Carnival of Human Resources - #6

Welcome to the 6th Carnival of Human Resources. Word has gotten out about our roller coaster ride into HR, training, organization development, the human side of business, and other related blog posts. The next Carnival will be May 16th and is hosted by Carmen Van Kerckhove at Race in the Workplace. Please submit your blog posts for the next Carnival to: team at raceintheworkplace dot com, with "carnival" in the subject line, so your submission isn't missed. One submission per blogger, please.

• First up is The Evil HR Lady, who originated this HR Carnival, and writes Pleas Chek Yur Spellin to answer a reader’s question about an unprofessional approach to annual policy review. I've been known to bypass resumes with spelling errors. How about you?

• Carmen Van Kerckhove at Race in the Workplace, who is hosting the next HR Carnival, presents Promoting Diversity in American Classical Music by Adina Ba who interviews Aaron Dworkin, the founder and president of the Sphinx Organization, a national non-profit founded to overcome the dramatic racial inequalities in the field of classical music. Tips for teachers, too.

• Jennifer Britton at Business Toolkit presents Interviewing 101 - Part II with interview tips for employers including the advice to provide a clear picture for the candidate about the next steps in the application process.

• Wally Bock at Three Star Leadership Blog in A War for Talent Mindset May Be Hazardous to Your Results says that evidence suggests that instead of waging a war for talent, you need to hire good people that fit your culture and pay attention to the three important keys he recommends for your success.

• Gautam Ghosh at A Management Consultant’s Blog in The Mythical Attrition Numbers shows us that since the attrition number is a percentage, an organization has ample scope to do some creative statistics and number crunching with it. Go figure. (Grin)

• Editor - Dave Prouhet, at Business Advice Daily, presents Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace - What to Do by Percy Menzies. Think drugs and alcohol won’t happen to you and your business? Think again - almost 18 percent of your employees have issues with addiction. As a business owner, you need to be informed about your options.

• Jack Yoest, at Reasoned Audacity, presents How To Cut The Federal Budget at a Government Agency by Lurita Alexis Doan. Why is Congressman Henry A. Waxman (D-CA.) so unhappy with Lurita Alexis Doan, head of the General Services Administration? She is comfortable with the intense blood sport that passes for politics and discusses her management style and her goals in government.

• George Lenard at George's Employment Blawg presents What Millennials (Generation Y) Want Out of Work by Alexandra Levit who has some terrific tips about what millennial employees want from work, from their boss, and from their companies.

• Deb Owen at 8 hours & A Lunch serves up Truth in Advertising (or How to Succeed in Recruiting Without Really Lying). Trust in one’s boss is a major factor in a person’s decision to stay with or leave a company. So why do we start our relationships with our potential employees by lying to them?

• Annmarie Edwards, at Online Workforce Training, presents The Importance of Workforce Training. Want to increase employee productivity, increase staff morale, and decrease turnover? Don’t just offer training to achieve this panacea; determine first, the problems training will solve.

• Michael Anuzis, at Empowering People Through Information presents How to Negotiate a Pay Raise with Game Theory. This vidcast is a true story, he says, of negotiating a pay raise from $12 an hour to $300 an hour using basic Game Theory.

• Mark Brouwer at Mark Brouwer.com discusses in Pornography, Sex Addiction, and the Work Place why employers need to care about employee personal problems and their impact on productivity and absenteeism. Plus, I had to fire an employee for watching porn at work. What's your experience of that?

• Erek Ostrowski of Verve Coaching in Creating a Culture of Productivity and Success tells you about ways to shift the experience of being at work from one of constant struggle and fire fighting to one of sufficiency and independent responsibility. Very cool.

• Thomas B. O'Brien of TO’B HR Blog in You’re Fired! talks about the fact that every high performing organization he has ever worked for knew when and how to fire employees – for everyone’s sake. Inspirational and right on target.

• Al Nye The Lawyer Guy in Unum Provident Makes Big Splash With Stupid Logo slam dunks the insurance company’s new logo. Find out why.

• Kris Dunn at the HR Capitalist in Quantifying Good/Bad Turnover - Good Luck! reports that both good and bad turnover exist, and there are definite cost differentials depending on the flavor or combination of factors in looking at your turnover.

• Yours truly, Susan Heathfield, of this About.com HR blog attended a presentation by a Google manager recently. The presentation resulted in reflections about Recruiting Stars: Top Ten Ideas for Recruiting Great Candidates. Google certainly gets their share, and has the numbers to prove this.

• And finally, Rowan Manahan of Fortify Your Oasis talks (literally) about the modern selection process in A Great Face for Radio.

That's all for this month, folks, but keep the meaty blogs coming as the Carnival of Human Resources continues every two weeks.