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Aug 10, 2010 | Mark | Analytics, Consulting, Employee Engagement, Employer Branding, Internal Communications, Social Media/Social Recruiting
Efficiency experts are appalled at the waste. WHAT waste?
I was reading about a survey from Salary.com that showed the average American employee wastes roughly two hours every workday. Chatting with co-workers about the latest episode of “Mad Men,” buying stuff online, tending their flock on Farmville, and tweeting about the DMB concert they’re going to this weekend.
The implication was that the cost to American business was horrific. Surely the Recession would end and the economy would right itself if only people would buckle down and put their noses to the grindstone.
Poppycock.
Most of the interaction at work involves people. Whenever two or more people try to work together on something, relationships play a huge role. Imagine collaborating on a task with a group of complete strangers. Now imagine doing that same task with your best friends. The outcome looks a lot better with the latter, doesn’t it?
Recent Entries
Jul 28, 2010 | Mark | Employer Branding, Public Relations, Strategy
Are you sending the right signals? Can your target market see them?
There was a news item the other day that reported an internal BP memo advising employees not to disclose where they work or wear BP badges or apparel out in public. How’s that for a real morale booster?
In fact, BP was doing the right thing. They were acknowledging the furor surrounding the Gulf oil spill and acting to protect their workers. Far better to err on the side of caution than to blithely pretend nothing is wrong.
It reminded me of an incident back during the first Gulf War (Persian Gulf, that is). A major oil company was advertising professional jobs in Saudi Arabia but getting little or no response. They wanted to continue running the typical ad showing a happy smiling engineer working alongside his Saudi counterpart, ignoring the fact that the Iraqi Army had just brutally occupied neighboring Kuwait 100 kilometers away.
Jul 20, 2010 | Mark | Consulting, Digital, Employee Engagement, Employer Branding, Internal Communications, Millennials, Recruitment, Research, Social Media/Social Recruiting, Strategy
How did you get here?
Maybe you followed a link from a tweet. Or someone sent you the link via e-mail. Or you subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog.
The point is, in our multi-linked world people arrive at the same destination via very different paths. So when you design communications one of the first considerations must be to understand those paths and make sure your communications strategy takes each of them into account.
This is the philosophy behind the use of “personas” in communications design. Personas (or “personae” if you had Latin beaten into you by the Jesuits as I did) have been used in marketing research for roughly twenty years, mostly by packaged goods makers. Each persona is an amalgam of a set of prospective customers for the product under consideration; a product may have from a handful to a couple of dozen personas depending on the complexity and variety of the potential audience.
Jul 12, 2010 | Mark | Corporate Culture, Employer Branding, Millennials, Recruitment
LeBron leaves Cleveland for South Beach.
Many sports fan were glued to their televisions last week for what was hyped as “The Decision.” LeBron James, star of the Cleveland Cavaliers, was going to announce on national TV his choice of where he plans to play next season.
I was one of those who tried to ignore the hoopla. Basketball is a team sport, after all— what about the other players on the Cavaliers? What are they: chopped liver?
As much as I decried the hype, however, I have to admit that the episode had its teaching moment: LeBron is the new poster child for employer branding.
Consider the situation. James was admittedly one of the most naturally gifted players in the history of the game. He skipped college and was drafted by his local franchise, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The team had never been a power in basketball. Now, with LeBron, they were a force to be reckoned with.
Jun 23, 2010 | shavel | Social Media/Social Recruiting
It all started with connecting with friends online, then it became a source for networking and finding a job, now employers are using social tools as part of their employee referral programs (ERP).
That’s right, referring a friend or family member for an open job opportunity has become a social activity. As a matter of fact, a recent ERE article focuses on just how social an ERP can be. There’s even an example of the work that the Hodes digital team has completed on behalf of clients seeking to take their efforts online.
Check out ERE’s article here and learn more about taking your ERP to the next level of social recruiting!
Jun 15, 2010 | Mark | Corporate Culture, Employee Engagement, Employer Branding, Internal Communications, Millennials, Social Media/Social Recruiting, Uncategorized
Earlier this month, the New York Times published an interesting article, “What Pets Can Teach Us About Marriage.” It recaps a journal article written by a clinical psychologist which proposed that if we treated our spouses or partners the way we treat our pets, a lot of relationships would be much happier.
Photo: Photo8.com | Used by Creative Commons license.
This got me thinking about the other important relationship in most people’s lives, i.e., the one they have with their employers. What if employers treated their employees the way pet owners treat their pets?
How often, for example, have you heard a manager complain that employees aren’t following instructions and then end in frustration by saying, “I sent them a MEMO.” Now, if you own a pet, think back to house-training: there were repeated lessons, a few accidents, and then eventually Fido or Mittens “got it.”
Jun 4, 2010 | mgordon | Diversity & Inclusion, Diversity Matters, Uncategorized
During May, America celebrated Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month through learning about the histories and cultures of the third largest minority group in the country. It is also the fastest growing, rising 2.7% between 2007 and 2008. These 15 million Americans represent over a dozen different ancestries, each with vastly different cultures, histories, and relationships with one another. This diversity necessitates avoiding assumptions about background, language, and culture when engaging with Asian American individuals or the population as a whole.
Source: 2008 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau
Note: Indonesian, Malaysian, and Sri Lankan each represent less than 1% and are not shown.
In order to gain a sense of this population and its place in the economy and workforce, however, we can turn to the latest demographics provided by the Census (data is for adults 25 and older identifying only as Asian):
Apr 16, 2010 | Mark | Uncategorized
UC Berkeley and the Annenberg School of Communications just released a study that shows 18 - 24 year olds share many of their elders’ concerns about online privacy. You may download and read the report by visiting: http://tinyurl.com/y7z7cnb Well worth the read. Keep that in mind as you craft your online and social media strategies. Maybe the kids don’t want you “in their grill” on Facebook.
Apr 13, 2010 | shavel | Uncategorized
The talk of 2009 focused on spending freezes, cost-cutting, and other phrases that fit into the recession vernacular. But 2010, so far, has been about recovery, loosening the purse strings, and dare I say – spending money.
As companies recover from the toughest recession seen in decades, even hearing that we are in the midst of a “sluggish” recovery is better than none at all. And now, corporate budgets can start to rebound, including HR and recruiting.
Thinking about your budget, there are probably plenty of items on the wish list, but Hodes Vice President Carol McDaniel has some advice she shared through ERE for the best places to start spending right now.
Apr 12, 2010 | Mark | Consulting, Corporate Culture, Employee Engagement, Employer Branding, Uncategorized
We have all had our share of bad experiences with tradespeople. You hire someone to repair your drain, install new lighting on your deck or diagnose the “Check Engine” light on your dash. They treat you like dirt: they don’t return calls; they don’t arrive when they agreed to; or your car wasn’t ready when it was promised. Worse, they may do shoddy work.
After such an experience, you chalk them off your list. You may even go out of your way to warn your friends and neighbors never to use the services of these people.
Have you ever had one of these tradespeople call or e-mail you a few months or even years later, pretending like nothing happened, cheerily asking for your business? You immediately begin to laugh, thinking, “As if! It’ll be a frosty day in Hades when I call YOU again.”