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

If you remember one thing today to help keep your job and help you stay on top of your game, remember this:

Excuses don’t matter.  What matters are results.

It’s an epidemic.  They are everywhere.  Don’t be that guy.  Stop making excuses, and just go get results.

Excuses Don’t Matter – What Matters are Results is a post from: HR Think Tank

Today’s guest post is from Eric Leist, a Public Relations major in Boston University’s class of 2010.  Eric blogs over at Meghan Biro’s firm Talent Culture and on his own blog, EricLeist.com

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You’ll never figure out what’s wrong with me. Am I lazy? Arrogant? Rude? I’m an enigma. A puzzle waiting to be solved. I have wired veins; technology is my DNA. I pay for pre-ripped jeans. And yes, I do expect to wear them to work.

I’m Gen-Y. Hear me roar.

Like it or not, my generation is charging into the workforce. Yep, all 70 million of us. We’re a talented herd, too. HR directors will play Ringling Brothers trying to tame us, hire us, and retain us. Most will fail.

The Gen-Y stampede of talent cannot be stopped and refined. It must be harnessed.

So for all you HR directors out there struggling with the wild Gen-Y animals, here are five characteristics we look for in the workplace. Know them. Embrace them. Love them. You’ll need to in order to attract and retain the top talent in my generation.

1) We want to wear jeans. But it’s not about the denim. It’s about the casual atmosphere. We want coworkers we can hang out with. We like relaxed environments. We’re not afraid to log long hours. We’ll get our work done before the deadline, and the results will be stellar. So what difference does it make what we wear when we work? If you don’t let us wear pajamas, at least let us wear jeans.

2) We want flexibility. Forget these formulaic job descriptions. You won’t be able to force our skill sets into roles defined by previous generations. You’re better off creating roles around our skill sets. Give us the freedom to work from home, and we’ll prove we deserve it. Gen-Y-ers don’t mind checking in on their BlackBerry over the weekend if they have the option of working remotely.

3) We want the latest and greatest gadgets. Our generation was the first to grow up with computer classes. Cell phones and texting were everything in high school. We get frustrated when we know better, faster, sleeker technology is out there and we don’t have it. The most defining value of Gen-Y is the desire to be tech-savvy.

4) We want mentors. Our grandparents held long-standing relationships with employers. We don’t. People work for people; not brands. We want to work for people who take a genuine interest in our careers. We seek out the opinions of our peers and our superiors, and we’re equally as willing to give advice.

5) We want to contribute, and we want to be paid for it. The Internet wove incredible information access into our upbringing. We competed fiercely against our peers for college admission. We’re deeply in debt after slaving over coffee machines and data entry programs at unpaid internships. Yes, we expect to be paid handsomely, but we’re eager to earn the cash and the respect that comes with it.

If we can’t find these things, we’re not afraid to start our own businesses. We’ll sculpt our own corporate cultures to fit our needs.

Eric Leist is a senior at Boston University and currently interns with TalentCulture. He has previously interned with the New York Giants, Mills & Company and 451 Marketing. When not studying Public Relations and Business, he’s an anchor and producer at BUTV10′s InsideBoston and VP of BU’s Public Relations Student Society. Eric also coaches a competitive public speaking team in Newton, MA and spends his extra time experimenting in the kitchen.

Photo Credit: Deanwissing

Harnessing the Gen-Y Beast is a post from: HR Think Tank

Even in a down economy, employee retention is a key management issue.  Despite rising unemployment, some employees have critical skills and intellectual capital that make them very attractive to your competition.  These employees, likely amongst your top performers, will look for continuous reinforcement that your company is right for them, and that they should stay.  If you don’t identify, recognize, and reward top performers, the inevitable WILL happen:  Your best employees will be working for your competition.

It’s no secret that this is a complex topic.  Employee retention sits somewhere at the intersection between stimulating and challenging work and recognition and rewards. What I do know is that intrinsic rewards are a huge factor.  In 2002 I participated in an extensive analysis of the results from a longitudinal study on Air Force retention across two types of motivators: extrinsic, intrinsic (for a full analysis, altruistic and social motivators could also be considered). The study found that intrinsic motivators – such as personal development, intellectually stimulating work, and the ability to produce feelings of accomplishment – outweighed extrinsic motivators like level of pay and yearly pay increases.  With that being said, I’ll leave the real heavy lifting around incentive, recognition, and reward strategies to guys like Paul Herbert but I’d like to talk about one critical piece of employee retention that should not be overlooked: Company Culture.

One key to retaining top talent is to establish a meaningful relationship between the employee and the company.  It comes down to creating an environment that breeds bidirectional loyalty.  What does this mean for you as a company?  In a world of thinner margins and tighter budgets as long as compensation is within a reasonable range, you can retain employees by focusing on your corporate culture.  Good, transparent “what you see is what you get” leadership and a strong focus on hiring and protecting the door can go a long way in developing loyal employees.

The importance of team chemistry cannot be emphasized enough.  I can speak from experience – In 2006 when I was making the decision to leave the Air Force, the one thing that kept nagging at me was the feeling like I was letting my coworkers down.  I felt an intense loyalty and closeness to the people I served with, and despite traveling 180-200 days a year, and being paid about 25-30% less than my market value, I didn’t want to leave.  Lucky for me, I eventually landed at SEI.  Recruited by another colleague who I have immense respect for, I’m working for a company that really get’s this right.  SEI has an intense focus on recruiting the right people, and then reinforces a strong business model with an engaged leadership team.  Recently, leadership reinforced their proactive approach by unveiling a well planned 5-year succession plan, which in itself was architected with a focus on ensuring the long-term viability of our unique corporate culture.

So when considering retention, focus on what matters and what you can readily influence – your corporate culture.  Hire the right people, protect the integrity of your organizations culture, and don’t sacrifice long term team chemistry for short term revenue gains.  Be loyal to your employees, and give them a reason to be loyal back.

(Photo Credit: http://www.aurora-tds.co.uk)

Retention Issues? Focus on Culture First is a post from: HR Think Tank

I love making lists.  I’m OCD like that – to-do lists, music play-lists, best-of-whatever lists, lists about things that suck that should stay in 2009, and yes, Christmas lists (notice the obvious omission of grocery lists – that’s one list I don’t do!).  This year is no different, and I have my business Christmas list here ready to share!  It’s Christmas Eve – I have a bad sweater on, spiked eggnog in hand, and am hoping that Santa brings me these things in the business world for 2010:

1. Better Demos from Vendors – Seriously.  I spent a great deal of 2009 in software demos on behalf of my clients, most of which completely missed the mark. It’s not that hard: show up on time, connect, demo to the clients needs, be cognizant of your audience (and especially your buyer!) and PLEASE don’t start talking about shortcomings in this release that are fixed in the x.xx release that is going GA in 9 months from now.  Capiche?  Michael Krupa shared similar sentiment in his blog post Psst Vendors – Some Software Demo Tips For You.

2. Transparency in Corporate Communications – The economy is taking a nose-dive.  Lay-offs are coming.  You (HR leadership/Management) think it’s a big secret, but everyone else knows it’s coming, and guess what – they are talking about it!  I saw this a lot in 2009 – companies unable to come out with some true candor in their communications around staff reductions.  The rumor mill becomes reality, and your best employees might just get scared and jump ship.  In 2010, there will likely be more opportunities for them to do just that, which brings me to my next point…

3. Employee Engagement Initiatives - Companies need to continue to find both ways to be competitive, and ways to retain top talent.  Strategically investing in improving (and effectively measuring) employee engagement can help you with both.  The problem?  This is hard to do, and it’s hard to measure.  Lance hits on this on his blog Rehaul with his post My Christmas Wish: Employee Engagement.  I’m with Lance on this, let’s get this on the agenda for 2010.

4. More focus on Adoption for Technology Projects – Project managers and Business Sponsors are defining user adoption too narrowly.  Most projects are at least trying to manage adoption for their true end-user.  The neglected aspect, in my experience, seems to be managing a wider view of stakeholder adoption within the organization.  I have seen A TON of this in 2009.  HRIS upgrade goes live – we throw a big party – Employees and Managers know what’s coming for ESS/MSS, and global operations teams trained on all of the changes to run operations, but my new data model smacks finance in the mouth and breaks their executive reporting.  It also breaks Comp’s total comp process because all of their files leveraged bank titles, job codes, and the organization hierarchy, which has all changed – their expectations haven’t been managed on the changes and they are involved far too late.  Massive #FAIL.  In 2010, lets see Project Managers and Business Sponsors manage all stakeholders – and make sure your definition of “user” is wide enough to cover the employee, manager, administrators, and anyone who depends on that data downstream.

5. Accountability – 2009 was a bit of a mess in this area wouldn’t ya say?  Economic meltdown.  Bear Stearns – gone.  Lehman Bros – gone.  American Home Mortgage – gone.  AIG – should have been gone but was saved by taxpayers.  Executive compensation was never discussed with such furor.  People wanted accountability for greed and corruption on Wall Street, and for the much slimmer 401K’s and new retirement time lines.  In 2010, standards have to be higher.  We need to hold companies, and individuals accountable.

What things do you want “under your tree”?  Comment it up!  Let’s get this party started early!

Dear Santa… is a post from: HR Think Tank