Well how do you like that?  The British Commonwealth countries have now decided it is okay to break tradition and make new laws that allow succession plans to transfer females, even if they have a little brother.  More detail here .  Yes, royalty have a different world to live by, but I have heard some pretty lame excuses for corporations to keep old outdated methods and traditions when it comes to their employee processes.  And they are not all just related to succession planning.  I thought I would create a list of the some of the really stupid decisions or policies that we see.  If you don’t want your co-workers, peers or executives to roll their eyes and scoff at your ancient processes, get rid of these 7 succession policies NOW!

Awful Policy 1: Only Allowing Planners to Select Successors from the chain of command under a position

Successors should be the best candidates for the role regardless of the current department or position they hold in a company.

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Guest post by Nora Murphy, Workforce Planning Analyst at Aquire

Everything is three dimensional these days.  Not only do you have the option of watching all your favorite movies in 3D at the theater, you now have this incredible technology in TVs, video games, cameras, camcorders, and even in some phones.  If done right, it can make you feel like you are inside the picture and produce amazing effects that jump out at you.  And the numbers are staggering – by 2014, we are expected to be able to watch over a hundred television channels in 3D, and a third of US households will have a TV set with 3D capability.

While 3D is primarily rooted in the entertainment industry, who says it can’t be applied to workforce analytics?  Like everything else in our world, HR business data is also multidimensional.  For example, attrition records can include several values, such as age, gender, tenure, read more »

After talking to a lot of people in and around the human resource industry I have found that there is a great grasping for information about what is important to measure, why should you measure them and what do you do with the information once you have it.  So, over the next few weeks,  we are going to explore the need for and wonder of, critical workforce numbers.

Absenteeism:

When you mention measuring absenteeism to a business leader, the first thing that comes to mind is who do you fire because they missed too many days.  But, what about aligning absenteeism with other trends or metrics to get a better picture of why things might be happening?   read more »

Many years ago the CRM (customer relationship management) industry exploded.  Organizations realized that if they kept better track of their customers and prospects and their relationship building exercises with those contacts, they could improve their processes and replicate their successes.  Suddenly, the rolodex and the single sales guys copy of “ACT!” was not enough.  Companies invested in integrating their information, and suddenly, they had TONS of information.  The marketing department started demanding access to the data that helped them watch the tie between their activities and the process of the sales department.  Amazing things happened to increase the sales and relationships companies had with their customers.  There is so much more about this evolution that had an impact.  One of the biggest wins was the fact that now many managers could see and measure the success of the initiatives they were doing – where it counted – the deal pipeline.

We are really at the early stage of another powerful industry explosion.  The Talent Management processes are being taken more seriously than ever.  Yes, there have been processes, employee development programs, etc., for as long as companies have had employees.  However, the heat is rising in the real attention the processes are getting.  Organizations are understanding that it is critical to track and manage the development of their employees.  A lot of activity and dollars are being spent on these initiatives.  These projects and systems are generating a LOT of data.  Everybody loves data.  I am sure your favorite item in your inbox is the huge spreadsheet with the reams of data in rows and columns, and occasionally, a pie chart or bar chart helps make the data consumable.  But what does it mean???? read more »

There is a new property on the internet that is going to really add a wonderful voice to the human resource community. The Women of HR is the brain child of a wonderful group of women and a weekend outing in Chicago. These are some of the greatest movers and shakers in the HR Social Media space, in addition to being professional everyday in furthering the human resource profession. read more »