(From the New York Times) "I care about my colleagues, but there are things I don’t need to know. I’ve also found that if people know that you don’t gossip and that you don’t tolerate it, they won’t gossip around you. It might be human nature to think an unkind thought about a co-worker, but it’s a choice whether or not to actually say it.

"There’s a mix of personalities in any company, and rarely does everyone in a workplace like one another. But I believe that half the battle is in how people communicate.

"When employees are hired here, they’re given a communications assessment, a commercial program that the company uses to pinpoint a person’s dominant communications style. The styles are linked to colors that identify how each employee likes to communicate."

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Tags: workplace, behavior, teams

Categories: News

(From Anchorage Daily News) "If you want to become a hero in your workplace, you need to give more than you're getting and willingly travel beyond your job description. This means swimming against the tide of entitlement present in many of your co-workers. According to attorney turned HR consultant Andy Brown, 'employees in the 1980s and '90s have accustomed themselves to getting more and giving less. If we want to fix our damaged economy, we need to reverse this.'"

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Tags: productivity, workplace, development

Categories: News

Winston-Salem, NC (PRWEB) November 16, 2009 -– According to a recent Aberdeen Group study sponsored in part by SilkRoad technology, inc., the leading provider of talent management solutions, organizations targeting learning and development for managers improve performance, customer retention, and revenue, with 51 percent of the top organizations linking learning and development initiatives directly to changes in profitability and revenue.

The report outlines the key learning and development topics used by top performing companies, discusses the most widely used types of learning technologies, and addresses key learning measurement and management strategies.

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Tags: learning investment, roi

Categories: News

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Staffing levels in IT will remain the same in 2010 as they are now according to a recent survey conducted by Hay Group, the global management consulting firm. Sixty-nine percent of CIOs said their staffing levels will be unchanged in 2010, indicating a ‘bottoming out’ of staff reductions in IT. “Combined with the fact that IT operating budgets are stabilizing means we appear to be coming to the end of a very rough period for IT leadership” said Vincent Milich, Hay Group’s Director of IT Effectiveness.

The web-based survey was conducted in October 2009 with 41 CIOs and IT Executives which addressed business and human resource planning issues for 2010.

When asked what their greatest skills/knowledge gaps are in their organization, fully half of the CIOs cited ‘knowledge of the business’ followed by a third citing ‘technical skill.’ This is quite a turnaround from recent Hay Group surveys that cited project management and people management skills as the top two skill gaps.

“This signifies an ongoing and significant shift in the profession,” according to Milich. “As IT continues to get closer to the business, and packages and vendor solutions require less in-house support, the unique contribution that the IT professional needs to make will be based on their understanding of their industry and organization, and how IT can add value to their business.”

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Tags: it training, talent management, business news

Categories: News

(From CNN Money) "Talent Management in Healthcare," a recent study by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), reveals that although healthcare organizations are still struggling with the lack of qualified candidates in the talent market, the primary focus has been on developing and retaining talent. Performance management, engagement, and succession planning are the top strategic emphases for these organizations. Analysis showed that automation of talent management elements, specifically recruitment and learning management, leads the list of enablers that differentiate top performers from the rest of the sample. Utilizing assessments and defining competency profiles are earning organizations substantial gains in employee performance, retention and customer / patient satisfaction.

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Tags: talent management, business news, engagement, succession planning, healthcare

Categories: News

The 24-year-old software verification employee of South Korean-invested Kraze Vina is taking a business administration course through the TOPICA electronic learning (E-learning) program at Hanoi Open University.

What makes the two-year course so interesting is that Ha’s teachers, several of whom are businesspeople, often use real-life situations to get their point across.

“Real examples help us understand the lessons quicker, and we can watch the same lectures as many times as we want,” she told Thanh Nien Weekly.

Like Ha, many students and employees are taking the course to learn things that universities don’t teach.

Some 1,900 students and 105 entrepreneurs have registered for the “1,000 Businesspeople Share Their Experience with Youth via E-learning” study program co-organized by TOPICA, the Vietnam Youth Association and the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Over the next two years, the program is expected to train 30,000 students and 1,000 businesspeople.

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Tags: e-learning, business news, vietnam, asia

Categories: International | News

If an employee tweets on Twitter or updates his or her Facebook status at work, should an employer cringe and put up a firewall — or congratulate the person for engaging in acts of social media?

Surprisingly, in Silicon Valley it’s increasingly the latter. But for many organizations the pathway is still unclear, as businesses navigate through the emerging world of going social.

Some companies, such as Safeway Corp., allow only a small number of employees to access social media tools at work. The company has run a successful Facebook site where it offers immediate coupons and discounts for fans.

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Tags: workplace, behavior, productivity, web 2.0, social media

Categories: News

Melbourne, FL (PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Social networking in the workplace is a major dilemma for today's businesses. The question is: "Does it help or hurt the organization?"

Although the general issue is always the same, the specific challenges vary. They range from productivity losses, to legal risks, to bandwidth drains and security problems. And even more specifically, these challenges are associated with various types of sites that employees often visit for personal reasons. A few years ago, pornography sites presented the greatest challenge, while today social networking sites seem to be 'number one' with Facebook being the most popular.

A survey conducted by Nucleus Research showed that 77 percent of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours. Of those who use Facebook at work, 87% said they could not define a clear business reason for accessing the site, and some reported using it as much as two hours per day.

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Tags: workplace, behavior, productivity, web 2.0, social media

Categories: News

Chad Creager trained 45-year-old Marc Moorvitch how to safely use a Tennant auto scrubber for cleaning floors.

"He's a fast learner," said the manager of employment services at Opportunity Partners, a Minnetonka-based nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities live, learn and work as independently as possible.

In the past, Moorvitch's training with the industrial machine wouldn't have gained him a formal job certification.

But in a collaboration between Opportunity Partners and Dunwoody College of Technology, participants like Moorvitch will be trained using Dunwoody curricula and gain certification for jobs at the same time, while ensuring that their skills training meets the specific needs of employers and industry standards.

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Tags: skills, skills gap, economy, careers, jobs, minnesota

Categories: News

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Tuesday that the city is making $10.3 million in federal stimulus money available for worker-training programs.

The grants will be issued by the Community Development Department. Of the $10.3 million, $4 million will be used for vocational training for 1,000 workers and $6.3 million will be available to train an estimated 2,000 people for high-wage jobs in healthcare, construction, transportation and other sectors.

Villaraigosa said the city has received $43.7 million in job-training funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act so far, and between $300 million and $400 million in overall stimulus money.

Original link.

Tags: economy, jobs, careers, stimulus, government, california

Categories: The Economy