An organization’s talent is potentially its most valuable asset. But this statement is only true if the workforce is made up of the right people, with the right knowledge/skills and the right motivation. In addition, it must be managed effectively. The talent management strategy provides a framework for creating the right talent pool. Staffing and … Continue reading Aligning Talent Management Strategy With Organizational Strategy

When research informs us that a practice is not viable it would be expected that organizations would avoid relying on it. Yet one on one unstructured interviews continue to be the most widely used basis for selecting new hires from groups of candidates. Since research has shown that the practice has virtually no validity or reliability there … Continue reading One On One Unstructured Interviews: A Flawed Selection Tool

The title of my third book, published in 2018. is “The Most Important Asset: Valuing Human Capital.” Although I believe what that title suggests it does not mean other assets are not critical. Financial, customer and technological capital are the vehicles through which people work to achieve organizational objectives. Of late there seems to be a belief that … Continue reading Managing The Human – Technology Interface

Economists are divided about the direction the current economic environment will take over the next few years. The last five years have been prosperous for many organizations, domestic and global. But compensation levels have not increased rapidly, despite very low unemployment rates. During recent years the rate at which pay levels have increased has been very low compared … Continue reading Rewarding Performance With A Limited Budget

A recent post on LinkedIn discussed the reasons Publix was cited as the best place to work among very large companies. Having had dialogue with HR executives from Publix I sense a considerable amount of pride they feel when they tell people where they work. And since the award was the result of random polling of employees, … Continue reading What Is This Thing Called Culture?

The technological advances in data analysis are presenting new opportunities for HR professionals to understand what causes what and to project what might happen in the future based on what has happened and is happening. But taking advantage of what technology offers is sometimes easier said than done. Most HR practitioners lack PhDs in quantitative methods. There is … Continue reading Did You Hear The One About The Data Scientist And The HR Professional?

There has been a lot of attention paid to the gender pay gap recently. If there is a gap caused by gender-based discrimination it should be remedied. The law of the land and a sense of fairness dictate that this should be done. Many who are skeptical about the magnitude of a gap believe numbers in the … Continue reading The Gender Pay Gap: How Large & Caused By What?

An organization is considering the adoption of a particular type of incentive plan to increase the motivation of its employees to extend their best efforts and to focus that effort on meeting organizational objectives. Using a data scientist the HR Director requests that research be performed that will predict the likelihood of success with a plan … Continue reading Replacing Human Judgment With AI: Danger Lurks

The work of Kahneman & Tversky on cognitive bias led to a Nobel Prize. It also provided us with a window into the inner workings of our mental processes. Whatever the cause our biases influence how we view things and make decisions. Knowing we are biased can help us pay attention to tendencies that may lower the quality … Continue reading We Are All Biased: Acknowledging That Can Help Moderate The Impact

We all have made recommendations based on sound evidence, only to find the decision-maker did not share our belief that it was the right thing to do. The human tendency is to push harder, emphasizing the evidence that supports the recommendation. But the behavioral scientist Kurt Lewin found that decreasing resistance was more effective than … Continue reading Overcoming Resistance To Sound Evidence-Based Recommendations