Why Starbucks' Unconscious Bias Training Probably Won't Change Much

Starbucks made a splash recently by closing 8,000 stores to provide unconscious bias training for over 100,000 employees. The company decided on this widespread training after an employee stopped two black men from using their onsite restroom in a Philadelphia store.

Finding the Right Purpose for Performance Management

Performance management originated because organizations needed a fair way to determine compensation; by measuring employee's performance, they had clear standards for who received what bonus or salary increase. Today, however, the old structure of compensation through merit budgets is all but obsolete: While pay is still determined by performance, it's not the sole driver for compensation—creating a lack of purpose for traditional "performance management" programs. So, how can leaders today discover a newer, more relevant purpose?

How to Hire for the Gig Economy

With companies increasingly hiring workers for specific tasks and projects, the gig economy is creeping up on the American workforce. Intuit estimates that gig workers now represent 34 percent of the workforce, and that number will grow to about 43 percent by 2020.

Strategies to Improve Employee Learning Retention

Learning programs are often costly and may not always bring about the change in behavior that organizational leaders hope to see. And every so often, learning programs actually take employees away from the very work they were hired to do, which can be costly for the company and stressful for the employee.

Preparing for a More Flexible World of Work

Every so often, I become overwhelmed by how much our world has changed in the past decade. We don't wait for snail mail anymore because email arrived, and all but replaced it. And even emails are now getting replaced by messaging tools that allow us to discuss business issues with all the appropriate stakeholders and come to a decision in a matter of minutes.

4 Ways HR Needs to Think Like Sales

Imagine this. Your sales team just landed an introductory meeting with a huge potential client — a client that could easily increase your annual revenue by 25 percent if you land the deal. How do they prepare?

Creating a Leadership Development Roadmap: A Guide for Small and Mid-Size Businesses

There's good news and bad news when it comes to business leadership development. The bad news is that traditional costly classroom training yields marginal results, if any. But the good news is that leadership development for small and mid-size businesses doesn't actually have to be expensive, nor do you need a big HR team to do it effectively.

Why Fast-Growth Companies Should Invest in Real-time, Daily Learning

Quick growth is a blessing and a curse, and organizations often don't take the right steps to stave off the curse because they are so busy growing. This is a mistake.

4 Steps to Aligning Employee Expectations With Organizational Goals

I can't tell you how many times I've heard HR professionals tell me, "I went into HR because I'm a people person." It makes sense, since one of the roles that HR professionals play is advocating for employees. But it's not their only role—it's also up to HR teams to advocate for organizations.

How to Meet the Needs of HR Customers (All 6 Types of Them)

Here's a telling question: Do you believe HR is more than just a cost center?

Why Clean Data is the Best Data

In today's HR landscape, data is having a moment. But I'd like to suggest that not all analytics are created equal.

How to Humanize Your Organization in the Era of HR Technology

Today's HR buzzword: "humanize". More and more I see articles and now even a book about humanizing organizations. It makes sense: With the impact of HR technology, people analytics and social media, it is reasonable to worry that we have lost the ability to relate to each other as human beings.