I had a great time talking to Bryan Wempen at DriveThru HR today about social media - how we use it at Kronos, and what we've learned in the last 5 years that may be useful to newer adopters.  You can listen to a replay of the broadcast here.

Bryan and I focused largely on the benefits of social media and the best ways to balance employee participation with organizational risk.  In our case, that has meant having clear communications guidelines as part of our corporate code of conduct that help guide Kronos employees who blog, tweet, facebook, pinterest, or otherwise talk about Kronos online.  There's some additional good advice on mitigating risk associated with social media in this blog post as well.

And please continue to read this blog and help me find a cure for Alzheimers!

Today's guest blog post is by Peggy Walton, Senior Director of Workforce Readiness at Corporate Voices for Working Families.  Corporate Voices advocates for family-friendly policies for low income workers.  Kronos is a Corporate Voices partner organization, as are a number of our clients.

At a time when national leaders are looking to America's 1,200 community colleges to help fuel an economic transformation, a new report from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) spotlights both great opportunities and serious challenges ahead. Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation's Future details community college "student success rates that are unacceptably low, employment preparation that is inadequately connected to job-market needs, and disconnections in transitions between high schools, community colleges, and baccalaureate institutions."  Considering the national imperative to add 20 million post-secondary educated workers over the next 15 years, these are serious indictments for higher education institutions tasked with preparing a globally competitive workforce and ones to which employers look for the next generation of talent.  As stated by John-Anthony Meza, Vice President for Workforce Readiness at Corporate Voices and advisory board member at the Workforce Institute at Kronos in their latest book, Elements of Successful Organizations, “Not enough young people are attending college, and those that do are not learning what they need to succeed after graduation”.

Corporate Voices for Working Families commends AACC and its 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges for recommending a new vision for America's community colleges.  Our corporate members share the commitment to "Reclaiming the American Dream". U.S. employers have much at stake in the success of community colleges and the students they are educating for the workforce of tomorrow. Moreover, employers can–indeed, must–be a part of the solution, by helping to ensure that college coursework aligns with the knowledge and skills they require of their new employees, and by helping working students juggle the demands of school and their job.

As part of its “Learn and Earn” micro business case study series, Corporate Voices has documented a range of best practice talent development partnerships between businesses and education providers - frequently community colleges.  These models help bridge the skills gap for employers, while encouraging and/or supporting current and future employees' attainment of post-secondary credentials with labor market value - the most significant benchmark for achieving economic sustainability. Learn and Earn partnerships provide a real return for these leading companies.

For example, the Western Association of Food Chains, a non-profit business organization of over 40 retail grocers, including large corporations such as Kroger, Safeway and SuperValu/Albertsons, as well as a number of regional companies and independent stores established the Retail Management Certificate Program with 135 community college partners in 10 western states.  This certificate program provides these employers with a more educated and high-performing workforce, and helps establish a defined career pathway aligned with educational attainment.

Education-and-business partnerships like this one create models for ways in which community colleges can meet student success targets in connection with their labor markets.  This was highlighted in the Institute's Elements of Successful Organizations book in the chapter Business and Education Partnerships: Creating Pathways to Employment.  Moreover, Corporate Voices' publication, Business and Community College Partnerships: A Blueprint, is a tool that helps guide the formation of these partnerships.

Corporate Voices agrees with AACC President and CEO, Walter Bumphus, who acknowledges that individual colleges have demonstrated success, but said, "We haven't done a [great] job of replicating these practices across the country."  Corporate Voices and its employer members stand ready to join community colleges to replicate best practices like Learn and Earn, and support this initiative to “Reclaim the American Dream.”

I took my mother (pictured here) to work with me once in 1992 - in Hong Kong.  She of the double major in Chemistry and German stayed home with my siblings and me, a product of her generation.  She struggled mightily with my decision to go back to work after my daughter was born in 1988.  I took her on that trip to Hong Kong so we could have an adventure together, but the outcome was much more important than that for both of us.

During that trip, I was leading an international team of consultants on a training mission around the world.  My mother sat in on one of the sessions that I taught.  That night, six years after the birth of my daughter, she told me that although she'd doubted my decision to be a working mother, she'd decided that day that I'd done the right thing.  She told me that she'd never had the experience of having a roomful of adults pay attention to what she had to say, and that I'd be nuts to ever give that up.

I wrote here 4 years ago about whether Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day is still relevant.  Four years later, this program is even more generously supported here at Kronos, with a day of fun and educational activities for the many kids who attend.  You can even follow today's events at Kronos on Facebook.

In response to my original musings a few years ago, my daughter (now 24) posted the following comment:

As my mother mentioned, I'm not necessarily looking to go into her profession, nor is my brother; and we have both spent days at our parents' offices where nothing more happened than we sat quietly and did homework while they carried out their normal business. The most important part of any TYCHWD is not exposure or inspiration, but something several others have mentioned: bonding. Just because I may not have gotten the clearest idea of what my mother did each day, it doesn't mean that I didn't get something out of TYCHWD. If anything, the plugged-in, on-the-go, never-stop world we live in requires more things like TYCHWD, because honestly, we kids will take what time we can get.

In the balance, Mum, there were trade offs.

The following guest blog post from our board member John Hollon at TLNT follows up on an earlier post he wrote here about the rise in social media as a recruiting tool.  We've seen a continuing rise  in recruiter interest in leveraging social media as a means of identifying and assessing candidates.  John's post below serves as a reminder to job seekers that managing their reputations online is the first step to getting a foot in the door.

When it comes to screening potential job candidates on social media, well, it's a wonder that anyone ever gets hired at all.

We've all heard the warnings from managers to be careful about what you post on Facebook or elsewhere online, but for all the talk and warnings about how something embarrassing there can really hurt your job prospects, a lot of people still don't seem to have gotten the message.

That's how I read these latest survey results from CareerBuilder, anyway. In the middle of a generally upbeat report that notes that nearly two in five (37 percent) companies “use social network sites to research job candidates,” it also said that 35 percent of those same hiring managers “have found information that has caused them not to hire a candidate.”

What these hiring managers found, in general, is not surprising. According to CareerBuilder, it “ranges from evidence of inappropriate behavior to information that contradicted their listed qualifications.”

No, none of that is a big shock, but what jumped out at me were the specific types of information these hiring managers came across. For example:

Oh, and another 35 percent were found to have poor communication skills - but in light of the other information, that's the least of their problems..

"Job seekers should be mindful of what potential employers can learn about them online," said Rosemary Haefner, the vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "If you choose to leave social media content public, tailor the message to your advantage. Filter out anything that can tarnish your professional reputation and post communications, links and photos that portray you in the best possible light."

That's great advice as far as it goes, but I wonder: are the people who most need to be concerned about this even listening?

I ask because this notion of being careful with your online persona has been around for a long time - at least as long as people have been using social media, if not longer - and this survey found that still nearly half of the candidates hiring managers check out online have inappropriate photos posted out there.

Yes, a lot of people aren't very careful in what they post about themselves, and all this does is make it all that much easier for recruiters and managers to eliminate them from the candidate pool.
Hiring is a crap shoot in the best of circumstances, as my friend Laurie Ruettimann wrote last year in her The Cynical Girl blog:

“There are myriad reasons why people get hired. We often choose the prettiest, tallest, whitest, most masculine, most boobalicious, most feminine candidate for the role. (And sometimes those people are the most qualified, too.) We claim that the hiring process is scientific, but in most cases, managers make decisions based on their gut."

I happen to agree with Laurie's assessment here, but it leads to another question: if so much of hiring comes down to a manager and their gut feeling, why do so many potential candidates mindlessly post something inappropriate on Facebook or some other social media site that kills their chances before a hiring manager can even get a good look at them?

That's what I take away from this CareerBuilder survey. If you want to get hired, you need to play it smart - and playing it smart means being careful about your online image. And if you're counseling would-be job seekers, you need to pound that message into their heads.

In fact, just playing it cool on social media increases a person's odds by nearly 50 percent because they won't be one of the ones that are posting “provocative/inappropriate photos and/or information” online.

Those are odds I'd be happy with in Las Vegas - and the return is a lot better, too.

And speaking of reputation management, don't forget you can help me earn a contribution to the Alzheimer's Association by visiting this blog every time we post!

Steve Miggo, SVP Operations and Human Resources at Safelite AutoGlass

The title of this post is a quote from my recent conversation with Steve Miggo, SVP of Operations and Human Resources at Safelite AutoGlass.  I heard Safelite CEO Tom Feeney speak at the Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco, and was very impressed with the investment he's made in the development of their frontline workforce, an investment he credits with a significant improvement in their financial results.  I asked him if he'd be willing to share their story with the Workforce Institute, and he connected me with Steve.

Steve reiterated one of Tom's key themes - that "our service is our brand and our company".  Safelite walks that talk by ensuring that those in their frontline workforce have the training, skills, & support they need to deliver a great customer experience.  They recognize and reward the delivery of superior customer service - including that delivered by employees who are not customer facing, but whose efforts support those who are.

Steve's quote that leads this post was his response to my question about what is the most important thing a company can do to ensure they have successful frontline employees.  His answer was trust, specifically that leaders need to not only communicate the company values clearly, but demonstrate those values consistently.  He went on to say that leaders need to have the courage to call out managers who make their financial plans but don't exemplify Safelite's corporate values if frontline workers are going to take the values seriously.

Steve shared a number of the training and development techniques that Safelite employs during our conversation.  You can listen in here to learn more about the secrets to their success: Discussion with Steve Miggo of Safelite AutoGlass.

I'm pleased to add that Safelite is a Kronos customer whose feedback to us via our customer surveys indicates that we're providing them with the experience they expect from us.

The following guest blog post is from our board member, David Creelman.  He is a member of the SHRM Metrics and Measures Taskforce and introduces their draft recommendation for standard HCM metrics below.

An ANSI standard on what human capital information to report to investors has been released for public consultation by the Metrics and Measures Taskforce at SHRM.

The long-run impact of this will be to focus the attention of executive teams, boards and investors on evaluating human capital factors. The proposed standard is a starting point, not an end point. It provides a common, concrete place to begin the conversation on human capital and it grounds that conversation in metrics.  I, of course, am utterly biased as I was one of the leaders of the taskforce.

To stay in the loop you can join the Human Capital Investor Metrics group on LinkedIn.  If you'd like to learn more, you can purchase a pre-release ebook version of a guidebook explaining the standard here.  Or if you have questions just email me dcreelman@creelmanresearch.com

There are (at least) two things that I care deeply about - finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease and winning.  On both counts, I get that from my father, pictured here.  In his 81 years, he's built a successful business, enjoyed a 61-year relationship with my late mother, and raised my two siblings and me.  He was relentless in the pursuit of his objectives - from announcing he'd marry my mother the night he met her to selling his frozen fish business to a Fortune 50 company.  There was literally nothing he wouldn't do to support us kids - whether that support took the form of a kick in the pants when we needed it or advocacy when progress was beyond our personal capabilities.

The one battle he can't win is against Alzheimer's Disease.  Since his diagnosis in 2009, his world has become progressively limited as his cognitive abilities have shrunk and he's lost the ability to manage even the most fundamental activities of daily living.  The superb storyteller has no recollection of stories he's told hundreds of times.  The canny business leader can no longer read his beloved Wall Street Journal.  And the loving father and grandfather is nearing the point where he won't remember who we are.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease and more than 15 million Americans provide unpaid care valued at $210 billion for persons with Alzheimer's and other dementias.  It would be surprising if anyone reading this blog post hasn't been touched by this terrible disease.

You can help fight this disease by helping me earn a Kronos contribution to the Alzheimer's Association.  Kronos is sponsoring a contest among those of us who blog here.  The winner, measured by an increase in visitors to our blogs between now and Memorial Day,  will receive $200 to donate to the charity of his or her choice.  I'll do Kronos one better.  If I win, I'll donate an additional $1000 to the Alzheimer's Association.

To help me win, please subscribe to this blog, read each new post, and encourage your friends to do the same.  And if you're feeling extra generous, consider a contribution of your own to fight Alzheimer's Disease.

I'm having an adventure.  I should say, WE, are having an adventure.  Dennis and I, in the full throes of empty nest syndrome, are restless about what comes next.  The good news is that we still enjoy each others' company and are excited about the next chapter of our lives.

Which is where things start to get confusing.  Having worked for the past three decades to afford a home, a family, and two NYU diplomas, we find ourselves without a concrete vision for what comes next.

So, we started to talk about moving back to Boston - where we both lived at the time we met.  Those years between college and settling down were fun for both us, but we didn't know each other then.  Twenty-seven years ago, we met, married and moved to a very small town within a few months.  We never shared an urban adventure, and so we started looking at condos in the city of Boston - big bucks, little spaces, but a level of energy that's hard to match out on the tombolo.

And we started to talk about timing for retirement - a milestone that's seemed like a fantasy for so long it's hard to imagine it will be reality within a decade or less.  We've done the financial planning, we just haven't crafted the vision for how we spend our days.  I've written about my great fortune in matters matrimonial before.  One of the reasons our marriage works is that Dennis is good at soaring vision, while I'm good at project planning and management.  Between the two of us, we generate a lot of forward momentum.

Which brings us back to the question of moving - or not.  We came to realize we weren't ready to leave the tombolo, but decided that didn't need to stand in the way of an urban adventure.  We moved into a condo in Boston for two months to test our resolve while we get some work done on our house.   Leveraging a lot of years of change management experience, we're  "piloting" a different way of living without abandoning the foundation we've already built.

In life, just as in work, half the battle is just getting started.  Stay tuned.

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