In today's wonderful edition of The Cynical Girl, Laurie Ruettimann cites that 82% of recruiters find evidence of discrimination against the employed.

This brings up the following conundrum:

1.  If recruiters and employers are not looking at the unemployed to fill vacancies, they must be looking at job seekers who are currently desiring to leave their current position, or trying to entice those who may be content at their current job.

2.  Wages have stagnated for the past 30 years....see graph:



So, riddle me this Batman, how are vacancies being filled if higher real wages aren't increasing.  Or, is the only way to get a wage increase in today's economy is to switch jobs with the expectation, that once the job is secured, one is unlikely to see significant increased in salary for several years?  Is pay compression (or even pay inversion) the "new normal?"

I admit it.  I am not a Google + user.  Yes, I have an account, and I dabbled with it when it was first released.  However, I never found the value added above and beyond what I get with Twitter and Facebook.  As a result, I rarely look at it and haven't posted on it in ages.

However, each day I get two or three notices saying that someone has added me to their circle on Google +.  Given my limited participation on Google +, I have to ask.....WHY!?!?!

Do they want to simply bask in my good looks and charm?   Is it simple autospamming? Is it my enormous....Klout score?   What are they getting?

Which brings me to Follow Friday (nice timing, eh?) on Twitter.  While it is nice to list people you think others should follow on Twitter, is it really generating new leads and cultivating new relationships?  And, why should you "trust" the person making the recommendation?  Because I tell you to follow someone, should you really listen to me?

In their 1982 article, Increasing Productivity through Performance Appraisal, Gary Latham and Kenneth Wexley argue that three criteria should be used to judge the appropriateness of the information source.  First, evaluators should be aware of the objectives of the employee's job.  Second, the evaluators should have an opportunity to observe the employee on the job....the more times the better.  Third, the evaluators should be capable of determining whether the employee's performance is satisfactory.

While Follow Friday is a way to recognize people making good contributions, they are often absent of any context as to why they should be added.  Are you aware of their job?  Have you had an opportunity to observe them on Twitter? Are what they writing satisfactory?  Or are you simply following them blindly?

With the news today that hotel reservations are now being accepted for the 2012 SHRM Annual Conference, I bring you my 3rd annual expose of SHRM hotel costs....this time, 7 months early.  In the previous two Junes, I have conducted a quick statistical analysis of the cost to attend the SHRM Annual Conference in terms of housing. 

I look at selected SHRM conference brochures (i.e., the ones that I still possessed) over the past 12 years to see what it would cost a person to book a single room on a per night average.  Clearly, prices in 2001 will be different than in 2012, so I use an inflation calculator to adjust costs to today's dollars.  So, how does the 2012 Conference in Atlanta compare to years past?

Cost of an Average SHRM-Affiliated Hotel (per night)
San Francisco (2001): $250.77 (standard deviation of $55.29)
Chicago (2008): $250.16 (sd of $28.80)
San Diego (2010): $238.42 (sd of $41.04)
Washington DC (2006): $226.12 (sd of $38.85)
Philadelphia (2001): $212.70 (sd of $56.90)
San Diego (2005): $199.94 (sd of $48.75)
Atlanta (2012): $198.36 (sd of $22.13)
Las Vegas (2007): $164.16 (sd of $31.64)
Las Vegas (2011): $126.25 (sd of $17.51)

I ran a simple one-way ANOVA (i.e., a fancy way of comparing multiple means simultaneously) to see if there was a significant difference across the means of these 9 sampled years.  The results showed a statistically significant difference overall with F = 21.82 (p=.0000) with an R-squared of 38.57% (hence, nearly 39% of the variation in hotel costs can be explained by location).  The result is not surprising, given that San Francisco and Chicago is nearly twice as expensive as Las Vegas.

Clearly, attending the SHRM Annual Conference in 2012 will be a much more expensive proposition than in 2011.   Hotel costs in Atlanta are approximately $72 a night more expensive than in Las Vegas.  However, hotel prices are in the lower third historically, representing a bigger bargain than in any other city than Las Vegas.   Further, given the 2nd smallest standard deviation in the sample, you will be able to find higher quality/higher rated hotels for not much more than the overall average.

But....once again, you better start saving your pennies for 2012, as the conference is returning to Chicago, amongst the more expensive cities in the group.

See you in Atlanta.

Growing up in East Lansing, MI and the Michigan State campus, one of the more polarizing figures was one Mark Grebner.

Thirty years before the advent of sites such as "Rate My Professors," he was self publishing "Rating the Profs," a short paperback that was available for purchase at the MSU Student Book Store to assist students in avoiding the "harder" professors (several were rated as "A Real Bastard!").

He has also ran successfully for  County Commissioner for many years under the slogan, "No Worse Than The Rest."  Which made me think...

Is this a winning slogan for HR as well?

Our HR strategy?...no worse than the rest
Our time to fill?...no worse than the rest
Our candidate pool? ....no worse than the rest
How do we train and develop our employees? ...no worse than the rest
How do we keep our employees safe? ....no worse than the rest
Our recognition program? ...no worse than the rest
Our compensation system?...no worse than the rest
Where do you rate the employees? ....no worse than the rest

Does it work?

Facing personnel problems (in this case, the star RB of the Detroit Lions, Jahvid Best, was suffering from a concussion), the Lions and Philadelphia Eagles engaged in a common practice - the trading of employees.  However, the trade had an uncommon result.  According to ESPN,

Detroit's trade with Philadelphia that exchanged seldom-used veteran running backs Ronnie Brown and Jerome Harrison has been voided.

Two league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter that the trade was voided because Harrison has previously undisclosed health issues.

Brown arrived in Detroit but never got to practice.

Lions spokesman Bill Keenist said the team would have no further comment.

The Eagles announced Tuesday they dealt Brown to Detroit for Harrison and an undisclosed pick in the 2013 draft. Detroit wouldn't confirm the move because the franchise doesn't until deals are done.

The Lions were looking forward to adding Brown to a backfield that might be without starting running back Jahvid Best for a while. He had his third concussion Sunday in a loss to San Francisco.

Certainly, it was unlikely Detroit was trying to pull a fast one on the Eagles, particularly since most trades of this nature are contingent on the results of a physical.

However, it got me wondering why we don't see trades among employees more often outside of the sporting arena?  Could Ford make a play for a senior accountant at Chrysler?  Could Amazon be angling for an up and coming software engineer at Google?

Certainly, a number of things limit the possibility of such trades in the business world, such as:
1) Size of organizations - the sporting arena have limits on the number of employees to possibly cover.  There are only 30 Major League Baseball teams, with roster limits during the season of 26 players.  There are only 32 NFL teams, with roster limits of 53 players.  Organizations with 1,000+ employees were make such scouting very difficult

2) Transparency of performance - Pro athletes performance are on display on a regular basis.   Turn on the television on Sunday afternoons in the Fall (particularly on DirecTV) and you can see how an employee with another organization is performing.   It is tough to see how Bill in accounting is doing at another organization.

However, what would the business world look like if such trading became commonplace?  Would workers be more anxious knowing they could possibly be moving to another organization at a moment's notice?  Would that increase or decrease performance levels?  Would it create a whole new cadre of performance scouts evaluating talent at other employers?  Could it address potential staffing imbalances, as one organization may be flush with sales professionals while another could have extra HR managers?  Who would create the Trade Value Chart  that would assess comparable value of different charts?

And, would we see trades like we've seen in Major League baseball where players have been traded for a set of bats or a turkey?

I'm not sure I want to wake up tomorrow knowing that I've been traded to Lawrence University for a fax machine and a set of Bic pens.

Working at a liberal arts college, it is hard not to escape discussion of the liberal arts or Western canon.  Also sometimes described as Great Books, Mortimer Adler put together three criteria for a tome to be part of the group:

1.  The book must have contemporary significance - is it relevant to today's times
2.  The book is inexhaustible - one could always pick it up and derive new meaning and benefits from it
3.  The book is relevant is to a large number of the great ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for a significant period of time.

With that in mind, is there a "Human Resource Canon"comprised of great writings that all HR professionals should read or have read.  What HR book is significant, inexhaustible, and relevant to a large number of the great HR issues that PHRs grapple with on a daily basis?  Or, is the HR field simply too young or too ephemeral to contain such a library?

Is the HR Capitalist, the HRRingleader, or The Cynical Girl the best we have?

In the Fall of 2009, I went to the first HREvolution in Louisville, KY not sure of what to expect.  I had met only one attendee in person prior to the event.   I had read many of the attendees blogs or seen them on Twitter, but my interaction was minimal.   However, as an educator, I wanted to be sure that the information my students were receiving was as current and cutting edge as possible before they entered the workplace.

In the months and years since the 1st HREvolution, the dividends I've earned from attending would make an Apple investor green with envy.  I could wax poetic about the content that has been provided year in and year out.   But, its the people and the connections made that have been the real payoff, both professionally and personally.  Since attending the 1st HREvolution:

• I've been asked to contribute to an e-book on training
• I've collaborated on the first of a hoped-to-be annual volume on the intersection of sports and HR called "The 8 Man Rotation"
• I've appeared on both the HR Happy Hour and Drive Thru HR several times
• I've collaborated with an attendee on an incentive compensation research project
• I've been invited to attend the NBA Summer League (which both family considerations, and the NBA lockout have prevented me from going)
• I've been asked to help organize HREvolution - Las Vegas

In addition, I have shared many meals, laughs, and conversation both on and offline with many of the attendees.  I know that if I had a HR question, I could pick up the phone and any number of the people I have met would be more than willing to provide the advice and guidance  I needed.

The cost of registration was (and is) small and I would gladly pay three times its listed cost as the results have been priceless.

If the above hasn't convinced you to attend, please note the special deal that is being offered in conjunction with the HR Technology Conference.  While there are a lot of $500 discounts being floated out in the Twitterverse, by registering for BOTH  HR Tech AND HREvolution, you get the biggest discount available...$600 off the registration for HR Tech.   That means attending HREvolution will only cost you an additional $50.  I am so confident that you will find HREvolution worthwhile, that if you register for both events and find yourself dissatisfied with HREvolution, I will personally refund you that extra $50.  So, register for HREvolution here and I hope to see you in Las Vegas