Ahhhh, so true.  So true.  Well played Scott Adams.

Dilbert: Beth the New Marketing Manager for Social Media is a post from: HR Think Tank

The recent recession has been a significant game changer for business in a lot of ways.  There were the obvious changes, specific to the recession, such as a significant power shift to the employers.  We all watched (and some of us, unfortunately, participated) as hordes of qualified candidates piled out of the workforce and into applicant tracking systems where companies could be selective about who they hired, and at what cost.  Then there are the more long term game changers – the things that have the traction to outlast the recession and continue to be a major part of business strategies moving forward.  Amongst those – the significant increase in the use of the virtual workplace.

The virtual workplace isn’t a new concept – for the last decade industry analysts and organizational change management consultants have been hypothesizing about the benefits of virtual teaming and the best ways to manage the virtual global workforce.  Their findings are well documented and at a high-level can be summarized like this: identify if a virtual workplace fits with your corporate culture and organizational objectives; identify jobs and individuals that work in a virtual model; modify processes to manage and engage remote employees; keep a razor sharp focus on evaluating effectiveness and continuous improvement of the program.

In 2007, Gartner reported that by 2011, 46.6 million corporate employees globally will spend at least one day a week teleworking, and 112 million will work from home at least one day a month.  This pace has been accelerated further combination of the recession, the emergence of ever-improving document management and collaboration platforms.

This all means that chances are good that you will find yourself working virtually at some point in the near future.  In the last three years of consulting with SEI, I have worked virtually at least 50% of the time – both in support of my clients and in collaboration with our other offices in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Dallas.  I have found that working virtually can be even more productive than working in cubicle-land if you employ a healthy dose of organizational discipline.  Here are some of the approaches that work for me:

1. Use your ‘Commute time’ to get organized. One of the biggest benefits of working virtually is the ability to recover your commute time.  For some people, this could mean an additional 3 hours added to productive time in your day.  For me, this is the time I use to brew up a nice pot of Dunkin Donuts, prioritize my task list (beginning of the day commute time), and then note any follow-ups for early the next day (end of day commute time).  Know what the first thing you want to work on the next day is.  Don’t sleep through this time, you will leave an opportunity on the table.

2. Learn to manage your inbox(es). When working virtually, your computer is your command center.  It’s impossible to know what you need to focus on if you have 1,600 unread messages and nothing is flagged for follow-up.  Personally, I use three flags – personal, SEI, and client, and then prioritize accordingly.  Once you close an e-mail, file it in the appropriate folder and repeat.  I like to keep my inbox to 50 e-mails or less.  Find out what your sweet spot is, and try to stick with it.

3. Prioritize your work by the 80/20 rule. There is always a small percentage of your work that will yield a larger return.  Identify those items, and nail those first.  Do the 20% of work that gives you 80% of your results. Remember, excuses don’t matter.  What matters are results.

4. Take a Lunch Break and Reward Progress. Virtual work is loaded with distractions.  Laundry waiting to be done.  Playstation 3 and Modern Warfare.  Facebook.  Twitter.  If you are disciplined about the way you structure your day, you can use these distractions to your advantage.  Take a lunch break and knock out a few non-work related things while you eat.  Reward the fact that you are absolutely slaying your to-do list.  Trust me, manage this right and you will waste less time at home than you do around the water cooler at the office.

5. Establish a ‘Virtual Hierarchy’ that allows you to close issues. When working virtually, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of getting into an endless e-mail conversation on issues without seeing any real progress.  I like to apply time-frames and a sanity check on these issues, and then immediately schedule a teleconference to discuss if I don’t feel like progress is being made.  This includes knowing who the stakeholders are, what the escalation path is, and documenting when documents come in and go out for review.  At the top of this hierarchy – that’s right – a good old fashion face-to-face.  Nothing beats it.  Ever.

This is a short list, and many bullets and sub-bullets can be added even to these.  Are you working virtually or have you worked virtually in the past?  What’s working for you?

In Today’s Virtual Workplace, Organization is King is a post from: HR Think Tank

I get it, some of you may never like soccer.  Some of you just can’t stomach the annoying buzz of the vuvuzela for 90 minutes just to watch a game end in a 0-0 tie.  Like it or not, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world.  So big in fact, that according to Digital Blog All Things Digital, the World Cup is creating some unparalleled buzz out there on Twitter.

Trendrr, which pulls data from Twitter’s API had 48 different World Cup-related terms showing up about 150,000 times an hour, similar to the intensity from Monday at Apple’s iPhone 4 unveiling. Kafka goes on to note that while the iPhone 4 traffic crested only in the last hour of Steve Jobs’s presentation, the World Cup intensity has been pretty steady with more than 8,000 per minute (that’s a rate of 480,000 hourly) right after the first goal of the tournament.

Love it or hate it, the World is passionate about soccer.  There’s just something about national pride that incites a level of passion that’s unifying and really cool.

I use soccer as the example, because the World Cup is hot right now.  You get a similar unifying force and passionate outpouring for the Olympics and in any big sports city right here nationally.  I was at the Celtics – Lakers game last night and it was so loud, you would have though everyone in the crowd knew each other and had coordinated chants in Sully’s Tap before the game.  Red Sox fans are so loyal, they have long eclipsed the consecutive sell-out record (455 games was previous record, broken September 8th, 2008 – I was there) , and are still adding to that tally.  We are so unified we refer to ourselves as Red Sox Nation, and we have a President, the Rem Dawg!  I use Boston as an example, because I live here and love Boston sports, but there are fans like this in Philadelphia and Chicago too.  Great sports cities with rich tradition, and a knack for developing passionate fan bases.

Here’s my challenge for the businesses out there: Try to replicate that kind of passion amongst your workforce around your brand.  I know you already have at least 3 excuses in your head for why it can’t be done.  I can hear them now – my company is too big, we need these strict corporate policies, our employees can’t buy $7.50 beers two at a time like they can at the Fenway.  I know, I hear you, but I think you’re wrong.  In fact, think there are a lot of companies getting this right, and the dividends are incredible!  Talent attraction AND retention!

Who is getting this right?  Video interviewing firm HireVue definitely comes to mind.  Here’s a company that has a ton of momentum, and I think it’s because of their people.  Give Josh Schwede 15 minutes over a beer and tell me that you aren’t an advocate for what they are trying to do, or that you don’t want to replicate that kind of passion in your company.  Need something bigger?  Locally, one company that I consistently see employees buzz about is EMC.  Here’s a sample of tweets from Polly Pearson, VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement from last week:

“Just got EMC’s 2011 FORTUNE Best Places to Work For book: “Innovation, Passion, SUCCESS!” Includes refs to 2.0, TWITTER + EMC Tweeps”

“Excited to share EMC’s story at BU tomorrow! Attendees are business leaders looking at new models for innovation, workforce management”

3 of Polly’s top 5 words in her tweet cloud are #emc, EMC, and thanks.  Her top 5 hash-tags: #emc, #emcworld, #emcs, #jobs, #1.  I know what you are thinking.  Jason, that’s obvious, because Polly is EMC’s VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement.  Isn’t that her job?  Yes, of course.  But she’s out there talking about her company, and people like me are writing about how it’s cool that there are people out there being passionate about their company.  And let me ask you – does your company have a VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement?

That’s what I thought.

(Note: If you were wondering, neither HireVue nor EMC are clients of SEI-Boston, LLC. or of me personally at the time of this post.  I am, however, guilty of liking soccer, going to Sully’s Tap before Celtics games, and being a loud and obnoxious member of Red Sox Nation.  Now stop reading this disclaimer and go out and make your company a great place to work)

Sports and Business: Are Your Employees Passionate About Your Company? is a post from: HR Think Tank

Over two hundred years ago, a bunch of really smart guys in bad wigs drafted and eventually adopted a Bill of Rights to limit the power of federal government and ensure the protection of what they saw as fundamental liberties of the people.  The freedom of speech became the First Amendment, adopted on December 15, 1791.

To the Founding Fathers, I raise a glass.  Freedom of speech is a great thing.  I’m also a huge fan of the Second Amendment (right to bear arms) in case I eventually have a daughter.  But anyway, I digress…

I am also a huge Dilbert fan.  I like it for the same reason that I think the office is a great show, and similar to why I have Office Space in my DVD collection: I find all three to be really funny because there is a shred of truth in their skits and jokes, and that makes it relevant.  At some point in our careers, there are things about our jobs that really suck.  Sometimes those things are bosses or coworkers.  Maybe it’s a particularly difficult clients, or an annoying policy.  Some of these people and things will be borderline ridiculous, to the point of being funny (like when in my first job my boss asked me to write down on his white board the three things I found to be most annoying about him.  Not a good situation to be in during your first review, or ever).

In any case, you know what isn’t funny? Getting fired. Especially for saying something stupid, including disclosing company sensitive information, on your blog, Facebook, or anywhere else that is public and readily available to your employer.  Say it with me: My employer is monitoring social media.  My employer is monitoring social media. My employer…. you get the point.

In August 2009, Proofpoint released a study that found 18 percent of the companies surveyed had investigated a data loss event via a blog or message board in the past 12 months.  17 percent disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies and nearly 9 percent reported terminations related to those activities.  The study also found that there was almost a 50 percent increase in exposure incidents over social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn (17 percent compared to 12 percent in 2008), and eight percent reported terminating an employee for these violations.

There’s a new market out there for companies like Teneros, who is developing software-as-a-service products that automate the process of examining employee activity on social networking sites.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this article on Network World.  As social media continues to explode, companies are becoming more and more keen on keeping their finger on the pulse… listening to the conversation so that they can be quicker to react and proactively impact consumer and employee satisfaction in a positive way.  Your company’s customer feedback is out there, and so is your griping and complaining about the boss who takes credit for your work and pawns it off as his own or your comments about how your company’s vacation plan sucks so you just call in sick whenever you want.  In college?  You are at risk as well.  As you graduate and join the large pool of job seekers potential employers will be ‘Googling’ you, reading your tweets, and checking out your keg-stand pictures online.

So the next time your boss asks you if you are using your proper TPS reports just take your medicine and don’t start ranting on Twitter.  You may have freedom of speech, but you are likely employed ‘at will’….well, used to be employed.

Be Careful, Thomas Jefferson Isn’t Signing Your Paycheck is a post from: HR Think Tank

A few Friday’s ago I spoke candidly about what I thought about Casual Fridays, and the message was pretty clear: The dress for your company should be driven by your culture, and your culture should be aligned with your business.  When companies recruit and hire good, smart candidates that are a fit for their culture – they should know how to police their own wardrobe to represent the company.

With that being said, if your company does have a loose Casual Friday policy, or if you work somewhere where you can wear whatever the hell you want, check out some of your selections below, with my reviews.  Alternatively, you can rock these at the bar on Friday night.  Do it, and take a picture, and I’ll start a whole new page on my site dedicated to people in Geeky T-Shirts all over the world!

T-Shirt #1 – Social Media Venn Diagram

Geeky in their own right, Venn Diagrams are show logical relations between a group of things.  The guy in this photo alone cracks me up – dude, haircut – ASAP. But anyway, how true is this geeky T-Shirt?  It shows the relationship between Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter to Narcissism, ADHD, and Stalking.  If you missed my post on Foursquare last week, I laid out the undeniable fact that “Stalkers everywhere are rejoicing and high-fiving each other at the sheer joy of Foursquare!”

This T-Shirt is available at Despair, Inc’s website.  Get it.  Love it.  Take pictures.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Chris Hoyt

T-Shirt #2 – Peace – Love – Human Resources

Peace.  Love. Human Resources – Makes you want to just hug it out eh?  It also symbolizes everything that is wrong with HR.  Not too long ago, Sarah White did a post on her blog about candidates being way too nice.  This goes for the HR pros out there as well.  We get it – some of you have to deal with employee relations and other touchy feely employment issues.  For the rest of you, focus on applying Chris Ferdinandi‘s Renegade HR philosophy to Human Resources: Recruit great people, and help them do amazing things that drive your business. 

If you are in human resources, don’t be afraid to mix it up, especially if you are in a systems role – projects don’t manage themselves.  It’s not always about Peace and Love.  It’s about getting the right people.  Delivery.  Protecting the door.  Being overly protective of your company’s brand and culture.  In the meantime, buy this geeky shirt anyway from Cafe Press – also available in pink and neon green – and don’t forget to take pictures.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Laurie Ruettimann

T-Shirt #3 – Darth Vader’s “I Want You for the Dark Side”

Are you a recruiter?  Star Wars fan?  You get the best of both worlds here with the Vader “I Want YOU For The Dark Side” recruiting T-shirt!

That is a great idea for a blog post by the way – talking about the parallel’s between Star Wars and Recruiting passive candidates.  Maybe the HR Capitalist could make that happen.

As of this posting, this product is ‘currently unavailable’ from the Star Wars Shop.  I’m assuming this is because the Twitter recruiter circle has bought them up already.  You know who you are.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Geoff Webb

T-Shirt #4 – Corn On The Job

Blogger Rich DeMatteo has taken the geeky t-shirt to a whole new level with his Corn Heads Community on his blog.  If you read Rich’s stuff, you know that he has a diverse following made up of HR/Recruiting folks, job seekers, vendors, professional resume writers, and students who will soon be entering the work force.  He plans to bring these people together by granting them Corn Head status.  That’s right – get a t-shirt with this fancy logo on the front, take a picture, and wallah – you are a… Corn Head.

Who would do that right?  Lots of people.  Check out the early adopters on his Corn Head page.  Don’t laugh, yours will be there soon enough.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: James Oley, Samantha Karol, Sarah White, Samantha Ogborn, and tons of others.  It’s like a cult!

Have a favorite t-shirt that didn’t make the list?  Already have one of these?  Planning to invest in one of these shirts for your high school reunion?  Don’t be shy, let us hear it in the comments section.

#FunFriday – The Best of HR & Social Media Geeky T-Shirts is a post from: HR Think Tank

As I was debating over what to write about, my buddy Anthony suggested I blog about the whole NBC situation. Their Jay Leno experiment had ratings dropping faster than 09′ stock prices.  So NBC is reshuffling again, with all of their hopes tied to a guy with a huge chin and one funny skit -  headlines.  So that’s all you get NBC, 50 words on #FunFriday.  I’d rather watch Eddie Murphy on YouTube.

Anyway, I digress.  You know what is funny?  Casual Fridays. Laurie Ruettimann at Punk Rock HR did a post this week on corporate dress codes and some of the comments were pretty funny.  It got me thinking about dress codes and how companies try to make up for having overly strict policies by also having Casual Fridays.

Remember the guy in high school with the strict parents?  What did he do when he got to college?  They had no personal judgment and were the first ones passed out on the sticky frat house floor waking up covered in permanent marker tattoos.  People love to go to extremes.  You make me wear a suit Monday – Thursday, so on Casual Friday I come in looking like I am about to hit the beach.

So, Corporate America, here’s an idea: Set reasonable expectations for appropriate dress.  Hire smart people that know how to adjust their business wardrobe based on their daily schedules.  I’m a fan of applying the common sense principle here.  Not every company can have a dress code like Rackspace.  As a consultant – I certainly can’t show up at client meetings wearing “hippie wear and flip-flops”.  The dress for your company should be driven by your culture, and your culture should be aligned with your business.  When companies recruit and hire good, smart candidates that are a fit for their culture – they should know how to police their own wardrobe to represent the company.  This might mean a suit, but it might mean jeans and a this cool social media t-shirt.

If someone is sitting in their cube everyday and will never see another person other than coworkers – don’t make them sport a suit and tie.  But if you do require that for no reason, remember that you are like the strict parents sending your kid off to college – just asking for your employees to rock Hawaiian shirts and overly short cargo shorts on Fridays.  The equivalent of waking up markered up on the frat house floor.

#FunFriday – Casual Fridays is a post from: HR Think Tank