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For those of us that work in the area of HR, the two basic commodities that we deal in are jobs and people—our basic mission is fitting the right person to the right job and ensuring that we maximize their experience in the organization. The more successful we are at doing this, the more engaged and productive each individual will be, and this directly ties in with the performance and business success of the organization. This is easier said than done: the business world as we know it is highly dynamic and changing and becoming more and more complex each day. Various factors are responsible for this, including globalization, increasing workforce diversity, rapid evolution of businesses...

I have been reflecting about compensation practices in the West and how they have evolved. A very long time ago, people paid for output: bartering in kind or services. For example, a farmer used his crop as “currency” and might exchange a bushel of grain for some service he wished performed by someone. The practice of bartering continued for a long time, even after the advent of money. The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of the manufacturing era, and people began doing a specific job for a specific period of time every day. Large manufacturing facilities initially paid for piece work. Slowly, as the service industry gained prominence and manufacture became more complicated, it...

If we look back into the past, historically, we as human beings farmed or hunted or traded with our parents—we toiled alongside them in the fields, went with them and carried home the game together, or helped them load up the boat with goods to go to the trading post downriver. In the manufacturing world, we both often worked together in the same factory or on the same assembly line. The question I have is, in the context of today’s economic situation, how unusual would it be for a parent and their child to be competing for the same job that may be opening up in their city. While this may seem unusual from a human or historical perspective, I think this type of scenario would not...

Most of us are aware of the news over the last few days about the spurt in growth of the U.S. economy. This has created a sense of optimism that we are finally emerging from the recession, which is now being referred to as The Great Recession. There is presently a lot of confusion for everyone in the marketplace about how the immediate future is going to pan out. Is the recession really officially over? Are things going to get better? Is it going to be like the end of any other recession? When are the jobs coming back? Why do things still seem lousy? We must bear in mind the fact that historical data shows us that jobs take anywhere from nine to eighteen months to bottom out after a rece...

One of the things that I have noticed is that most leaders tend to be optimists. As I stop to reflect about this, it occurs to me that there’s a fairly simple reason for this—not many people would like to follow a negative person. So, if you aspire toward leadership, you are better off being an optimist and not a realist (as some pessimists like to dub themselves). Most leaders I know, in business as well as nonprofit and other organizations—tend to be fairly high on the optimism scale.

Clearly, the macroeconomic conditions have begun to improve. Most economists are talking about global growth definitely becoming a part of the 4th quarter of this year, if not the 3rd quarter. Next year could reach 2% global growth, and most economists are predicting that it could hit the long-term mean of 3%. There is, however, a very high degree of concern about the fact that unemployment continues to climb around the world, and in the U.S. it should hit double digits soon, seeing that it’s already at nine and a half percent. While we do see that unemployment is increasing, an interesting phenomenon taking place is that temp staffing hours are starting to flatten or climb a little bi...

The unemployment rate continues to climb. Now approaching 10% in the US, it is also increasing across Asia-Pacific and Europe. Numerous training programs have been set up in the US to help job-seeking people re-equip themselves for a new line of work after being laid off. Based on what I’ve seen and read (here’s a link to an article in the NY Times), these programs are not very helpful unless you already have a strong foundation in education. So, one of the lessons I’m hoping the recession is teaching us is that those of us in a position to acquire more education should definitely take advantage of it, especially those who have recently embarked on their careers, where the ...

Watching my daughters and other people in their twenties interact, I see that the majority of these interactions take place via electronic media such as twittering, Facebook, texting and chat rooms. These individuals need to understand that there is nothing that can replace meeting people and engaging them on a one-on-one or personal basis. Remember that there is a million years worth of genetic hardwiring in us as social animals which dictates the way we interact with our peers and other human beings. Five years of social media cannot overcome a million years worth of genetic code. So no matter how much you use these media, remember that nothing beats meeting a person live, face-to-face and...

As we continue to watch our careers and tap into this absolute mushrooming of social interactive media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, one of the thoughts I had is that the vast majority of people are simply like sheep in this environment—they are followers or passive readers, who are simply watching events unfold like they would be watching a movie or a TV show. The question is, how can you use these various social interactive media to enhance your career, to improve your service if you are in the service industry, improve your sales if you are in the sales industry, or help you find a job if you are looking for one? Some of the lessons I’ve learned while observing this...

One of the things I realized after discussions with various people at Brainstorm is that we, as a society, are consuming more television and more movies, we are playing more games, we are reading a lot more, and entertaining ourselves more on the computer via social networking sites and the like. While this is a fascinating fact, the question I have is: Where is that extra time coming from? Is it coming from family time, relationship time, sleep deprivation, less hours working though we spend more hours at work, or is it coming from multitasking? When I ask people this, the answer I generally get is that it’s coming from multitasking. So my question then becomes: what kind of experienc...