HR Budgets

Well, the new year is here and your budget should be in place for 2014. What most new P&L responsible people do is spend immediately on things that have been building up over the past quarter or when your budget was slashed.

Word to the wise, be mindful of how you utilize your budget. Rethink those things you put into it and make sure that they will have the most impact on your business. To be a key business partner what will benefit those in your perview most.

Another thing, I want to take this a step further. Again, I have always advocated that the CFO is one of your best partners in business, besides the CEO relationship and is probably the next most important. Why you ask, well just think about it for a second. Who manages the finances in the organization and who do you go to when you want to add extra dollars into a project, manpower, program or budget line? The CFO.

Over the past 20 years in business I have made it a point to partner very closely with my CFO. With that relationship we worked together on strategy with the CEO, innovation and the other very important parts of the business. HR & Finance was in all the meetings together with business leaders, driving deeper into the budgeting, strategy, business change, customer, supply chain, and human capital issues. It was a great relationship that was built on trust, understanding, a need for change, and a keen sense of business economics.

The only way for HR to flourish within an organization is with a close relationship with your finance department and your CFO. Do you have that type of relationship or is it an arms length, adversarial relationship, I hope not.

Happy 2014, and spend your budget wisely and manage your P&L like a pro. 

Is This The World’s Worst List of the Top Human Resources Blogs?

by  John Hollon

I have a love/hate relationship with all those “best of” or “top” something lists.

OK, maybe love/hate is a little strong. Perhaps it’s more like “sorta like/sorta don’t.”

I sorta like it when TLNT (or even me personally) get named to somebody’s “Best of” list (like those that John Sumser does with some rigorous analysis on HR Examiner), and I “sorta don’t” like it when I get passed over and find myself saying, “how did they make that list?”

I try to take a pretty broad view when it comes to “top” whatever lists because they tend to be pretty arbitrary, and sometimes, are little more than just somebody’s off the top of their head opinion, devoid of any real content or insight.

That’s why I’m surprised that this “list” of top HR blogs got me so worked up.

Probably the single worst list of HR blogs anywhere

It’s titled The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs to Watch in 2012, and it is put together by a guy named Evan Carmichael, a Canadian entrepreneur who seems to specialize in churning out a lot of these kind of lists, although it’s unclear if he knows anything at all about HR, talent management, or any of the other subjects he does “top” lists about.

My guess is he doesn’t because this the single worst list of HR anything that I have ever seen.

How terrible is this “list” of the top 50 HR blogs? Let me count the ways:

1. It’s a list put together by someone who not only seems to know nothing about HR, but also, very little about what makes for an interesting and insightful blog.
2. It lists a number of blogs that are either dead, abandoned, or seem to be in a state of suspended animation — leading one to believe that you don’t actually need to be actively and currently blogging to make Mr. Carmichael’s list.
3. It seems to be missing most of the blogs that people in HR and talent management actively read, follow, and talk about.

To that last point, there some good HR blogs here, at least in my view. For example, Laurie Ruettimann‘s sharp and witty The Cynical Girl blog is listed (she also writes occasionally for TLNT), but so is her now retired Punk Rock HR. How is a blog that even Mr. Carmichael admits was “retired in 2010″ make a list of  the Top 50 HR blogs to watch THIS year?

He also lists blogs that seem to be dead or abandoned. For instance, Welcome to HR (No. 20 on this list) hasn’t posted anything new since 1/5/2012. The Inflexion Advisers blog (No. 24) last published on 1/11/2012. HRfunda (No. 39) hasn’t done anything since August 2011, and HR WhY(No. 45) not since July 2011.

Where are all the really good HR blogs?

There’s probably more, but you get my point — it’s hard to be a blog to watch in 2012 when for the most part, don’t even seem to be doing anything worth watching.

Worse than that is how The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs to Watch in 2012 misses so many blogs that people read and talk about, and that would have given this list a much needed dose of credibility. As “best of” or “top” lists go, it’s lazy, poorly researched, and seems to have virtually no original insight or expertise.

To wit:

There’s no HR Capitalist by Kris Dunn. No Charlie Judy and his HR Fishbowl.

No China Gorman, or Sharlyn Lauby, the HR Bartender.

No Lance Haun and Life Between the Brackets, or Trish McFarlane and HR Ringleader.

No Fistful of Talent or Compensation Cafe.

There’s nothing from HR Examiner and John Sumser, or anything from Jason Lauritsen or any of his blogs — Talent Anarchy (with Joe Gerstandt), Bulletproof Talent (with Cy Wakefield), or his ownJasonLauritsen.com.

And where the hell is Tim Sackett? or Mike VanDervort? or Steve Boese? Or, any one of a bunch of smart, insightful and current HR-related blogs that people actually read, share, and talk about?

I could go on and on about this all day, but you get the point.

A few good blogs does not a Top 50 list make

Yes, there are a few smart HR blogs listed on The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs to Watch in 2012, but like the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Just because there are a few good HR blogs on this list does not make it a good list. To the contrary; the inclusion of a few good HR blogs here simply masks the shallow thinking and lack of insight that leads to such a thin and generally clueless list in the first place.

I don’t know Evan Carmichael from Adam. He touts himself as an entrepreneur, and maybe he’s a good one. I simply don’t know.

What he’s not, however, is someone you want to listen to when it comes to insight and intelligence about the best HR blogs, because from what I can see, he doesn’t know jack about that.

And for the record, TLNT rarely makes any lists like this because we’re a hybrid — we blog some, we write some news, we aggregate and feature stuff from other blogs, we publish original content from other HR and talent management thinkers. It’s hard for us to make any “best of” lists because we’re different things to different people and not so easily categorized. So it is as well for SHRM, or HR Executive, or HR Morning, or sister website ERE, or many others.

So, it’s caveat emptor when it comes to The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs to Watch in 2012. If you decide to “watch,” I wouldn’t recommend watching too closely.

And one more thing: I wanted to ask Evan Carmichael about how he came up with his list, but I couldn’t find his email address on his website (if it’s there, it’s well hidden) and he did not respond to a request to follow him on Twitter so I could contact him that way.

This may just be me, but I always wonder about people who tout themselves and produce “top” lists like this, then shut themselves off from any feedback or comment. You can make of that what you will.

John Hollon is Vice President for Editorial of TLNT.com, and the former Editor of Workforce Management magazine and workforce.com. An award-winning journalist, he has written extensively about HR, talent management, and smart business and people practices. Contact him atjohn@tlnt.com, and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnhollon

The Challenges of Human Resource Management

The role of the Human Resource Manager is evolving with the change in competitive market environment and the realization that Human Resource Management must play a more strategic role in the success of an organization. Organizations that do not put their emphasis on attracting and retaining talents may find themselves in dire consequences, as their competitors may be outplaying them in the strategic employment of their human resources. 

With the increase in competition, locally or globally, organizations must become more adaptable, resilient, agile, and customer-focused to succeed. And within this change in environment, the HR professional has to evolve to become a strategic partner, an employee sponsor or advocate, and a change mentor within the organization. In order to succeed, HR must be a business driven function with a thorough understanding of the organization’s big picture and be able to influence key decisions and policies. In general, the focus of today’s HR Manager is on strategic personnel retention and talents development. HR professionals will be coaches, counselors, mentors, and succession planners to help motivate organization’s members and their loyalty. The HR manager will also promote and fight for values, ethics, beliefs, and spirituality within their organizations, especially in the management of workplace diversity.

The role of the HR manager must parallel the needs of the changing organization. Successful organizations are becoming more adaptable, resilient, quick to change directions, and customer-centered. Within this environment, the HR professional must learn how to manage effectively through planning, organizing, leading and controlling the human resource and be knowledgeable of emerging trends in training and employee development.