human resources

9 03, 2012

Executive Attitudes Drive Success or Failure of Diversity Initiatives

By Sanchez / Tennis|2017-01-13T11:27:41-07:00March 9th, 2012|Tags: Barbara Parker, Business, diversity, human resources, inclusion, Management, Strategic Matrix, Work, Workplace Discrimination|

(A full presentation on the Strategic Matrix for Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives is available free at http://bit.ly/v3o6jM )

Executive attitudes toward, and priorities for, diversity are the most important variables for what can successfully be accomplished in improving an organization’s value for diversity and leveraging diversity for organizational success. Executives operate in an environment where they are subject to a wide variety of pressures and perceptions that affect how they react to diversity in the workforce and customer base and impact how the instrumental value they assign to diversity for achieving their personal and organizational goals.

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Should Diversity Training Include Ex-Felons?

By Sanchez / Tennis|2012-03-09T21:29:12-07:00March 9th, 2012|Tags: Business, diversity, Diversity training, Employment, ex-felons, human resources, United States, Work, Workplace Discrimination|

It’s an interesting question. My first reaction is that I’m not as much interested in focusing on ex-felons in diversity training as I am in making sure they are fully included in recruiting and hiring. Once they are in the door, their past mistakes shouldn’t (based on a normative hope that the information is not shared in the organization until they personally choose to reveal it) have anything to do with how people treat them in the workplace. So, although I suppose this is a form of closeting, I’d rather let them show their value to the organization first, then deal with people’s misconceptions about their legal past. As we get more successful at getting ex-felons employed, then we’ll have the foundation for talking about all that in the training room and begin to initiate conversations about the diversity aspects of the question. Truth is, given who we are incarcerating in this country, racial diversity in the workplace is still apt to be the topic that many organizations need to work on first, to get folks in the door and fully included and engaged.

The real work is at the front end, getting the initial screening, testing, and interviewing to focus on their potential to contribute, rather than on the stories in the heads of the HR and hiring authority folks. Truth is, we’ve jailed so many people in this country that we could soon find ourselves in the position of hiring an ex-felon or leaving the job vacant, which would be both mean-spirited/ignorant and bad business.

People are our most important assets?

By Sanchez / Tennis|2017-01-13T11:28:28-07:00October 16th, 2009|Tags: business education, business philosophy, employee retention, employees, executive leadership, human assets, human resources, Organization Development|

I’ve been following a discussion about the miserable treatment of “our most important assets” in most organizations today. Some argue HR isn’t doing its job, others blame execs.

The question of whether HR should step up its game or executives should lead really raises the point that they should be a team. Yes, I’d like to see HR stand for the vision of employees as appreciating assets. And, I’d like to see executive leaders hire and champion HR leaders who challenge them and articulate a powerful vision of developing and retaining vital employee contribution.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing CEO’s and COO’s hiring HR chiefs for their subservience, their acquiesence, their grooming of executive egos, and their ruthless willingness to sacrifice any employee, and their own HR staff, in order to please the boss and advance their career. Since HR professionals from inside the company are more likely to stand up for employees, executives seem to be hiring HR carpetbaggers who sweep in, make big noise about cleaning up, and sweep off to the next post when their short-term strategies begin to fail.

I think we need a series of changes:
in the presentation of HR philosophy, practice and value in our business schools, especially at the MBA level;
in focusing the business press on the great stories of sustained appreciation of human assets and the payoffs for the bottom line;
in the lecture circuit of management and leadership gurus to include voices that actually have managed for development of the best in employees and the best for employees; and
in the selection of corporate board members for their commitment to the long-term success of the business and the employees, rather than for self-promotion and short-term gains.

I was a Personnel Director once in the dark past, and I argued to change the name to Human Resources to encourage valuing people as “our most important asset”. I’ve been enormously chastened by the seeming result that employees are seen similarly to natural resources– extract what you can and dump them in a ravine. Even so, I still hold out hope that, as we discover in so many ways that our heedless consumption of essential natural resources is coming back to haunt us, we can make real progress toward valuing the genius and the effort of our producers at least as much as what they produce.