Many IT leaders and even CIOs today are missing an opportunity. Their teams spend all day catering to business needs when in fact the business managers can and should be empowered to solve problems themselves.There is an old saying that goes: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” IT leaders who facilitate low code rapid application development knowledge in emp...

Social media can be a terrific recruiting tool, but only if you understand your audience and the laws that formally and informally govern networks. Most organizations have figured out by now that blasting generic job postings over Twitter doesn’t generate much targeted interest. The better approach requires a bit more legwork but is certainly worth it in the end.Locate where your targets already hang outMost organizations g...

Last year, a colleague emailed me a report by McKinsey and the Conference Board. Called False Summit: Why the Human Capital Function Still Has Far To Go, the paper eschewed the notion that companies and their leadership teams have achieved the holistic and systematic view of human capital strategy that is required in today’s business world.Using research conducted across three methods: a global survey, a literature review,...

Segmentation is nothing new to our colleagues down the hall in marketing, but when it comes to recruiting, it’s a relatively new phenomenon. Just a few years ago, recruiting messages were “one-size-fits-all.” We agreed on company verbiage we wanted to share publicly and then shouted those words to anyone who would listen. Then, of course, we’d be stuck going through thousands of resumes, many of which were completely unsuit...

I’ve long been a fan of intrapreneurship, or the practice of entrepreneurial strategies within the context of, and leveraging the resources of, an established organization. I wanted to come up with some good intrepreneurship programs pioneered by HR for this piece, but it was more difficult than I expected.Beyond the open allocation topic, which we discussed earlier this year and which is mostly limited to the startup commu...

In her book You’ve Only Got Three Seconds, Camille Lavington writes that people form a permanent opinion of you based on a very brief initial impression. The same phenomenon can occur when fresh hires show up to their first day at a new job. If things go well, they may return home brimming with enthusiasm for this next phase in their life. And if things don’t go well, a seed can be planted. This seed whispers that they've m...

Once upon a time, businesses announced a new product or service with great fanfare, including activities like press releases and events scheduled over a day or two. Now, though, the launch process can be longer and significantly more complex—requiring businesses to plan a host of activities that will gain momentum for the offering.Many modern product launches may fail simply because it can be so difficult to get something n...

Company culture seems to be all the rage. An online search can reveal nearly 100,000 news articles about it in 2015 alone.As a small-business owner, you may read about the revolutionary moves made by companies like Google and Zappos and think, “There’s no way I can do that.”The good news is, you don’t have to. A desirable company culture can be well within reach—just by being yourself and staying true to your organization’s...

IT leaders who “teach employees to fish” may be feeding the business for a lifetime.Many IT leaders and even CIOs today are missing an opportunity. Their teams spend all day catering to business needs when in fact the business managers can and should be empowered to solve problems themselves.There is an old saying that goes: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime...

The seeds of community can be critical when it comes to choosing a location for a new brick-and-mortar business, and small-business owners are likely to rely on personal connections to develop and sustain a strong customer base.Local ownership and even word of mouth, however, only go so far. Physical businesses should continually remind the community of their existence and engage in community outreach to help ensure a pipel...