In his latest HR Gumbo blog, Steve asks “Why do you blog?” It reminded me of a recent Chuck Klosterman essay entitled "Something Instead of Nothing" (which can be found in his latest compendium of writings, "Eating the Dinosaur"). In this piece, Klosterman reflects on the interviewing process, and tells an anecdote about being interviewed by a Norwegian magazine writer: "But in the middle of our playful conversation, I was suddenly paralyzed by an unspoken riddle I couldn't answer: Why was I responding to this man's questions" As his books are not translated into Norwegian, nor would he be likely to read the publication, he thought about his motives for answering interview questions, and they reflect similarly to why I blog (no matter how infrequently it may be):

1. I felt I had something to say. Except I did not. No element of our interaction felt important to me. If anything, I felt unqualified to talk about the things the reporter was asking me. I don't have that much of an opinion about why certain Black Metal bands burn down churches.

Like Klosterman, I'd like to thing the words I write have some meaning to a greater audience; that the years of education and reading have some relevance to the world. However, in many ways I feel unqualified given my lack of true "real world" HR experience, and who am I to tell a practitioner or generalist about how to do his or her job.

2. It's my job. Except that it wasn't. I wasn't promoting anything. In fact, the interaction could have been detrimental to my career, were I to have inadvertently said something insulting about the king of Norway. Technically, there was more downside than upside.

Like Klosterman, blogging has no real impact on my job as a professor in that I am not going to be punished for not blogging, nor am I likely to be praised or rewarded for a great blog post. I am not looking for fame or money, or to gain future employment from my missives.

3. I have an unconscious, unresolved craving for attention. Except this feels inaccurate. It was probably true twenty years ago, but those desires have waned. Besides, who gives a fuck about being famous in a countryI'll never visit? Why would that feel good to anyone? How would I even know it was happening?

Like Klosterman, I wonder who I am trying to earn attention and praise from. Students? Co-workers? Fellow HR peers?

4. I have nothing better to do. This is accurate, but not satisfactory.

Like Klosterman, I blog when I have nothing better to do (which probably explains the infrequency of posts).

5. I'm a nice person. Unlikely.

Unlikely, indeed!

6. When asked a direct question, it's human nature to respond. This, I suppose, is the most likely explanation. It's the crux of Frost/Nixon. But if this is true, why is it true? What is the psychological directive that makes an unanswered question discomfiting?

I was prompted to start blogging by one Laurie Ruettimann. But, it still doesn't explain why I continue to blog. Being an academic, I suppose one enters the field for the very reason Klosterman concludes. There are unanswered questions one finds discomfiting that prompts one to look for solutions.

In this week's issue on The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has a fascinating look at football, dogfighting and brain damage.

In the article, he cites a recent University of Michigan study:

...late last month the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research released the findings of an N.F.L.-funded phone survey of just over a thousand randomly selected retired N.F.L. players—all of whom had played in the league for at least three seasons. Self-reported studies are notoriously unreliable instruments, but, even so, the results were alarming. Of those players who were older than fifty, 6.1 per cent reported that they had received a diagnosis of “dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other memory-related disease.” That’s five times higher than the national average for that age group. For players between the ages of thirty and forty-nine, the reported rate was nineteen times the national average. (The N.F.L. has distributed five million dollars to former players with dementia.)

Given this differential, has technology improved to address the issue and protect the player? Gladwell cites the influence of activist Chris Nowinski, a former football player who has experienced six concussions:

“People love technological solutions,” Nowinski went on. “When I give speeches, the first question is always: ‘What about these new helmets I hear about?’ What most people don’t realize is that we are decades, if not forever, from having a helmet that would fix the problem. I mean, you have two men running into each other at full speed and you think a little bit of plastic and padding could absorb that 150 gs of force?”

Last week, I had the opportunity to take my human resource management class to a tour of Lambeau Field and meet with a representative of their HR Department. It was quite the experience to see behind-the-scenes, walk on the field, and here about the business side of the organization. However, we did not get an opportunity to hear about the player personnel aspects of the organization.

A business like the NFL is unique in that it puts its key employees each week in harm's way. Certianly, these employees know the risks involved and, perhaps, the salaries they earn serves as adequate hazard pay for the work they perform. Brain damage is not the only health issue. Congress has looked into football injuries in the past and calls have been made to address this issue at the Congressional level.

Does the NFL have a greater obligation to protect its employees? Is the NFL Players Association doing a disservice to its rank-and-file by not taking greater effort to look out for the economic, let alone physical, well-being of its employees? Is this something that should be addressed at the high school or college level?

With the growing importance of social media, as well as its embrace by many members of the HR community, I thought I would add a social media component to my "Introduction to HRM" class this fall. Students were expected to join our class Facebook group, Twitter, LinkedIn, and SHRM Connect, as well as start a blog on Wordpress or Blogspot.

The first assignment was to use Twitter for 48 hours. Students would set up follower lists with their classmates, and they were required to make 6 tweets and respond to two of their classmates tweets. After the 48 hours were over, students were expected to post a blog on their experience.

I had expected students to take to Twitter like a fish to water, given its similarity to texting. Instead, students disliked the experience by a two to one margin. What might explain their resistance or dislike?

1. The use of twitter.com. I suggested students use twitter.com as their tool. Several of the students did not like that twitter.com did not allow them to see who responded to their tweets. Perhaps using something like Tweetdeck might have made it more user-friendly.

2. Few web-enabled phones. To truly embrace Twitter, one needs a web-enabled phone that enables one to post and respond at a moment's notice. While all students have cell phones, few had phones that allowed them to run a Twitter app. As a result, students would have to be "chained" to that desktop or laptop to participate.

3. Facebook. Students preferred the Facebook interface and were comfortable with it; that was their comparison point. Similarly, few of their friends were on Twitter, as compared to Facebook.

Again, the above experience involves a pretty small sample size and was primarily anecdotal. Perhaps there is a research paper in here somewhere down the line.

One of my favorite websites to visit is Rate Your Students. The posts usually deal with the joy of teaching undergraduates and the vagaries of academic life.

Two recent posts recently caught my interest. The first referenced a post by Dick Morris where he writes:

If colleges required their faculty to work harder (approximating the work week the rest of us find normal), held down administrative spending, and reined in borrowing for capital improvements, that these institutions could charge half of what they now do in tuition and fees. That’s right…half!

In noting that York charges about $21,000 for tuition, board and other fees, Mr. Morris argues:

College costs are as high as they are because the institutions coddle their faculty letting them off with work weeks that we would find laughable while they increase their administrative costs and debt out of all proportion to reality.

It would be one thing if students and their parents had to scrimp and save and borrow and compromise to pay the necessary costs of college. But the plain fact is that they are doing so in order to let faculty members teach five classes a year, spending only 18-20 hours in the classroom per week!

Similarly, Margaret Wente, in The Globe and Mail:

“My colleagues do everything they can to get out of teaching,” says Rod Clifton, who works in the faculty of education at the University of Manitoba. “They'd rather not have the students around, because they'd rather do research and stand around and sip sherry.”

Canadian universities now have about 800,000 undergraduates. But as enrolment soared, teaching loads – with the help of strong faculty unions – went down. In Mr. Clifton's department, for example, the teaching load is six hours a week for one semester of 13 weeks, and nine hours a week for another 13 weeks. That adds up to 195 hours spread over just 26 weeks a year – less, if someone has administrative duties. Of course there's prep time and marking and so on. But it's still not much.

What exactly are people's perceptions of the work life of a professor? Would anyone argue that Jon Stewart works only 2 hours a week as he only appears a half-hour a day, Monday through Thursday, on the Daily Show? What do you think a professor actually does with his or her time?

As an educator and advisor to a SHRM student chapter, I am always looking for excellent resources that will help my students prepare for the workplace and their career. With that in mind, "Rock the PHR HR Certification Handbook" is a welcome addition to that pool of resources.

Compiled by Ben Eubanks (UpstartHR.com) with able assistance from April Dowling (psuedohr.com), "Rock the PHR" outlines a 10-week guide to taking the PHR exam, starting with tips to get you started, going through each of the areas the PHR exam covers, and closing with game day suggestions.

There are several things I liked about the handbook:

1. It comes from the voice of experience. Ben highlights the trials and tribulations of prepping for the exam, pointing out the pitfalls you want to watch out for, as well as an appropriate pace to help you succeed.
2. It incorporates social media. The handbook includes links to a lot of helpful, up-to-date, free resources that go beyond an Intro to HR textbook.
3. Author accessibility. In addition to the handbook, Ben is more than willing to be contacted to address any concerns you might have regarding the PHR exam. Try that with one of those high-falutin' textbook authors!
4. The price (at least until September 1). For $10, not only do you get the handbook, and the author accessibility, but in the coming weeks, additional material will be included to further augment your preparation for the exam.

In sum, the "Rock the PHR" handbook is a worthy purchase for someone looking to take the PHR exam.

It was with equal parts laughter, derision, and shock that I read of a recent college graduate who is suing her former school for $70,000 when she found that she was unable to find suitable employment:

Thompson, a graduate of Monroe College, is suing her school for the $70,000 she spent on tuition because she hasn't found solid employment since receiving her bachelor's degree in April, according to a published report.

The business-oriented school in the Bronx didn't do enough to help her find a job, Thompson alleges, so she wants a refund. The college says it does plenty for grads.

Instead of blaming the economy, her own lack of experience, poor job interviewing skills, she puts the blame on the college. Was she seeking the degree, but not the education? Perhaps the potential employers did not want to hire people who do not take responsibility for themselves and are not inclined toward action, not whining? What role does parenting play in preparing children for potential failure?

As a professor, I often hear horror stories from colleagues about receiving calls from parents regarding grades, registration for classes, career advisement, etc. We call them "helicopters" as they are always hovering over their children. Fortunately, I have not received such a call, but it reminds me of a classic "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode called "The Lucky Suit" where Robert goes into a job interview with the FBI, only to be torpedoed by the well-meaning efforts of his mom:

Lucky Suit - Clip 1

Lucky Suit - Clip 2

Any experiences of your own with "helicopter" parents?

On Wednesday and Thursday, I will be attending the WI SHRM State Leadership Conference at the Hotel Mead in Wisconsin Rapids, WI. I will be responsible for conducting a breakout session involving two SHRM core leadership areas - Workforce Readiness and College Relations. In mid-July, the Conference Board, in conjunction with SHRM, ASTD, and Corporate Voices for Working Families, released a research report entitled, "The Ill-Prepared U.S. Workforce: Exploring the Challenges of Employer-Provided Workforce Readiness Training." (SHRM membership required to access).

In a survey of 217 employers,

Employers report hiring substantial number of new entrants who are poorly prepared, requiring additional company investment to improve workforce readiness skills. And while many employers provide workforce readiness or remedial training to bring their new entrants up to speed, many report less than strong results.

In an effort to see the readiness of college students to enter the workplace, I surveyed 45 attendees of the conference (6 students, 39 HR professionals). Students were asked to rate how strong they possess a number of competencies (problem solving skills, written communication skills, computer proficiency, etc.) on a scale of "1 - very weak" to "5 - very strong." HR professionals were similarly asked to what extent college graduates entering the job market possess those same competencies, with a similar scale.

Students perceived themselves as being "strong" or "very strong" on virtually all the competencies/applied skills, with the highest percentage (50%) claiming they are very strong on "discipline/work ethic." Students felt they were weakest in the areas of "negotiation skills" (50% felt they were "weak" or "neither weak nor strong"), and "ability to handle conflict/criticism" (33% indicated they were "weak" or "neither weak nor strong").

In contrast, HR professionals indicated that students were weakest in "discipline/work ethic" (44%). However, they concurred with students with regard to "negotiation skills" (only 14% thought students were "strong" or "very strong") and "ability to handle conflict/criticism" (only 11.6% thought students were "strong" or "very strong").

Obviously, there is a sample size issue given the low number of students participating in the survey, but it should prove interesting to see the discussion on how we can improve the relationship between students and HR professionals as students prepare for their senior year, and beyond.