with about improving the innovation of their companies ask us how to open the minds of their CEOs to transform their organizational cultures. Many CEOs fear that culture is too soft to manage. Innovation feels like…
Read More Managing culture and innovation improves real numbers: your bottom line.
At the end of last year, I identified top strategies for HR in 2022. In the 2020s, HR strategies are shifting to reinstating powerful, comprehensive talent management strategies to offer employees careers with purpose, excellent pay and benefits, and equity…
I don’t need to tell you that recruiting is tough. Wages are soaring, and job opportunities are abundant. New research identifies how to change your recruiting tactics to compete. For example, if your job application process takes more than five…
Read More Recruiters: Speed up your job application process or loose 92% of job applicants
Many organizations trying to fight falling employee engagement numbers are making a mistake. Frankly, now is not the time to deal with such matters. Instead of launching another employee engagement survey, listen to your employees’ frustrations and begin to work…
Read More Stop fretting over falling employee engagement. Go to the source.
There is long-standing empirical research demonstrating how corporate culture improves organizational innovation, productivity, and profit. Now, evidence is emerging that healthy organizational cultures are also the best way to beat the Great Resignation. Two weeks ago, MIT researchers uncovered that…
Read More Corporate culture drives business performance — and employee retention
The Supreme Court last week blocked Biden’s Vaccination Mandate for private employers with 100 or more employees, by a 6-3 vote. Companies will no longer have a federal mandate as a cover for requiring vaccinations. With Covid-19’s Omicron variant surging…
Read More Stop the Omicron surge from siphoning your bottom line.
Many recruiting colleagues have told me their organizations do not know how to source passive job candidates -- that is, someone who is not actively looking for work. They depend on posting jobs on LinkedIn or Indeed, hoping active candidates…
Read More Seven tips to improve sourcing passive job candidates
Over the holidays, I experienced how Omicron has significantly changed the rules for Covid-19 for my family and businesses. Two members of my family -- both fully vaccinated, and one even boosted -- caught Omicron. The former had four days…
Read More My family learned that Omicron changed the rules. Three tips for businesses.
Several research organizations have published their HR Priorities for 2022. I was particularly impressed with the findings of Fuel50 because it looked at an issue the “Best-in-Class” HR organizations are prioritizing: The Future of Work. This priority did not make…
Read More The Future of Work Tops the 2022 Priorities List for Leading HR Organizations.
Innovation remains a priority for CEOs because innovation improves business and financial outcomes. We learned from our extensive research over 20 years and the publishing of over 25 academic, peer-reviewed articles, and our consulting practice that highly innovative companies have…
Read More Seven traits of highly innovative organizations that drive improved financial performance
Organizations have been talking about changing performance management for years. Many in the past ten years abandoned forced performance rankings or have eliminated performance reviews all together. Others like Facebook have reinstated performance ranking. Compelling business challenges -- more than…
Read More Why and How Performance Management Will Change in the 2020s
After nearly two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, employee expectations and company strategies have permanently shifted. The surge of Omicron in December 2021 and January 2022 has once again delayed office reopening plans, according to The Wall Street Journal. Many…
Read More Survey shows hybrid work is here to stay — here’s how to get started.
As many organizations implement new hybrid work models, improve their sustainability, try to enter new markets or work to realign their cost structures, executives wrestle with implementing change successfully. It is important for them to understand that more than 70…
Many employers will have to ensure by early 2022 that their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19 under a set of new vaccine requirements by the Biden administration that will cover more than 80 million employees. As reported by The…
America’s supply chain is being reordered, and with-it American firms are rethinking their relationship with employees. For more than a generation, the CEO playbook was to believe employees were expendable and to move manufacturing to low-cost or low tax regions…
Read More The Compelling Argument for Upskilling and Reskilling Your Workforce.
We now live in a data-driven world. Data generated by the people and performance systems within your organization needs to be the foundation for getting your employee experience strategy right. Organizations that have managed to leverage data to extract information…
Read More The fastest growing department in HR is driving organizational performance: People Ops!
The US economy is in an unusual position, and so are employers. Demand is strong. Consumers are flush with cash and spending more. Vaccinations rates are rising, and Covid19 cases have fallen by a third across the country. Normally, we…
Read More Five strategies to overcome the US’s labor shortage of the 2020s
Clients and HR leaders frequently ask me how to calculate the cost of employee turnover. The cost of turnover is a critical measure to determine how effectively the workforce is aligned to the organization’s mission, values, and culture and the…
Read More How to calculate and strategically use the cost of employee turnover.
Innovation has long been a priority for many CEOs. Now, the pandemic has added new urgency to the quest: COVID-19 has driven a jump of 10 percentage points (to 75 percent) in the share of companies reporting innovation as a…
President Biden’s sweeping Covid-19 mandate requirement for companies of 100 or more employees, announced last Thursday, brings managing the mandate and the reasonable accommodations requests from employees to the top of HR’s to-do list. The mandate requires workers either to…
Read More Managing religious and medical exception requests for Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate
For the second year in a row, the US celebrates Labor Day during a dramatic transformation of work and high anxiety for CEOs and workers. The difficulties presented by a chronic labor shortage of skilled and unskilled jobs are complicated…
Read More Four disruptive steps to transform the work environment and finally beat Covid-19
This year’s open enrollment will be like no other. Continuing COVID19 concerns, technology-empowered health care services alternatives, and new legislation will drive novel considerations for 2022. In addition, there are always the standard open enrolment issues of new health care…
Read More Nine commanding health care benefit issues for 2022 that will drive your employer brand.
Leaders often speak with me about the repeated delays in calling back to the office their remote employees and alternative optimum dates for their return. In fact, some organizations have rescheduled the return-to-the-office date four times. Others have recalled managers…
Read More Are you on the right — or wrong — side of history with your return-to-the-office plan?
Google has changed its Jobs Search function in ways that have either already gone into effect or will take place on October 1. The new system should improve the experience of job searching. However, these changes will require recruiters to…
Read More Google’s Job Search changes requires action and will improve applicant experiences
Economists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago last week released the results of a discrimination audit of 108 companies. The audit revealed that entry-level applications from candidates with a “Black name” get fewer callbacks than…
Read More Economists find discrimination in recruiting by race and gender. We can change it.
This week’s headlines highlight how the fourth COVID19 surge among the unvaccinated in the US is shifting plans by employers to recall workers to the office after Labor Day and explore whether employers should require workers to vaccinated. Companies need…
Read More NOW is the time for employers to require COVID19 vaccines.
The labor shortage in the US will be long-lasting because of low birth rates, retiring baby boomers, immigration that is not up to the demand for skilled and unskilled labor, and the difficulties of automating professional services. To overcome these…
Gallup released its venerable State of the Global Workplace Report for 2021 this month. Surprisingly, workplace engagement rose to 36 percent in 2020, the year of the pandemic, a one percent increase for both the US and Canada. But, stress…
The turnover tsunami of 9.3 million US open jobs is now being joined by a new storm: labor wage increases. Total private sector US wages are now up 7.9 percent from February 2020, and the wages for low-wage earners in…
Read More Seven solutions to overcome the double tsunami of labor shortages and rocking wages.
The turnover tsunami is here. There are 9.3 million US open jobs, which is the highest number since 2020 and almost twice the number of a year ago, and it nearly matches the 9.8 million unemployed. In normal times, a…
A client called asking for a referral for a behavioral interviewing vendor. While I applauded her initiative to improve the interview skills of her hiring managers, I had to ask, "Why behavioral interviewing?" It ran its course ten years ago,…
The secret of successful innovation is not simply innovating, it’s embracing innovation. In today’s era, innovation should be shared and promoted internally just like your brand is across the globe. In this Master Class, Victor Assad of Innovation One and…
Read More Eight Practices to Fire Up Your Innovation Culture
Four CEO’s blasted remote workers last week, saying that employees who want to continue working remotely aren’t engaged with their companies. Perhaps the most egregious and self-serving comment came from WeWork CEO, Sandeep Mathrani, who said at The Wall Street…
Read More CEOs choose well. There is a great tsunami coming of employee turnover.
Updated guidance from The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying that vaccinated people do not have to wear masks either inside or outside or follow social distancing guidelines (in most circumstances) has complicated the decisions companies are considering…
Read More CDC’s new pandemic guidance is a game-changer. Are you ready?
InnovationOne will be joining IdeaScale to present the six traits of highly innovative organizations and to show the responses of IdeaScale followers for each of the six traits of highly innovative companies. Based on our research at InnovationOne, they have…
As companies announce plans for remote workers to return to the office, a new study finds that employee anxiety is surging. Companies call me concerned that many of their employees, including key technical and leadership staff, are resigning rather than…
Read More Employee stress skyrockets due to return-to-the-office plans. Time for a reliable playbook
The year of the pandemic is just about over. An HR digital transformation is at hand. The coronavirus pandemic, the switch to digital business models, and the hybrid work environment -- triggered by working from home -- have accelerated HR’s…
Read More Ready, Set, GO: Get ready to win the race for HR digital transformation!
Jobvite’s latest annual survey of hundreds of recruiters and HR professionals shows many critical differences one year after the coronavirus pandemic. Recruiting priorities have changed. Due to the lack of skilled candidates and competition from other employers, the quality of…
The pandemic had us all rushing to implement digital technology for the survival of our businesses. We made these investments in order to keep employees aligned to the organization’s mission, changes, and goals. Take a bow, everyone, as your success…
Read More Improve employee productivity and retention with in-person onboarding in 2021
A recruiter told me last week that job ghosting has started up again, even after her company moved its pay levels to market competitive levels. The prediction I made to her is that by August, the US will have more…
Read More Is your employer brand ready for a labor shortage in 2021?
The pandemic, remote work, and digital technology have changed the paradigm of how to think about work, where we work, and the employee experience. Accelerated vaccination rates have employers making plans to reopen their offices, but the role of the…
Read More The new paradigm of hybrid work and improved employee experiences
Fast Company announced its 2021 list of the Most Innovative Companies. Amazingly only three companies from the 2020 list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies made the 2021 list, reflecting the disruption rollicking the business world. They are Shopify,…
Read More The World’s Most Innovative Companies, Reshaped by COVID19
What an irony. International Women’s Day, yesterday (March 8th), coincided with the anniversary of the onset of COVID19, a health disaster that brought the international economy to its knees and resulted in a tempestuous year for women in the workforce.…
Read More COVID-19 crushed women’s progress in the workforce. Five steps to turn it around.
When one of your children grows up to be a Hollywood comic, you get used to your parenting style and idiosyncrasies being the fodder of jokes in comedy clubs across the country and post-pandemic online. My daughter is a Millennial…
Read More Tips from a Hollywood comic: Address stress in the workforce
Even in the normal times of the 2010s, before the pandemic, the business world was disruptive and innovation was difficult. We had many vice presidents of research and development, digital transformation, innovation, and marketing come to us asking, "Can you get our…
Behaviorism has long taught us that immediate and direct feedback is critical to reinforce the behaviors and outcomes we want. It has been the source of breakthrough books on leadership, such as the One-Minute Manager. But too much of a…
Read More How to find the sweet spot between micromanaging and too hands-off?
Executive teams deserve high praise for their excellent leadership implementing safe COVID-19 policies, complying with new laws, and the quick pivot to remote work in mid-March 2020. As one said to me, “It all went smoother than we thought. Now,…
Read More Seven practical lessons to make a hybrid workforce engaged, productive, and innovative!
I have been involved with recruiting for more than 30 years and have never before seen a disruption in recruiting (and HR and leadership practices) as serious as the one in the past tumultuous year. I led recruiting and human…
Read More The good, the bad, and the ugly of recruiting — and five components of success.
The virus COVID-19 proved Plato was right: crisis is the mother of invention. McKinsey's new report on the Trends that Will Drive 2021 and Beyond identifies a wave of innovation and a new generation of entrepreneurs sparked by the pandemic as one…
Read More Innovation in 2021 requires three talent strategies
Last year ended with the FDA approval of Pfizer’s COVID19 vaccine and the vaccination of the first US health care workers on Monday, Dec. 14. The US still has several months of rising COVID19 infections and deaths before 60 percent…
First ISO, then the SEC, and now Nasdaq. All these agencies are requiring the disclosure of human capital measures. Human capital often drives a majority of the costs for businesses. Its role in driving business success, when smartly managed, is…
Read More Better talent management will help improve your bottom line
Many executives cling to the hope that COVID-19 vaccines will abate the pandemic and allow a return to normal, with remote workers back in the office. They remind me of a VP of Clinical Research who initially resisted our remote…
Read More Optimize remote work and redesign your office now, before you’re left behind
This is a year to forget. In 2020, we have witnessed more Americans die from the pandemic than many of our wars combined, more unemployment than the Great Depression, social and racial unrest with severely divided politics that we have…
The pandemic has changed investment priorities for recruiting organizations in 2020. Last year was all about improving the candidate experience. Today, the emphasis is on finding skilled and qualified job candidates. But without a focus on candidate experience and employer…
Read More COVID19 has changed recruiting strategies. Don’t be short sighted
The pandemic has proven that remote work can increase office employee productivity, morale, and employee-work life integration while reducing carbon emissions. But what about innovation workers? Do they have to be face-to-face every day to innovate? The answer from my…
Read More Six tips for accelerating innovation in a hybrid workforce.
This week we celebrate Veteran's Day so let's remember our Vets. About 200,000 US veterans leave the military and enter the civilian workforce each year, and they have excellent skills. Hiring veterans is a smart recruiting strategy. In addition, companies…
Read More Six strategies to improve your ability to attract and hire veterans
Pfizer and BioNTech’s Nov. 9, 2020 announcement that their vaccine is successful in preventing more than 90% of infections, is welcome news. However, it’s also important to stress that the better-than-expected results are preliminary and a successful vaccine by the…
Read More Five steps to take to lead in 2021 with the hybrid workforce of today
COVID19 has accelerated companies’ digital communications strategies by an average of six years, said Jason Averbook when he spoke at the HR Technology Conference. Unfortunately, research on spending for HR Tech is predicted to be anemic in 2021, meaning organizations…
Read More The pandemic accelerated the need for HR digital technologies. Do you have a strategy?
The biggest news from last week’s virtual HR Tech Conference was not about tech. It was about research from Marcus Buckingham on how companies can boost the resiliency of their workforces. Resilience is independent of employee engagement, according to Buckingham,…
Read More Three steps to improve employee resiliency during COVID19 based on new science
While championing diversity initiatives over the past 20 years, I have always emphasized how these actions will improve financial outcomes for companies. Now there is mounting evidence that by overcoming the racial wealth gap, which includes hiring biases, the U.S.…
Your job postings may be your worst nightmare, scaring off job applicants with jargon and needless clutter and driving away female applicants. If your job posting is more than 250 words and uses gender bias tones, it is time for…
Read More Over 50 percent of job postings drive away applicants, especially women
Most U.S. companies are planning to give employees pay raises and annual bonuses next year despite the economic fallout from the pandemic. However, the pandemic and the growing demand for pay equity and transparency and remote work are all changing…
Online recruiting is still under attack since I wrote this article a year ago. The system is breaking down and becoming rife with tech-savvy scammers. Job aggregators are ruining the job candidate experience and in many cases preventing job applications…
Read More Job aggregators are sabotaging online recruiting. Tips on how to stop them.
To alleviate stress for new remote workers, many companies stopped their performance management systems during the pandemic’s peak. But rather than stopping performance management, they should have focused on accelerating their organization’s ability to be agile. The best performance management…
Has your employer brand held up during the pandemic? Even companies with stand-up employer brands in February need to retool them in the pandemic age. For example, how has your brand changed regarding remote work, innovation, and your new role…
Many companies are ramping up their recruiting efforts as the pandemic abates in many areas of the country. At a time when face-to-face meetings in an office are still considered risky, virtual recruiting and interviewing techniques such as the pre-recorded…
Read More Structured interviews significantly improve your hiring success
I am always struck by how many companies fail to track their readily available data. This data offers cost-saving, productivity-enhancing, and revenue-generating information for the picking. If only someone would look. While today’s applicant tracking systems and AI powered chatbots…
Read More Increase your business revenue with better recruiting data literacy
Join me on August 27th for a recruiting roundtable discussion on data literacy for HR professionals. Piyanka Jain ⭐️and I will discuss how with excel and some simple data sets, along the candidate funnel, HR practitioners can gain valuable insight into…
Read More Aug. 27 Recruiting Roundtable on data literacy for HR professionals
With the pandemic and significant decline in revenues, executives know that they must innovate to survive these unprecedented times. But how? Many executives, however, have chosen to play it safe and secure, hunker down, and hoard cash. The problem with…
Our most recent research with The Conference Board reveals the importance of managers in encouraging innovation. In our infographic below, the "Innovation Priorities" chart on the right shows that highly innovative companies have managers who score higher in encouraging innovation…
While the Pandemic has cooled recruiting in most industries, many HR organizations have upgraded their technologies to conduct online interviews and onboarding. But there is much more to do. Now is the time to hack recruiting processes before the hot…
Read More Join my August 27 virtual session to learn how to hack your recruiting.
In this Orange County ReINVENTHR webcast, I present 3 robust strategies to crush today's crises. I remind HR leaders that HR has the empirical research, predictive models, and digital technology to crush it! The full REINVENT HR webinar, "HR…
Read More ReINVENTHR webcast: 3 robust strategies to crush today’s crises
In the wild pandemic world of constant fear and change, management needs feedback from employees to keep them aligned, motivated, safe, and innovative. Are employee surveys still useful — given how they have been carelessly overused and in the face…
Read More Bad management practices killed employee surveys. 7 ways to get reliable employee feedback
I am delighted to announce that my company InnovationOne, LLC, has joined forces with Innovation Minds. Together, we provide our clients the best researched-based cultural assessment for measuring, benchmarking, and improving your culture and capability to innovate with the best…
Companies that enjoyed progress with their remote work strategies in March, are now stalling in the dog days of mid-summer — and in the face of a pandemic that just won’t quit. After the resurgence of COVID-19 across most of…
Read More Six tips for rekindling remote work success and creating the now office
When the pandemic started, employers reacted to the first surge and warning by health officials. They sent employees home to work remotely and to be safe. But as the stay at home orders were canceled, and the public ventured out.…
Read More COVID19 surges, confusing leaders, and stalling remote work progress
Highly innovative companies treat innovation as a strategic imperative. These companies involve their external partners, nurture transparent, inclusive, and collaborative cultures, and align their operations to quickly adjust and commercialize innovation. These findings are based on InnovationOne's research of over…
Read More Top six factors of highly innovative companies in the digital era!
While the rush to remote work provided a welcome relief from daily commutes and the fear of catching COVID19, many employees struggled with being on-the-job 24/7 now that the commute does not define the workday. Besides, when school resumes, the…
Read More 9-to-5 is on a COVID19 ventilator. Rethink your work schedule!
Today's hottest conversation among many executives is on the best strategies to nimbly pivot among our multiple crises. When they decide upon winning strategies, the question then becomes how do we implement strategies successfully. Our research at InnovationOne has found…
Read More Why some companies innovate during crises and others don’t
Video evidence of police brutality, the Black Lives Matter protests, and recent discussions on social media have raised the nation’s consciousness. These events have also challenged recruiters and hiring managers to rethink their hiring practices. The bad news is that…
Long before the world knew there was a coronavirus, I, and a team of executives, implemented a flexible work environment enabling 45% of a medical device company workforce to work from home three to four days a week. The result…
Over five years of writing blogs, I have noticed that posts on diversity and inclusion are often the least read. Today, are you ready to reflect on the nation’s crisis with civil rights and social unrest and the failure of…
Executives have often confided to me that employees’ jobs are difficult enough without having to think of new products and services or better ways of doing their jobs. Besides, they cannot afford to have people lose their focus on this…
Read More 7 Steps to Seize Upon a Crisis and Innovative Successfully
Many business leaders told me they planned to reopen their offices in May. Then in mid-May, after their state’s restrictions were lifted, they told me that they had delayed until June. Now, the date they have in mind is July.…
Read More 4 strategies that will transform your office into an industry leader—post-COVID19
Eighty-one percent of US office workers have been working at home four or five days a week since COVID-19, and 71 percent would like to continue working from home. Further, some 70 percent of managers report that their workers’ performance…
Read More Work from home has become the new normal. Boldly adapt now!
More than 50 percent of small US businesses and 90 percent of high tech start ups fail. But not all failures are equal. Some are catastrophic, while others smaller. More vitally, the catastrophic failures are often proceeded by smaller ones.…
Read More 6 Steps to instill a discovery culture and thrive through adversity.
Your guidebook to restart your business with the new normal, safely, productively, with high morale for employees, and reduced costs. Your company sent office workers home in March in a mad scramble to protect them from COVID19 and to…
Read More 9 Steps to Implement a New Post-COVID19 Office Environment
Our new research shows that highly innovative companies can pivot quickly in a crisis because of their collaborative cultures, agile organizations, and the well understood processes they have to suggest, build upon, and prototype new ideas. Download our free report…
Read More Highly innovative companies are designed to pivot quickly
Watch the rebroadcast of our highly attended and successful webcast, "Reinventing Innovation During Times of Crisis: Lessons from Leading Companies." From this post, you can also download our valuable report and PowerPoint slides. John Metselaar of The Conference Board, Peter…
Read More Watch the Rebroadcast of Reinventing Innovation During Crisis Webcast.
Companies have been switching to video interviewing over the last decade because they could screen job candidates faster and save costs. Today, with COVID19, it is a no brainer. Video interviewing technology allows recruiters to conduct pre-recorded interviews quickly with…
Read More Learn the key features and how to pick video-interviewing software
How a company pivots during a crisis significantly impacts its customer engagement, employer brand, and long-term profitability. In the latest podcast in my series, "Leadership During the Coronavirus Crisis, I cover alternatives to RIFs and the legal issues. I review…
Read More Leadership During the Coronavirus Crisis Podcast: Alternatives to RIFs
US companies with fewer than 500 employees will be covered by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act beginning April 1. The Act requires employers to pay for 80 hours of sick leave and extended family and medical leave for up…
Read More Must Know Overview for The Family First Coronavirus Employer Paid Leave Requirements
Many businesses are now scrambling to implement working-from-home procedures, cutting worker hours, and reducing their workforces, whether temporarily or permanently. Economists are now predicting a short but deep recession, with a drop in US economic output of $1.5 trillion, 7%…
Read More Brand building strategies for handling the coronavirus recession
After the decade of innovation, the pursuit of successful innovation execution is still not easy. As reported by McKinsey (2018), 84 percent of executives feel innovation is critical for growth, yet only six percent are satisfied with their innovation efforts.…
Read More Ten insights on improving innovation from the decade of innovation
Join me for an informative webinar today on how to continually win with innovation in today's competitive and fast changing business environment. Arthur Liberian, Senior Innovation Advisor at Planbox and I will uncover how highly innovative organizations disrupt the market…
Read More Webinar TODAY: Eight Practices to Fire Up Your Innovation Culture!
Today's applicant-tracking systems (ATS) not only help you lure and build relationships with job candidates and hire high performers — they can also help you build employer brand. Applicant tracking systems have become job candidate management systems. Wouldn't it be…
Read More 9 tips for buying game-changing applicant tracking systems
The Coronavirus is now growing faster outside of China than in China — including in the US. More than 90 Americans have the virus from coast-to-coast, and six have died. Health officials expect the virus to infect hundreds if not…
Over 4.7 million people now work remotely. Employers reap the rewards of a cost savings of $11k/person. Learn up to date best practices for managing a remote workforce to ramp up productivity, save costs, recruit top talent & maintain accountability.…
Read More Back by Popular Demand! Managing a Flexible and Remote Workforce.
Since Gallup began measuring employee engagement at the turn of the century, it hasn’t improved employee engagement much. It has helped companies realize the importance of empathetic and empowering leaders and collaborative team environments. But Gallup this month published a…
Read More Successful companies focus on building a better culture
The secret of successful innovation is not simply innovating, it’s embracing innovation. In today’s era, innovation should be shared and promoted internally, just like your brand is across the globe. Victor Assad and Arthur Liberian will uncover how highly innovative…
Read More Webinar: Eight Practices to Fire Up Your Innovation Culture
The US now has had 22 months where there are more job openings than unemployed people. According to Manpower’s last study, 69% of US companies struggle to find workers. This trend will continue in the US for a long time due…
Read More Today’ Talent Shortage Is Long Term. Are You Prepared?
Executives who want to dramatically increase their success should implement Objectives with Key Results (OKRs). Research shows that executives who set such goals can significantly improve the performance of their organizations over telling employees to “just do their best.”[i] Moreover,…
The issues of automation and digital transformation and how to create inclusive, transparent, and innovative cultures were some of the many topics discussed by CEOs, technologists, and human resources leaders last week in San Francisco at the Work Rebooted conference. Julie Douthart, biochemist…
Read More Work Rebooted conference examines everything from AI to cultures and the gig economy!
CEOs and other executives are finalizing their business strategies and financial plans at this time of year. With great enthusiasm, their thoughts turn from strategy to implementation. My frequent advice to CEOs is to have no more than seven top…
Read More How to champion your organization’s top 7 priorities
On Martin Luther King Day 2020, almost 52 years after his assassination, the issues of equal treatment and diversity and inclusion for all still trouble many companies. But here’s another way to look at the issue: The cultures that empower…
Read More Drive innovation and diversity— at the same time. Learn how!
Join me and SHRM of Greater Phoenix on Feb 19th for my informative Lunch & Learn on recruiting hacks that will enable you to hire high performing employees faster, build your employer brand, save time, and cut costs. Register today!
During annual workforce planning, Scott Ward, the President of Medtronic Vascular, used to say, “Hire some more mavericks. They don’t always fit in, but we need them for innovation.” He defined mavericks as the technical people who were dedicated to…
An executive team asked me about the company’s need to cut overhead costs and invest more money in R&D. “Why not switch to a flexible work environment?” I suggested. Many companies find that 25 percent to 45 percent of the…
The Glassdoor Best-Place-to-Work list saw a fall of High-Tech companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Apple, while Amazon didn’t even make the list! The ranking of these High-Tech firms fell for different reasons but data privacy scandals and and falling…
Read More How Companies Become a ‘Best Place to Work’ is Changing…
I remember being promoted to my first leadership position early in my career and thinking about how I was going to set the world on fire. Slowly, I began to realize that the role of the manager, being the leader…
Read More Newly promoted to manager? Your learning has just begun…
Check out my podcast episode with @workology discussing How to Create a Strategic Recruiting Process and Plan. Listen now. Podcast Description by Jessica Miller-Merrell of Workology Victor shares why it’s a critical point for HR and recruitment. He says that…
Background checks are essential for employers to uncover resume lies or misrepresentations and to avoid the cost of a bad hire. Companies have other dependable options to ensure they are hiring qualified, high performing job candidates. Over the next five…
Read More Lies on resumes are at an all-time high. Learn how to get to the truth.
“Hack Recruiting” makes a perfect gift for recruiters and hiring managers. It has received outstanding reviews and 5-star ratings on Amazon. Order it online on Cyber Monday from Amazon, Archway Publishing, or Barnes and Noble. and now The SHRMStore. Email me for discounts…
Read More “Hack Recruiting” makes a perfect gift for recruiters and hiring managers!
Charles Schwab said, "The way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement." Oprah Winfrey said, "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't…
Read More Gratitude will do yourself, workforce and productivity a lot of good.
Luck is never enough. Instead, double your hiring success by using effective interviewing techniques, validated assessments, and reference and background checks. If you believe that it sounds like a lot of work and money, it is cheaper than the cost…
Read More If you depend on gut feel while interviewing, you are relying on dumb luck.
When buying HR technology, know what you want, have great questions, and follow the 80/20 rule. Learn more and the future of HR technology by watching my "Hack Recruiting and HR" podcast with serial entrepreneur and CEO of Place Technology,…
With 200,000 US veterans leaving the military and entering the civilian job market every year, a smart recruiting strategy includes finding and attracting veterans for your roles. In addition, companies can earn a tax credit of $5,600 for hiring veterans…
You will find valuable insights from my new video podcast series, "Ha
