HR Happy Hour Network

HR Happy Hour - Episode 66 - 'Wrestling with Wellness' Thursday September 23, 2010 - 8PM ET Subtitle - 'It is quite possible you are too fat to work here'. You can't swing a cat around the office these days without coming up against some corporate wellness type initiatives. Whether it is Sally in Accounting handing you a pedometer, a company sponsored Weight Watchers meeting (oddly they are always at lunch time), or the benefits team trying to convince, cajole, or badger you into quitting smoking, twinkies, or sitting on your butt all week. Wellness in the workplace is a fact of life for many of us now, and for the folks in the organization responsible for keeping the company's benefits costs under control, it is really a serious matter. But wellness at work is kind of a contradictory concept. We want folks to work like dogs, put in extra hours, fuel up on caffeine to keep going, and often engage in lots of behaviors that are not all the 'well'. And the idea of an employer monitoring your habits, diet, and really personal affairs does not sit well with many employees. And the last thing we want is for the company or employees to turn into the diet police at work. But health care costs spiral out of control, and orgs can't continue to bear these increases (and neither can employees). So where is the happy medium between 'big brother' monitoring and thoughtful, successful, and enlightened wellness programs. I am not sure, so this week Fran Melmed, Tanya Barham, and Greg Mathews will join us on the show to wrestle with wellness. I hope you can join us.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 65 - 'Tomorrow's HR Today' Thursday September 16, 2010 8PM EDT The future is a funny thing, no matter how much we seem to worry, prepare, and plan, it always kind of sneaks up on us, and before we know it, Bam!- it's smacking us upside the head. Perhaps it's because inside organizations and as leaders and HR professionals we get caught up in the day to day, burdened or even overwhelmed by outdated processes, tired information systems, and rigid, inflexible structures and hierarchies that may have served a noble purpose in the past, but now seem to keep us stuck and unable to do the important and interesting work we know we are capable of. We know we have to get smarter, more nimble, and better able to react to changing conditions in the external marketplace, as well as in the management of organizational information and unleashing of internal talent. It would be hard to argue those points, and while we know them to be true, the trick is how to go about making the changes needed, and as leaders and HR professionals how to raise our games to deliver on these objectives. Better technology, more business-savvy HR teams, and deeper understanding of how to tie employee efforts with personal and organizational goals - those are some of the keys to unlocking the future, and they will be what we will discuss this week on the show with our special guests Leighanne Levensaler, Vice President of HCM Strategy at Workday, and Jennifer Fitzpatrick, Director HR & Talent Management at Chiquita Brands International. Leighanne and Jennifer not only know the talk, but they know how to deliver, and they will share their insights and expertise to help you understand how to enable 'Tomorrow's HR Today'. I hope you can join us.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 64 - 'Ask a Manager' Thursday September 9, 2010 - 8PM EDT Ever have a problem at work that needed solving, and you didn't have just the right person to turn to? Your peers probably don't have the expertise and insight (and besides who knows if they'd just stab you in the back anyway), you can't go to your manager (since often the problem is about them), and requests for help to your friends on Facebook fail you, since most people are too busy with Farmville to spend time on your problems. So what do you do? You 'Ask a Manager!' That's right - Alison Green, the creator and author of the popular 'Ask a Manager' blog will be our guest this week, taking your (and her readers) most pressing questions about careers, the workplace, and dealing with their own managers. You can even call in your questions live at 646-378-1086 to get your tough questions answered live. I hope you can join us for what should be a fun and interesting show.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 63 - 'The HR Tech Conference Preview' Thursday September 2, 2010 - 8PM EDT One of the biggest and most important events on the HR industry conference calendar is the Annual HR Technology Conference, being held once again in Chicago from September 29 - October 1. Joining us on the show, and making his first appearance on the HR Happy Hour, will be the legendary Bill Kutik, the Conference Co-Chair, and the driving force behind the growth and success of the event. Bill is also considered the leading independent analyst of the HR technology marketplace with specialties in HCM, Recruiting, Talent Management and social networking, in addition to being described as 'The Most Interesting Man in HR'. Bill will share his thoughts on the event, the importance of technology to the HR and business leaders, some insights into the rapidly changing HR Technology market, and perhaps even some great tales from his early journalism days. I hope you can join us this week as we talk HR Technology with the Godfather, the great Bill Kutik.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 62 - 'Leadership and Engagement' August 31, 2010 - 1:00 PM EDT This is the second of our special HR Happy Hour shows live from the HR Florida Conference in Orlando, Florida. Joining us on the show will be Cathy Martin in her first ever appearance on the HR Happy Hour show. We will talk the about the important issue of employee engagement and the importance of leadership to help drive engagement, and align engagement development activities to organizational strategy. Cathy will help us all learn how to make the critical connection between engagement and success in the organization. Also, the great crew from Voice of HR and New Media Services will join the fun - that's Mark Stelzner and Laurie Ruettimann in case you have been sleeping. I hope you can join us for a special day time edition of the HR Happy Hour - live from HR Florida.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 61- 'The World According to Tincup' Monday August 30, 2010 - 1:00 PM EDT The first of our special HR Happy Hour shows live from the HR Florida Conference in Orlando, Florida. Joining us on the show will be the man, the myth, the legend William Tincup for his first ever appearance on the HR Happy Hour show. We will talk the HR and HCM market, how HR pros can sort through all the messaging to make the best decisions about products and services, and why most HR service providers market in a style suitable for the 1950's. Also, the great crew from Voice of HR and New Media Services will join the fun - that's Mark Stelzner and Laurie Ruettimann in case you have been sleeping. I hope you can join us for a special day time edition of the HR Happy Hour - live from HR Florida.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 60 - 'Seiden Says' Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 8PM EDT This week the great Jason Seiden takes the reigns, guest hosting a special episode of HR Happy Hour. Jason is the author of 'How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What's Left of Your Career'; and 'Super Staying Power: What You Need to Become Valuable and Resilient at Work', as well as a speaker, consultant, swami, guru, svengali - you get the idea. Jason will take your calls and offer his own unique perspective on career management, navigating the complex world of the modern organization, and how failure is not only an option, it is an essential part of the journey. Please join us for this special episode, where we hand the keys to the HR Happy Hour over to Jason Seiden, for 'Seiden Says'.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 59 - 'About Your Performance Review' Thursday, August 19, 2010 - 8PM EDT So let's talk about your performance this past year. I think you did do an overall excellent job, and you are a valuable resource to the team, but I am under pressure from HR not to give out too many 4's and 5's, so I have to give you a 3. Don't worry, you are still well thought of in the organization, and since we are looking to hold the line on annual salary increases, the ratings this year are not all that important. Any questions? Great, just sign and initial on the last page. How about those (choose from among) Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, Dodgers? Sound familiar? A little cynical? Only happens in 'bad' companies? Maybe. This week on the HR Happy Hour show we take on, and I mean take on, one of the sacred cows in HR and management practice. The annual performance review. Who among us actually looks forward to giving or receiving these? Why are they so dysfunctional, one-sided, and in many organizations, kind of meaningless? Our guest this week, Professor Samuel Culbert, author of 'Get Rid of the Performance Review!' argues that they need to be scrapped once and for all. That they do not serve any useful purpose, and actually degrade morale, performance, and results. You might agree, you might disagree, but you have to join us this week to really make up your mind. Yes, we want to talk to you this week 'About Your Performance Review'. We promise it won't be too painful.

HR Happy Hour - Episode 58 - 'Job Boards and the Future' Thursday August 12, 2010 8PM EDT So much has changed in the world of work and recruiting in the last five years. Global recession, rising unemployment in many countries, the maturation of social networks as a viable platform for job advertising and candidate sourcing, and oh yeah, an every three month or so prediction from someone that 'the big job boards are dead'. Despite all the turmoil and change, the big job boards are still around, and most of them are not simply sitting still, rather they have come to realize that innovation, adaptation, and flexibility are absolute requirements for survival in a world of reduced hiring, shrinking HR budgets, and the increasingly popular notion in many companies that big job boards are no longer needed, when direct access to candidates via social networks has never been easier. This week on the HR Happy Hour show we welcome Tom Silver, SVP of Dice.com, the leading job board for IT and other technical positions. You would be hard pressed to find an experienced IT worker that has not spent significant time in the last 10 years trolling Dice. Tom will share with us his insights on the world of the big job board today, what Dice.com sees as the major challenges in recruiting highly skilled workers today, and some of the new products and services Dice is rolling out in response to the dawn of social recruiting. An insider's view into the big job board scene - it should be an interesting show and I hope you can join us.

HR Happy Hour - Episode - 'Exceeds Expectations with Sonar6' Thursday August 5, 2010 8PM EDT The words 'performance review' and 'suck' are so often in the same sentence that it really is not all that surprising to find that the vast majority of managers and employees look at the annual performance review with at best, trepidation, and at worst, dread. I mean, performance reviews suck, right? Well a few years ago a software company called Sonar6 was formed, and understanding the baseline assumption that performance reviews suck, set out to build a solution that would (gasp) actually make performance reviews and performance management, interesting, engaging, and assuredly not 'sucky'. Sonar6 makes some of the most innovative solutions for performance management and succession planning that you perhaps have never seen, (but you need to). They also have a fun and offbeat approach to marketing and communications that is a refreshing change of pace from the mainstream. I mean for a small company from New Zealand to make a name for itself in the crowded HCM space, you have to think differently, right? Joining us on the show will be Mike Carden, Co-founder of Sonar6 to share their unique story, their approach to performance management, and why more companies aren't as cool as they are. I hope you can join us for 'Exceeds Expectations with Sonar6'