I was sent this article written by Joe Torre, the manager of the New York Yankees, that was recently published in BusinessWeek. Now, regardless of what you think of the team, you have to admire Joe. Just being able to remain the manager of the Yankees for this long while working for George Steinbrenner has to give you some insight into the man’s pluck.

The truth is that he’s a very insightful guy with real heart (somehow in my mind, I always envision him crying after winning something), and in the article he shares some of his thoughts on managing talent. In part, he talks about how he uses one of the team’s worst moments (letting the Red Sox take the momentum, and the world series, away in 2004) to motivate his people to always be ready. But he contrasts that motivational technique with a keen understanding of the fine balance between emotionality and competitiveness. A quote:

These days it is so important for a CEO, or any manager, whoever it is, to be aware of his or her personnel. We are in an age of computers, and everything is so damn impersonal. But in the end, it still comes down to people. You have to make people feel necessary. Even if their contributions are minor, it adds to everything else. That’s what makes the machine work. I love players with heart, not necessarily emotion, but those who deep down are driven by something more than mind and body. I don’t play favorites. The 25th member of the squad is just as important as the first guy. And I can’t let my own emotions get in the way of competing. I have had to release guys I loved, and keep players I didn’t necessarily care for.

Another post from a few days back on SystematicHR (I just can’t keep up with the guy) in which Dubs hopes that the future of SaaS is a world in which vendors can use abstracted data from their systems to help customers learn what’s working and what’s not for others in their business / industry. After all, across millions of users and hundreds of companies one could imagine all kinds of delicious data that, in anonymous and abstract ways, could be used to identify trends, successes and failures across all kinds of situations.

In fact, this has been the holy grail of such systems for years. Today, such data comes from surveys. But if one could get data directly from what companies are doing, as opposed to what they are saying, how much more accurate and powerful would it be? We think a lot. That’s why were already doing it. We think it’s a huge value to our customers – and one of the ways we’re helping to drive customer success.

Erik took a moment to reply to Dubs’ post. Here’s part of what he said: “We are looking at aggregate data from that enormous resource of ours. To look at what works and not we use publicly available financial information and cross reference those two. The findings we make are very interesting and are being used to further push our thinking of leading practice in different areas.”

You can read more about SuccessFactors research here. And if you have questions for Erik, just email him.

Depends on who you ask.

Via digg.com, I came across an article from the WSJ entitled “Employers increasingly favor bonuses to raises” – which discusses the whole concept of performance-linked bonuses. According to the article, 80% of companies will offer some from of bonus program this year up from 78% last year and 67% in 1997. The article discusses the pay-for-performance initiatives of Whirlpool, which has made more employees eligible for bonuses and increased the maximum bonus that can be achieved.

According to the article “Whirlpool also awards merit raises based on performance. But it considers bonuses a more powerful motivator. “It starts breaking away at the notion of entitlement,” says David Binkley, Whirlpool’s human-resources chief. With merit pay, “if you just spread it around, it just raises your costs.” Across corporate America, he notes, “those days are coming to an end where everyone just automatically gets this 3.6%, 3.7%” merit raise.”

In case you were wondering, the average raise for 2007 is projected to be 3.7%, up from 3.6% this year  – according to data from Hewitt.

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A Note: this post was written by a guest writer, and does not necessarily represent my opinion. That said, I think it’s important to host a variety of thoughts and perspectives on the blog and thus, I give you the following article written by Frank Lynn, Proposal Manager at SuccessFactors. As always, please feel free to comment.

Imagine this nightmare – You leave your house in the morning juggling your keys, your coffee and your cell phone as you set off for work where you are the Director of HR at a growing, global organization. As you approach your car you notice your windshield is smashed to pieces and you realize instantly that your laptop is gone, along with a spreadsheet you created last week containing payroll information on your 1,500 employees.

Many companies understand the risk associated with sensitive customer data, but they don’t realize that an employee data breach could be just as serious. In today’s post-HIPAA, post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment, implementing controls to safeguard information such as financial statements and medical records is top of mind. CIOs and Risk Management professionals are under a lot of stress. All it takes is one lost or stolen laptop to put an entire organization at risk – and generate a barrage of negative publicity (e.g., the recent Dept. of Veteran Affairs mishap that exposed 26 million patient health records).

The European Union led the way in protecting employee data privacy with its 1995 directives regarding collection and use of employee data; which included giving employees rights to access and correct data concerning themselves. This means EU residents can check their personnel file for errors like you’d check your credit report. The EU also restricts transfers of personal data to countries that do not ensure “an adequate level of protection.” Many EU nations impose strict fines and penalties in the event of an employee data breach.

Canada has also followed suit with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) that states companies in certain sectors such as banking and aviation must have a legitimate purpose for collecting, using and disclosing employees’ data records.

In response to foreign data privacy laws, the US Department of Commerce created the Safe Harbor Certification process. Safe Harbor Certification is comprised of an annual self-certification process where companies are required to abide by seven principles of data security. This takes navigating the legalese of foreign laws out of the equation, by adhering to a data privacy standard that is universally acceptable.

This issue is upon us and it is here to stay. Make sure your internal systems and processes are safe, your data is restricted appropriately and your application vendors can live up to the highest security standards.

For more information about data privacy laws, take a look at these sites:
http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/index.html
http://www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e.asp

Though perhaps a bit risque for an HR-related blog, one of my colleagues sent me this link and I thought I would pass it along. I figured it might be good for a Friday afternoon chuckle at the very least.

I wont get into details - if you want to know, you can click the link and listen – but suffice it to say that this radio DJ is not going to take it anymore, and she wants all her listeners to know. I bet she’d vote yes on the open salaries question, too.

(Related thought: I wonder if such public outburst are cathartic. I’m sure there are plenty of people who wish that they could tell their employer off, but when it’s over, do they feel better? Would you feel better?)

The Chief Happiness Officer does. And he’s got good reason for wanting to know. Among other things, he thinks it might make salaries more fair, make it easier to retain the best employess and keep pressure on the highest earners to earn their keep.

The idea of open salaries is contentious. It’s throught provoking. It’s also downright brilliant. I’m a strong believer in the power of transparency to right wrongs, reduce red tape and eliminate waste –and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work for salaries. Except one. it would require that employees be willing to accept their status in the corporation. For those at the bottom to understand that and be okay with being there.

To a certain extent, everyone knows their status already – people know how much they make and have a general idea of what others pull in. But to whatever extent they’ve justified those salaries to themselves, they would be forced, in this new world, to justify them to everyone else, too. “I’m okay with being worth $X.” That may just be too painful and demotivating to be productive for the organization.

The post is a rather fair dissection of both sides of the open/closed salaries argument – a worthy 5 minute read – even though we know which side wins.

Perhaps somewhat off topic, I thought I would point out an interesting show that’s been airing on the Sundance channel. Called “House of Boateng,” it follows the zany misadventures of Ozwald Boateng (seen left), a London-based fashion designer, in his attempts to penetrate the US market. Along the way, he meets wild and wacky investors, throws tempter tantrums and alienates employees in his attempt to make it big across the pond. (He also does this strange dance when he feels uncomfortable, or is in the spotlight, and that alone makes the show worth watching.)

Now, ordinarily, you wouldn’t find me watching much reality television – especially on the Sundance Channel – but in all fairness to myself, this is the summer season and good TV is hard to find. In any case, the reason I mention it here is that Mr. Boateng is like a lot of small business owners. While exceptionally talented at what he does, and very successful to boot, Boateng’s domineering style and penchant for micro-management results in all sorts of fun-to-watch chaos as the business leaps and lurches it’s way to growth.

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I stole the title for this post from this Fortune Small Business article which recaps a survey of over 300 small businesses. The survey concluded that HR can be the deciding factor between an “explosive” business and a “sluggish” one (and they have some really cool cartoons that highlight the points, like the one to the left).

There are some very good supporting points, but my favorite is this one: Companies with controlling bosses lagged companies that give employees more autonomy. By a lot. Those with more autonomy had faster revenue growth (14.6% to 3.2%), profit growth (8.7% to 4.8%) and lower turnover (8.5% to 23.6%). (Wowza!)

I’m starting to think that this goal of HR being strategic is too tame. When we can show that HR means more money, everyone should pay attention.

Or so Seth Godin seems to say. Here, he advocates for hiring passionate people who may or may not be particularly efficient or effective. Truth be told, I tend to agree with him.

I’m dealing with a situation now with my bank. It involves a lost wire transfer – they sent it, and no one got it. They’ve spent the last two weeks “tracking it” but have yet to “find anything.” How can this be possible?

It’s possible because the people just don’t care. It’s not a big enough amount of money, and I’m not important enough a customer for anyone to really give a hoot about tracking it down.

It reminds me of part of a speech I listened to last week by Jason Fried of 37 signals. In it, he says that hiring “happy people” is more important than hiring for the perfect skill-set. Why? Because happy people come to work everyday ready to do what needs to be done. They bring people up instead of dragging them down.

Seth is right - even if the sales clerk in his article seems overly detailed -  passionate people make all the difference. They go the extra mile to get things done and keep customers happy. And ultimately, customer success matters most.

Gautam reminds us of an old HR saying –

“A players hire other A players
B players hire C players
C players should never be hiring…”

Any other HR wisdom anyone would like to share? That could be a fun project.