Month: June 2014

Infographic: How Employees Are Wasting Time

I came across this infographic on time wasters of employees and wanted to share– and be sure to take a look at the graphic — its about inefficiencies — not about employees goofing off. I’m not crazy about the title of the graphic, but I have to admit, it is what grabbed my attention. Do you have these in your office?

Rypple, the creator of the infographic, proposes “cloud based unified communication” systems as the answer — what do you think — does that solve all the problems or are there other possible solutions? Does it depend on the size of the organization? Geography? Industry?

I’d venture to say “yes” — but I’m almost always in the camp of “there is no one right solution for everyone, but there is a right solution for you.” Its usually never as simple as the infographic makes it, IMHO. However, what I do agree with, it finding ways to help make employees as efficient as possible. There are certainly things in the HR space – both programmatic and tech that can help with this. Ultimately, HR should be what “HR people” do — and employees should not have to worry about it. They should be able to focus on the tasks at hand that help to contribute back to the bottom line and customer service. We should always be mindful of how to remove those barriers. Some of the points in the graphic are not generally things owned by HR — however, if it impacts the employee, a large piece of me is inclined to say that we should get involved to help move those barriers out of the way — we may not be able to directly solve it, but we can get things going, bring the right people together, and help make the case for change.

Making the HR connection, yours

Its Not News, Its a Distraction: Happy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Day

Ah .. one of my favorite movies and one of my all time favorite movie-quotables (see below)– I JUST found out that today was “Happy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” Day. I’m just coming off an awesome #IHRIM2014 conference, so I was in the office today — but I’ve got it on the calendar for next year.

Thanks to some heroic statistical sleuthing by Baseball Prospectus’s Larry Granillo, we know the date: June 5, 1985.

Granillo pinpointed the date by scrutinizing some fragmented data in the film about the Chicago Cubs game being played during the gang’s trip to Wrigley Field. “It appears obvious now,” writes Granillo, “that this is a real ballgame that Ferris is at, not just something recreated for a film crew. The Harry Caray play-by-play and the Braves players on the field are pretty solid evidence of that. So what game, then, are they watching?” After examining the box scores of games during the Cubs 1985 schedule, he ultimately concludes that it was the June 5, 1985 game against the Atlanta Braves (the visitors won 4-2).

— http://www.thewire.com/national/2011/02/your-newest-holiday-june-5th-is-ferris-bueller-s-day-off/17808/

 

Enjoy (and mark your calendars for next year 😉 ) …. and while you’re at it — make time for yourself we all deserve to have our own little Ferris Bueller Day — and you don’t even have to “fake out” your parents or take their car, cut the drama and just schedule the day ;),.

Taking a moment to stop and look around, yours,

 

 

Strategic Relationship Coming Between @IHRIM and @SHRM Annouced at #IHRIM2014

I’m fresh off my #IHRIM2014 conference experience — and what can I say — It. Was. Awesome.

My bucket is FULL. My neurons are firing. My to-do list has grown (which actually excites me). I have new contacts and my network has grown. I have dozens of blogs started that I just need to sit down and finish. However, one thing I’m a little surprised that hasn’t gotten more attention is the announcement that @IHRIM is working with @SHRM to create a strategic alliance (relationships/partnership).
My ears immediately perked up as soon as I heard it and I nudged my collegeue who was sitting next to me (Stephanie @HRHammer who is a fellow contributor at Blogging4Jobs.com) during the announcement made over lunch. I’ve waited a bit to do much with it because I wanted to see what else was out there about it — but is been mostly crickets.

I’m sure that we’ll hear more to come soon. My guess  — my gut (and its only my gut because they haven’t said anything else about it) is that it is somehow related to the new #SHRMcerts and their new competency model.

It kinda makes sense though that bringing in the HRIM function more formally to their competency model.  I also have a feeling that they may try to find a way to convert the IHRIM certifications (they have their own certifications and processes) into the SHRM certs as well. OR maybe IHRIM is going to somehow fold into SHRM?

I’d welcome most any of these combos — I’m a PHR holder and I work in HRIM (and have for sometime). The IHRIM association is so well organized, friendly, and knowledgeable — I would not want to lose that — its a great support to HRIM professionals and continues to help push the function forward.  But all that aside — we’re all still not sure what the new certifications *really* mean.  I’m also curious to see if other HR specific organizations will start to form “partnerships” — there are some in the talent acquisition, benefits, and compensation space.

SO much speculation… the suspense is killing me 🙂

You heard it hear first…

Anyhoo — its all speculation at this point. We’re gonna have to wait until SHRM National to hear more. They are making more information available however. I did notice that they have some serious overhauls to their FAQs and really beefed them up– so if you haven’t checked them out in a while, it may be worth revisiting.

I guess its the waiting game for another couple of weeks … but if you hear anything in regards to some of the other HR-related associations, I’d love to hear about it.

Waiting to hear what it all means 😉 — yours

 

Hello Summer and Monthly Wellness Challenge

May’s always been a big month and an important month — it has always triggered for me — “Summer is Coming!” — June 1, says, “Summer is HERE!” Yeah I know that its technically not until later in the month — but by all measures of the phrase, for me (and our A/C, which we’re been running since late March/Early April) its Summer.

Fall is probably my favorite season, but next is Summer. I love the sun (but not the over-bearing heat). The longer days. The various holidays. The blooming flowers. Now I’m not in school and we don’t have kids yet – so my day to day doesn’t really change — so I’m sure its more nostalgic than anything. Going back to my school days.. summer was the opportunity to take a break before getting ready for the next grade — almost like cleaning the slate.

With that in mind — I thought that I’d bring back my monthly wellness challenges. I quietly did away with them because I failed each one — despite putting “it out there” to help hold myself accountable. I’d come close with a few of them, but never accomplished my goals. That’s not my normal character — so frankly, I found it demotivating.  Well — I thought June was a good time to bring it back — but scale it back. Well that was the original intent — but then after thinking about my wellness goals — I know I have a big goal in front of me because I want to greatly reduce the amount of sugar in my diet.  There are several blogs that I recently started to follow to help inspire me in the kitchen with recipes — that pointed me to a few other sites around cooking and fitness … and that’s where I got my call to action.

First — it took my some time to *really* understand that sugar has addictive properties! DOH! But when I did some more searches and started to looking into it, I am just shocked and dumbfounded. I almost feel silly now that I didn’t have greater awareness. I’ve been reading labels more — and can’t believe all the places that it sneaks into my food. So even when I’m trying to make a “better” choice (backing away from the chocolate, candy, and cookies) I choose something that is laden with sugar. Ugh!

My struggle is going to be finding the time as a busy professional to create and cook more at home — where I know what I am putting into my meas and saying “no” to all the sugary-goodness that finds its way to my desk at work.  Food is EVERYWHERE and while I applaud the fact that we do have healthy options at my office – -they are sadly far less abundant than the unhealthy ones and a bit more expensive.  Its just too easy to pick up the unhealthier stuff — its cheaper, faster, and more readily available.

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like I’m making excuses — so I want to put a plan in place and really take the right steps to reset and make a long term change. I’d love to think that I have the potential to be a great homemaker — but I’m terrible at cooking and doing things in the kitchen – -so this is going to be something new for me to learn AND embrace.Also getting my sig-o on board. We have wildly different bodies, metabolisms, and even, worse, tastes in foods. So its also going to be an adventure in finding things that we both like, both need for our bodies (he could stand to put some weight on and I would like to take some off), and fitting in the time to organize it and make it work. I also think that some planning and advanced prep will help too. I’m inspired and have some awareness — and I think that’s a big piece in trying to start and commit any big change.

 

I actually think its easier at home than it is at work — Aside from what I get for my sig-o for junk food (which isn’t much and mostly stuff that I don’t like)- I don’t keep much in the house. I’m good to turn down the chips and cokes (that he loves) and some of the other sweets at the house — although I’m a sucker for Blue Bell Cookie and Cream Ice Cream.  I going to try to make some incremental changes instead of doing my usual thing of going from guardrail to guardrail.

So my goals for the month of June

  • Say “NO” to all those temptations at work — cut out the obvious food baddies
  • Take my lunch to work; and if one is provided, pass over the junk food and the bread
  • Charge up my fitbit and hit my daily goal 4 out of 7 days each week

I juice and do green smoothies in the AMs, but I’m not all that consistent about it — so I while not making it a formal “goal” I’m going to work on that too — and be very mindful of fruit to veggie ratio to make sure that I have more of the latter.

Any other suggestions that you’d give me as I start this journey — or interesting reads/blogs? I’ll share a list soon of some of the ones that I’m currently following.

Getting my wellness challenge on, yours,