Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization Show

A caregiver crisis is growing at an alarming rate ... and we're not just talking about a lack of caregivers. Every day workers are forced to choose between being a good employee and being a good son, daughter, and parent. For some, it's a stress-filled, losing battle. Employees lose. Employers lose. Caregiving experts Jisella Dolan from Home Instead Senior Care and Zack Demopoulus, Raising 'Rents Podcast, discuss why employers must care and offer tips to create a Caregiver Friendly Workplace.

Technology, globalization, and shifting demographics are emasculating the traditional ways and means of recruitment. Are candidates instantly engaged? Did they find it easy to navigate the job listing and apply? To win the race for talent, digital marketing tools like eye-tracking and ethnographics are helping companies revolutionize the candidate experience. Alathea principal Maja Ninkovic reveals how data-driven recruitment is helping companies navigate HR disruption.

Listen to this podcast before using another pre-employment testing! Are pre-hire tests just junk marketing or based on predictive science? In this special episode of Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization, podcast host Ira S Wolfe switches roles with Jonathan Denn, Vistage Chair and author of Drumbeat Business Productivity Playbook, to chat about the myths, facts, and science surrounding pre-employment testing and the opportunity and challenges they present for businesses today.

Humor Engineer is not an oxymoron. It's a new role every worker should master, according to the first Humor Engineer and Humor That Works author Andrew (Drew) Tarvin. With 83% of Americans stressed at work and 70% disengaged, humor at work is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. Humor improves our productivity. It helps us get better results. It connects us with people. It might save you from losing your job to a machine! Listen now as @DrewTarvin shares the what and why of humor at work.

The recruitment process is a terrible experience for most job candidates beginning with job descriptions. Ongig co-founder Rob Kelly has a better idea. Imagine posting your next job listing using video, images, company reviews, chatbots, and even maps to engage more candidates and dramatically increase apply rates. Tune in and find out how to transform the boring, unreadable, gender biased job description into engaging, effective digital job ads that tell your company story and sell your jobs. Questions for Rob? Email: rob@ongig.com Website: www.ongig.com Blog: https://blog.ongig.com/ Twitter: @RobKellySF

Is your organization struggling with people problems? Then don't miss this episode of Geeks Geezers and Googlization. For 25 years, Human Resources has been fighting for respect, for the proverbial seat at the table. But management still views HR as the compliance cops, payroll administrators, and the department to avoid. Why? HR Strategist Ed Krow joined us for this podcast to discuss why HR continues to be its own worst enemy and recommends steps it can take to be not only seen, but heard and respected in the C-Suite. Changing the “cringe” perception when it comes to the thought of HR departments The general perception of HR departments can be summed up by what a conference go-er said to Ed after a speaking session. He spoke about how frustrated he was with HR, as it “made his life more difficult by offering little assistance and roadblocks at every turn.” It’s this common and often all too accurate perception of HR that limits the reach of HR’s voice when it comes to their company’s C-Suite. If HR truly wants to make the changes that will turn the tide on this reality and gain a seat at the table, they’re going to have to wake up to the progressive HR movement that is happening. HR needs to be on the train of the current progressive HR movement, or they’re going to get left behind. It's time to be proactive and offer solutions to internal problems. As Ed states, “Business owners don’t want to hear about problems. They want to hear about solutions.” HR should be so much more than a hiring, firing, and “necessary evil” department to CEOs. For those ready to disrupt HR, arm yourself with the knowledge of today’s ever-changing technology, notice the problems within your organization, and come up with solutions that propel your company towards success. One of the most important things to remember is the position of the CFO and CEO and what they truly care about. What is it they want to hear? Once you walk outside the doors of HR, turnover rates and hiring processes are not the topics that turn the heads of CEOs and CFO’s. What’s going to make HR stand out is when they’re able to identify how turnover directly affects their company, create innovative solutions to reduce these ill effects, and then show the higher-ups the fiscal result from these actions and how their creative problem-solving benefited the company as a whole. These are the conversations that will allow the voice of Human Resource Departments to be heard and give them a seat at the table that’s noticed. Questions for Ed? Website: https://www.edkrow.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edkrow/ Twitter: @EdKrowHR  

Jeff Gothelf, author of "Sense and Respond," shared his favorite stat - Amazon releases new software updates every 11.6 seconds - during this episode of Geeks Geezers and Googlization. Amazon and companies like Netflix set the new consumer standard for service. Human Resources (HR), however, responds with an industrial age approach, built for a completely different time and pace of operations. To win the race for talent, HR must embrace change and be agile to survive a world of unknown unknowns.

Are you a "technology refugee? HR evangelist Enrique Rubio stopped by this week's Geeks Geezers Googlization show to chat about his article "Do humans have room in the future of work?" We wasted no time diving into a conversation about the future of HR, how we must bring HR up to speed, and how technology is racing forward faster than we can keep up. Enrique shared his vision for Hacking HR: to build a global community where HR, business, and technology leaders help make HR better then ever. Connect with Enrique LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubioenrique/ Twitter @erubio_p Hacking HR  https://hackinghr.io/

People analytics is consistently one of the top 2 trends in HR today (the other being candidate experience), but despite the fact that more than 70% of CEOs identify human capital as a key source of competitive advantage (IBM), only 5% invest in big data (TATA). And while 70% of companies intend to increase automation, only one-third use People Analytics to determine the impact on performance outcomes! That's why we're grateful that Reed Shaffner, Cornerstone OnDemand's VP of Product Strategy, agreed to stop by the Geeks Geezers and Googlization Show to talk about the Future of People Analytics. In another fast paced show, Reed shared best practices for getting started, even if you're a small business, and how many organizations are using analytics to solve business problems associated with turnover, retention, pay equity, and skill gaps.  People Analytics - A new venture for most HR departments, it refers to the information that companies use to make decisions regarding their employees and workforce. When the right questions and strategies are in place, the information collected through people analytics can allow companies to prepare for the future, move the right employees to the right positions, and make overall better decisions for the company as a whole. On the hiring end, predictive analytics through people analytics helps recruiters see if applicants could be a good fit for the company. Internally, these analytics are a great way to show which pay structures are working for employee performance and if pay is equal and fair across the board. Reed gave us a great example on the show of analytics at work when it comes to salaries and pay structures. When Google came out with their pay equality announcement, they were able to do so because of the analytics used to detect areas where they were underpaying women or minorities. A similar case was Amazon, who realized that the algorithm in their system was causing inequality within pay scales. People analytics is not only showing where areas of improvement are within these giant tech companies, it’s also giving them a chance to accept responsibility and change things within their company for the better. So, when it comes to implementing people analytics in a way that works just as well as the above example, where should you start? Reed keeps it simple and to the point with this question, “Are you collecting the right data in the first place?” The answer is quite basic and gets to the root of why you would want to use analytics in the first place. “Pick one or two focused questions that you, as a company, really want answered.” Figuring out what these two questions are will obviously differ for every organization depending on the size and niche of the company. However, if you want to gather quality data that is actually useful, you have to start by answering this question first. Once you start asking the right questions, other benefits of people analytics start coming through the pipeline- analytics that answer questions such as,  “How do I invest in the right people, get them to stay with the company, and also predict roles that might open up in the future?” So, once you have the right questions in place, and the right data coming through, how should you go about analyzing it in a way that is useful for the company? There are a few things that need to be in place for “successful analytics” to happen. Make sure the right people have access to the data: Does everyone need access? No, but you bet that the HR, Recruitment, and Front End Management departments certainly should! Analytics is a partnership between groups such as these, and keeping communication between these departments open is a huge must when it comes to aggregating the right data. For some companies, hiring a data scientist can be a great investment. Reed warns companies to do their research and not hire just anyone who says they have a magical fix for deciphering data. You want someone tested, skilled, and able to go through the company’s data to decipher the right information. At the end of the day, people data is business data. If you want to set your business up for success, whether you’re a titan of industry or a small business with less than 200 employees, people analytics is certainly key when it comes to the future of work.

First of all, before I jump into this week's Geeks Geezers and Googlization podcast about the evolution of L&D (learning and development), who would ever think that content creation would be associated with Human Resources? For the record ...when I'm talking about content, I'm not talking traditional HR paperwork!  But just as a recruiter is now a marketer, human resources and microleanring go together like two peas in a pod. As the race for talent heats up, winning companies are focused on training employees. The emergence of microlearning is on. AI and video are fueling a revolution. But can it solve the shortage of skilled workers? Grab a drink, sit back, and get ready to learn about the future of learning at work. There is mounting pressure to train both new hires and current employees faster.  It's created a shift in the way companies source, build, curate and deliver the right content at the right time. With technologies like AI and video fueling a revolution, microlearning has evolved from a buzzword to workforce development solution.  And who better to help us understand what's happening in learning and development than Dr. Summer Salomonsen, head of Content Studios at Cornerstone OnDemand? What is microlearning? It's no longer the 8 hour classroom workshops of yesteryear nor the Powerpoint presentations of a decade ago. Organizations are longer confident that the information presented by trainers as they click through bullet points slide-by-slide is sinking in and making a difference. Instead microlearning is an approach to learning development that experts like Dr. Summer Salomonsen and the team at Cornerstone do incredibly well. While microlearning is not an entirely new idea in and of itself, it is, by definition, a way to describe how the average human brain learns. It’s this learning process that Dr. Salomonsen uses to stir up a new generation of workplace engagement in learning. As much as microlearning has advanced the cause, it’s also true that L&D in general is being told to step up their game. With the current workforce inundated by Millenials and Gen Z, the learning audience of today can “sniff out sub-par content in 7 seconds flat.” For strategic learning to take place and be effective, the content has to be top of the line, to the point, and seamless. As much as microlearning best practices have advanced, Dr. Salomonsen points out that learning is not a construct but a concept. We are always learning, day in and day out, task by task, micro-bit in time by micro-bit in time. Those all day workshops that we used to send employees off to are increasingly ineffective and mind-numbing. On Cornerstone’s end, the embodiment of microlearning comes in the form of mixed media, auditory snippets, and learner videos (just to name a few - think TED and TEDx Talks!). They focus what problems need to be solved right now within their learning programs so that employees have a sense of relief and a gratefulness for the information that is being delivered to them. Going a little deeper in our discussion with Dr. Summer and our focus on the future of work, it was inevitable that the subject of AR and VR would come up. While it’s currently getting a bit of use within response training, manufacturing as well as hospital type simulations, is it something we should expect to see on the horizon for HR? As we discuss in the show, it's not quite there yet.  One reason is the investment required for the technology and the cost of developing content for virtual reality. "It’s important to remember that it’s just tech but tech like this  continues to push our industry forward," said Salomonsen. Ways to contact Dr. Summer Salomonsen? LinkedIn Cornerstone OnDemand