It was a busy weekend, my Tigers picked up a win after last week's devastating loss to Georgia, the family went apple picking and I ate more apple butter and biscuits (biscuit being a misleading word for what was really more akin to delicious, golden, fried bread) than is healthy, and in between all the awesome things we tried to squeeze in between work weeks I managed to catch a few articles, tweets, and news snippets that I thought were worth sharing. A few of the things that jumped out at me that you may or may not have caught...
From HR Bartender: "Employees Demand More Career Agility"
If you're in HR, you take the time to read what's going on among your peers and the industry, and you like smart insights, odds are you're already familiar with the awesomeness that is Sharlyn Lauby's site HR Bartender. If not, get on it already, good stuff in ridiculous quantities (kind of like the apple butter and biscuits presented to me in a never ending flow of paper-lined bread baskets yesterday). The post in question here shines a light on something I've been thinking about recently and we've been discussing as a challenge ripe for opportunity internally for the last few months - that crossroads where career management and career development intersect. Note, the post is a sponsored one, but that doesn't make the information any less useful or thought provoking.
From FastCompany: "Working From Home Makes Your More Productive"
Speaking of things I've been thinking about lately, work from home programs, FastCompany contributor Ariel Schwartz discusses a recent Stanford study that shows employees who work from home are more productive. Now, how this impacts promotions (as the article points out) is still a question up for exploration along with the questions that come to mind around engagement, development, and so on. But I think it's a positive step in the right direction, especially for those employers with the ability to have some form of work from home program that haven't yet stepped up their game (i.e. their benefits/perks).
From Forbes: "Corporate E-Learning Market Gets a Jolt as Online Universities Grow"
This article struck me for selfish reasons... the main one being that SkillSoft - whose acquisition of MindLeaders is a large focus of this article - is our current provider of online employee learning resources. Anytime an acquisition or business deal goes down with one of your strategic resource vendors is a good time to take a moment and do a bit of pondering and wondering what kind of outcomes will result - in this case, I'm fairly certain they'll all be positive, but still. The remainder of the article spends a large chunk of text talking about online learning resources and models and hub-bub around the industry. But I guess most importantly the piece got me thinking about how we're using our tools and how can we use them better?
From ReviewSnap: "Forget Policies and Paperwork - the 5 Things Business Leaders Really Want from HR"
I love articles that center on practicalities, cut through the fluff, and discuss how HR can be a better business partner, how we can earn not just a seat at the table but the respect of everyone else sitting there too. This short piece focuses in on five areas that let HR truly shine and if you're looking for more related to this topic, check out "The 6 Most Important Competencies of HR Professionals" an article that shares some synergies with "Forget Policies and Paperwork..." My point being, HR is about more than transactions and gatekeeping, it's about more than surface level value adds, and we all have some responsibility, no matter our rung on the organizational ladder to do our part to create and show all the value HR has to offer even when the rest of the organization may not realize, be open to, or ready to recognize it.
