Your HR Career

6 talking points to get management buy-in for your HR budget

06/15/2010

When it’s time to present next year’s HR budget, get the C-Suite’s attention with these six talking points. They’ll show you mean business.

Cracking the password code (and keeping others from cracking yours)

05/11/2010

Can you guess what the most common online password is? Actually, you probably can. Find out what passwords not to use, and how to create one that’s easy for you to remember and hard for others to guess.

12 manager mistakes that spark lawsuits

05/11/2010

Most lawsuits against employers don’t start with some outrageous injustice. More often, a simple management mistake or a perceived slight starts the snowball of discontent rolling downhill toward the courtroom. Here are 12 of the biggest mistakes managers make. They can all lead to litigation—and kill your credibility in court.

Time’s a wasting, but where does it go?

04/13/2010

According to a 2007 survey from Salary.com, Americans waste about 20% of their time at work. And a chunk of that wasted time comes from surfing the Internet. One journalist writer, in a quest to find out where her time was going, tried out four online services that track productivity. What did she learn from the experience?

What are the top HR skills you need to succeed?

03/29/2010

A new Society for Human Resource Management survey of 2,000 HR professionals cites these as the top five competencies that senior HR leaders need to succeed today:

Trim the fat from your business writing

03/09/2010

In business writing, you don’t receive extra credit for slathering your sentences with fancy phrases, the way you did in college. Do that in a memo or e-mail, and you can expect eyes to glaze over. Here are five “less is more” tips for writing more effectively at work.

Being good at your job isn’t good enough — 4 smart ways to become indispensible

02/23/2010

It’s a myth that good work makes a good career—rather, good office politics makes a good career, says career columnist Penelope Trunk. Here’s are four common-sense rules to follow. They’ll make people want to work with you, and boost your credibility and influence in the process.

A manager’s manager: Joe Torre’s rules for leading a team

12/08/2009

Baseball manager Joe Torre has led far more diverse and ego-driven teams than most managers ever will—including star-studded Dodgers and Yankees teams. Yet, his teams have won repeatedly, thanks to these four “rules of straight communication” that he has developed over the years. See if they might apply to your team.

Bees, sea gulls, alligators: 12 zany excuses for absences

11/17/2009

Bosses hear some wacky one-liners when perfectly healthy workers try to justify taking sick days. Example: "I got sunburned at a nude beach and can’t wear clothes." Here are a dozen doozies uncovered in a recent survey of employers.

Attitude, absence & foul language: 3 scripts for those conversations you’d rather not have

11/10/2009

Paul Falcone, author of 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees, offers these scripts to follow when you need to have awkward but essential conversations with employees. Here’s what managers should say after they’ve said, “Hey, got a minute?”