Taking the Pulse

When was the last time you as the senior HR person in your organization held a meeting with the rank and file in your organization? Taking the pulse of your organization is extremely important to make sure your HR strategy is working within the rank and file. 

As a senior leader, I held meetings with employees, no more than six(6) at a time to discuss what was going right in the organization and what was going wrong or missing the mark. Why six you ask, well, I only had six seats in my office. I lead every meeting with the following statement, "this is your meeting to vent, commend, criticize, or otherwise and that it was a safe harbor for them". I also told them that the success of these meetings depended on the confidentiality they entrusted with me. I can tell you that there were a lot of good solid suggestions on how the business was run, what could be fixed, enhanced, etc. 

As you may recall these meetings were much like the Skip Level Meetings that GE ran throughout their businesses. The best ideas and direction comes from the employees. 

I am sure if you are in touch with the business that you are running such meetings and if not then you are missing the mark on what your overall responsibility is as an HR leader. Email me 

wgstevens2@gmail.com on what you have done or doing in our organization and I will post it on my blog. 

Employee Free Choice Act

This pending legislation will put a strain on HR professionals who have been free and clear of union activity. The pending legislation that President Obama has, during the campaign trail, endorsed will certainly focus the HR involvement in the business if it is not there already.

HR will have to operate differently and CEOs will be forced to get the much needed help from human resources. So the question is, are the HR departments prepared for this and have they been trained or retrained to deal with this?

What is your take on this and for as full picture, please read the lead article in Workforce Management's January issue. Let me know your thoughts at wgstevens2@gmail.com .