What inspires you? What grounds you, gives you the feeling of appreciation?

One of the greatest gifts my late mother gave me is the ability to appreciate many things and to be open to inspiration from many sources. When I have to tackle a tough or especially detailed job, I try to find something that inspires me to the proper mindset. If I can find inspiration in a natural view like the sea, sky, leaves, a content cat, it helps ground me. I can then deal with the tough stuff, like a workforce planning proposal for a client, a response to a tricky succession planning issue, a presentation for an analyst to show how solid the business is and how uniquely we approach our dedication to our clients. read more »

(Second of two-part series - Want to Join HR, But That’s Not Your Background? So What?)

Workforce Management provides a basic checklist indicating who does which part of the workforce planning. As with most  checklists, this is an oversimplification of the process, but a GREAT place to start.

Your organization will have many ideas for integrating these tasks and tracking key metrics. Just a few observations on the checklist points: read more »

(First of two-part series)

I frequently tune in to the Friday HR Happy Hour on Blog TalkRadio, a twice monthly radio talk show hosted by Steve Boese and Shauna Moerke, two great bloggers, HR professionals, and superstars in the  HR Twitter world. Between Steve, Shauna, and their call-in guests the conversation moves among many topics. During Episode 5 – Why HR?, one theme struck right to the core of the succession planning and workforce planning I do. It concerned where HR executives come from inside an organization. read more »

Silver Lining

I have always been proud of our customer service, as well as our customer relations in general. My staff, who requires no urging from me, always put the right foot forward – the best part of every day to our customers.

Most people think the “silver lining” in life must be on the inside, a reminder that even in bad events there can be found a good part. Looking at a cloud earlier today, cloaking the hot sun for a few minutes, the beautiful silver lining surrounded the outside of the cloud. Are we, in the business world, making sure that the silver lining is (as in nature) visible to the outer part of our business? Are we making sure that the good part of any problem, bad event, or challenge is actually the customer-facing silver lining of the cloud? read more »

While watching seagulls during a little R & R at the beach, I was inspired to evaluate a number of strategies in my world, at least the execution of those strategies. What really impressed me is the full out dive gulls make directly toward their desired goal. They can be 25 feet up in the air and head straight down for that plunge into the water – and they seldom miss the fish. read more »