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Firing at Will

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Comments

Marie Wiere

Jay,

This is a great blog post that I found really interesting, as to me it illustrates how HR has to change. I work in HR and am intrigued by change and new ideas and processes. However, I am probably an exception in comparison to other HR professionals, as i'm an MBA candidate with an interest in strategic management.

I think the old traditional paperwork centric HR role is not as relevant in 21st century business. Instead the HR function needs to change and take on a more strategic role focusing on the importance of human capital through greater talent management. I really like your mention of treating employees differently as with four generations at work different employees are motivated by different things. It is so important to have flexibility in employee reward schemes to reflect this. Likewise overly rigid policies that treat everyone the same can result in failure to retain your star employees.

I'd love to read your book and look forward to reading more of your blog posts.

magnet mailers

You've hit it on the head. HR is often tasked with two conflicting missions: 1) provide the environment for employee growth and 2) maintain a conformance-based personnel system.

It's that second mission that requires us to run HR as a paper trail, where we process employees like we're building cars at a Ford plant. It's usually a system developed by the folks in Legal. And that's exactly how it comes across to those who it impacts.

By the time we finish all the paperwork, we've run out of time to do any of the first mission.

HR should be creating the environment to find the best in every employee, rather than focus on ways to avoid the worst.

I think I'll make a special field trip to my Barnes & Noble this weekend, and check out what you have to say.

Marc Martin

It is important to educate and aware ourselves as to consider making changes in historic employee policies and procedures. That's a mark of a modern business trend and companies incorporating these trends are more likely to keep good employees with them for a longer term. Everyone should read your book. Thank you for sharing.

Blogging4Jobs

Sometimes us HR professionals need a little shakeup from the old routine. I agree with your methods mentioned in this post and hope to read more about the human resources revelations discussed in Fire At Will. It's refreshing to see someone else addressing the need for HR to evolve alongside the changing workforce. Great post! -JMM

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