Today, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post by Sharlyn Lauby, aka the HR Bartender. This post is part of the HR Blog Exchange – an idea cooked up by Steve Boese last month. Enjoy!

I was standing at the grocery store checkout this week and saw a headline on the latest TIME magazine that caught my eye – “The Future of Work: Ten Lessons for Succeeding in the New American Workplace.” Needless to say, I couldn’t resist and plunked down $4.95 for the issue. Later I found it on the web (here) so let me save you some money.

Also, let me save you some time by sharing with you a few tidbits from the article. Bless their little hearts, TIME magazine did nothing more than point out the painfully obvious. Here’s a sampling of what they call the future of work:

Keep reading…

This article is part of the Renegade Manifesto Series.

Work is something you do. Sometimes that means you have to dress a particular way, be in a particular place or work at a specific time. Often, though, those things don’t matter.

One of the most important things you can do to improve the quality of your workforce is get out of the way and let your people be amazing.

Keep reading…

I don’t talk about employee retention much. There’s a reason why.

If you recruit great people and inspire them to do amazing things, they won’t really have much of a reason to leave your organization. (The exception is if people are leaving for things like relocation or to undergo a massive career change – in which case, there’s not much you could have done anyways)

Retention is the easy part. It’s the other two that are hard. Focus your energy on getting the right person into the right job and inspire them to do their best work. Chances are pretty good that they’ll want to keep working for you.

Do a good enough job at this, and the process fuels itself. Employees start to talk about how awesome it is to work there, and more great people want to come work for you.

(PS: I apologize for the sensational and misleading title of this post.)

Image by Paul Hocksenar

This article is part of the Renegade Manifesto Series.

“That’s how we’ve always done it” isn’t a good reason to do anything. Sure, the way you’ve always done it may actually be the best way to do something. But often, it’s not.

Let’s be honest: HR is not really an “ahead of the curve” profession. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be!

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This article is part of the Renegade Manifesto Series.

Human Resources is actually a pretty crappy name for what we do.

Back in the Personnel days, employees were treated as an expense to the business. Then Human Resources came around. Suddenly, employees weren’t a cost – they were an asset! They were an investment. They were a resource.

That was a big leap forward. The idea of employees as resources has a big flaw, though: When you treat people like resources, you dehumanize them.

Never forget that employees are people. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t demand great performance or that you should tolerate mediocrity.

When you think of employees as people, it changes the way you recruit, manage performance and focus on development. You stop simply utilizing resources and start inspiring people to do amazing things.

This article is part of the Renegade Manifesto Series.

When you recruit people, train them, and lead them, understanding what motivates them is really important.

Most companies fixate on what’s called instrumental motivation – things like merit increases, cash bonuses, free days of vacation and so on. It’s carrot and stick management.

Does it work? Sure. Almost everyone is motivated at least somewhat by money.

If this is the only way you motivate your employees, though, you’re missing a huge opportunity. There are four other “types” of motivation:

• Intrinsic
• Internal Validation
• External Validation
• Goal Identification

Tapping into these other four – particularly intrinsic and goal identification – is how you move beyond just motivating your employees and start inspiring them.

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A few weeks ago, my shower started backing up. Not really enjoying showering in ankle deep water, I tried snaking the drain. After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally caved and called a plumber.

Actually, I called two plumbers: Gem Plumbing, who is pretty much ubiquitous for plumber in Rhode Island (where I’m originally from), and another big-name plumbing company, who for the sake of this post, I’ll call PlumbGood (which is not their actual name, so my apologies if this is the name of your business).

Both companies are comparably priced, and the quality of their work is equally good. So why would anyone choose one of these companies over the other?

What sets Gem apart is their superior customer service. And that’s driven by their HR programs.

Keep reading…