There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.
- Dan Pink

In his recent presentation at TED, author and business consultant Dan Pink talked about two things I advocate heavily on Renegade HR – data based management and intrinsic motivation (and inspiration).

In the talk, Dan blows apart the notion of pay for performance as a way to increase employee performance. In fact, he says, pay for performance actually hurts performance for most tasks.

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Every issue, Fortune magazine profiles a company on their “Best Companies to Work For” list. This month, they chose SAS, an analytics software firm.

The main perk cited in the article is SAS’s awesome daycare offering. They subsidize 75 percent of the cost for their on-site daycare facility, which features high-quality caregivers, an on-call doctor, and close proximity to the cafeteria for easy parent-child lunches.

Other perks include:

• The opportunity to win “SAS bucks’ that can be used towards a free haircut at the on-site hair salon.
• On-site car wash and detailing, dry cleaning, and alterations (all subsidized).
• Flexible work schedules.
• On-site medical facilities.

These are all great, but they’re not the types of things that make SAS a great place to work. In fact, if a well-intentioned HR pro read this list and thought, “I want to be a ‘Best Place to Work.’ I’m going to implement these things at my organization!” they would most likely fail. Hard.

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Over the last week or two, I’ve made a few changes and updates to Renegade HR. Here’s what’s going on.

All about you

This site’s number one focus is about helping you become an HR rockstar.

Renegade HR is a simple, no BS approach to human resources. Great human resource management is about hiring great people and helping them do kick-ass work that drives your business.

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Yesterday I came across this brilliant presentation on Slideshare about the power of social media (many thanks to Michael Black for the hat tip).

The presentation is awesome. Watch the whole thing. Then ask yourself, “Is my company really engaged in social media?” If the answer is no, make sure you follow it up with, “Why the hell not?!?” and “How do we start?”

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Renegade HR is really about two things:

1. Hiring great people.
2. Enabling them to do great things that drive your business.

Hiring great people can be difficult. It takes time to get it right.

If you want to be a better HR pro today, find out what’s stopping your employees from doing great things. If you can, ask them directly. Speak to their managers, too.

Once you find out what they need to do great things, get it for them.

Maybe it’s more direction and feedback. That’s something that should obviously come from their manager. But part of your job as an HR Renegade is coach managers on how to better manage.

Maybe a policy or procedure is getting in the way. Find out how to get rid of it, if possible.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Help your managers and the people they lead do better work, and you’ll be a better HR pro.

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Slideshare is a social media site that allows you to host and share presentations. Users can comment on your presentations, embed them on websites, download them, and share them on their favorite social networks.

Right now, Slideshare is hosting their World’s Best Presentation Content 2009. Last year’s contest winners included the prolific Shift Happens presentation.

With my love of Presentation Zen, I decided to create and submit a presentation into the running. Since I’m in HR, I decided to create a Social Media Resume – kind of like a cooler, more visual LinkedIn profile.

I’m hoping you can do me a favor. Check out the presentation, and if you like it, vote for it.

The first place prize is a new MacBook Pro, which I pinky swear will make this site even way cooler than it already is. (And if you don’t like it, no hard feelings – I promise!)

Vote Here

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Should corporate values be aspirational or reflect the way your company actually operates?

Some people argue that if your values aren’t reflective of your actual culture, they’re disingenuous. Other people assert that if your culture sucks, you should aspire (and actively work) to improve it.

Here’s my take: If your culture rocks, your values already reflect that, whether they’re written down or not. And if your culture sucks, it doesn’t matter what your stated values are if you’re not actively working to fix it.

Zappos (who I also wrote about on Monday) believes in this thing called “committable values.” That means they’ll actually make hiring and firing decisions based on them.

What are your organization’s values? Are they committable?

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