Carnival of HR hits the big 40

So here it is the 40th Carnival of HR – and what a carnival. Topics this month range from talent, CSR, communications and diversity. Girls football even gets a mention! Enjoy the show and please pop over to the contributors blogs I promise you will not be disappointed.

Recruitment 2.0 urges HR professionals to join in the Web 2.0 revolution and provides 12 tips for making things happen for you and your business. Jon Ingham points us to an interesting piece of research and shows that IT can't lead the introduction of web 2.0 tools into their organisations and suggests that perhaps HR can?

Natalie Cooper over at Changeboard provides some interesting thinking on women in the workplace. According to research, in the next few years, 80% of the growth in the UK workforce will be accounted for by women and by 2010, one in five UK workers will be mothers so even if you’re single, but looking to have children in future, this still affects you. The fact is that there are employers in today’s supposed enlightened age who choose not to appoint women of childbearing age! Can we afford to let motherhood negatively impact women’s careers? What do you think?

Over at HR Bytes we are asked some critical questions about managing talent in our organisations and challenged to consider the role of HR and the business in fostering that talent. The Human Capital Vendor Space also considers talent. William suggests that the fact of the matter is that we are not ready for the talent shortage that will be created by the baby boomers retiring. None of us are ready. This report should help us create a conversation within our organizations - what are we really doing to address this talent gap?

Strategic Workforce Planning comment on the notion that strategic workforce planning needs to be for everyone involved in delivering your organizations services or products - you need to think beyond just employees, and consider contractors, consultants and suppliers. In fact they go further and say that as part of your supplier negotiations you should be asking for evidence as to how the supplier will be ensuring that they are able to provide the resources needed to fulfil their obligations.

Anne Barnes makes the case for involving employees in the matching of their jobs to market survey sources. Whilst there are many reasons why this is a good idea Anna suggest that the most important reason is that with all the pay data available on the Internet, they are doing this already – and suggests we might as well educate them on how an employer approaches this task and get them participating in our internal processes.

Find your metrics that matter suggests that looking at these types of measures you use in HR enables you to play detective and get to causation, which will allow HR to solve business problems and impact the bottom line! Over at TalentedApps Meg Bear says HR can be more credible at “having a seat at the table” when it demonstrates how it adds value by making a solid business case, including showing opportunity cost using reliable data. Sounds good to me!

Dan O'Shea focuses on the green agenda in Rewarding Social Conscience: Turning CSR on its head and suggests that marketing your green credentials strategically and you could protect your bottom line. Green is the new black for Dan and he makes a compelling case.

Gautam Ghosh writes on succession planning on how not to mess it up and suggests that we should look at people who can get results, and not those who work like the current leader. Kris Dunn looks at this from another angle and writes that succession planning is always a difficult exercise, especially when the young folks are chomping at the bit and the veterans aren’t leaving anytime soon. Is that ever a good time to kick a guy who’s #1 out to make room for the next generation? Inflexion Point considers Firm Survival and Employee Turnover and urges us to stay aware of what’s happening around us and to think seriously about the implications for business and individuals going through difficult times.

Following her big reveal last week Hr Wench reviews “How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What's Left of Your Career” which appeals to both to Generation X sensibilities and gives me good career advice.

Prasad Kurian talks about the impact/influence of 'early career experiences'. The main idea is that the early career experiences 'shapes' our definition of 'what is good' in an organization/workplace context (i.e. the tacit/subconscious definitions of 'good' boss, 'good' team member, 'good' team, 'good' employer, 'good' learning opportunities etc.) and hence they can have a significant and lasting impact on our careers by influencing our basic workplace preferences and attitudes.

Wal-Mart is the case covered by Punk Rock HR where Laurie suggests it's fair to ask yourself, "Do you want your employer giving you information on the US presidential election, or do you just want your employer to shut up and pay you?" I just want to be paid. I'll vote according to my own beliefs, thank you.

The Pennsylvania Labour and Employment Blog asks the question are Legal System to Blame for Humorless Work Environment? And suggests that American's increasingly humorless workplace may be caused by its increasingly litigious workforce. HR Observations advises that if you are in such a rut stuck in an HR routine try to do something different this week. Shake it up a bit, you might find the week goes by a bit quicker and a little more interestingly.

Nina Simosko suggests that when you really stop and think about it, clear communication is absolutely critical to achieving just about anything in business or in life. Be sure to not allow yourself to be distracted by “background” when having discussions. Pave the way for fruitful dialog by moving the background to the foreground.

Great Leadership provided a provocative topic “Woman’s Leadership Programs – No Boyz Allowed” and suggests the need for a debate around a notion suggested by Iris Marchaj, Director of Smith Executive Education “99% of leadership development programs offered by elite business schools are male-oriented...which is precisely why they fail when it comes to leadership learning for women!”. Lorrie Lykins of i4cp talks about the implications of government mandates on gender diversity to break through the glass ceiling

The Career Encouragement Blog looks at talent from the point of view of managing a girls football (aka soccer) team and provides 7 great tips for us corporates to consider. The good news is that the tips clearly worked as the girls won the State Championship!

Conflict? Bring in the HR folks! Steve Roesler offers 3 concrete ways to categorize and address conflict, on and off the job. This is a great article and resonated lots with my experience.

About.com: Human Resources ask How to Compensate Employee Travel? Susan is trying to formulate a policy to address the question of whether and how they should compensate exempt employees for traveling to conventions and exhibits that take place on weekends or require an overnight stay during the week. Can you help? You bet.

Fortify Services provides thoughts on email ettiquette and points to a great checklist from Seth Godin.

Finally why not pop over to Three Star Leadership and find out why the language of "risk taking" in business always makes Wally Bock a little crazy.