No, not something I was told yesterday during my opening keynote at the Minnesota State SHRM conference, but something that seems to be “midwest” in nature.
Food on a stick.
Chicken on a stick.  Meat on a stick (I think it was beef).  A corn-dog on a stick.  Assorted fruit on a stick.  Even little tiny tomatoes […]

Back from Virginia Beach, it was a little chilly yesterday.  But walking in the sand during a drizzle is still better than walking in the snow on a sunny day.
Anyways…
For nearly twenty years I have talked about the importance of human resource as business experts.  Not experts about bricks and mortar,  not marketing or product […]

650,000+ job losses in a month
4,400,000 jobs gone since the recession started, a drop of 2,600,000 in the last four months alone.
8.1% unemployment rate in February, highest in 25 years.  Rates up in every sub-category, 21% for teens.
Long term unemployment up to nearly 3 million.
Poverty up
Foreclosures up
Food stamp needs up
Those without insurance up
Stock market plummeting
401-k’s […]

Dictionary.com defines “ethics” as that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions.
Based on that definition, Bernard Madoff, charged with running a fifty billion dollar ponzi scheme isn’t unethical.  Really.  Truly.
There was a very interesting article in Tuesday’s Financial Times, the third newspaper […]

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Circuitous is from Medieval Latin circuitōsus, from Latin circuitus, a going around. Every once in a while the six years of latin I took in high school and college actually pays off.  It’s second declension, masculine, if you really want to know (yea, sometimes I […]

“a journey or route all the way around a particular place or area”
I feel sympathy for the tens of thousands of current employees
I feel empathy for the shareholders who have seen the company’s stock price drop 85% in the last 12 months
I feel complete apathy for leadership
Yes, tough words, but what else can you say […]

Wow, I missed a whole Wednesday.  I’m not even going to try to explain.  Excuses don’t help, explanations don’t get the blog written.
OK, enough of that.  I’ve been busy with work-life balance issues…
My Joshie-boy graduated from college yesterday.  Although it was raining in Granville, Ohio (right outside Columbus), it was sunny and bright inside.  About […]

Another Amazing Anagram… and additional alliteration!!!
<help me>
Another study came out the other day talking about the importance of the employee-supervisor-co worker relationships to job satisfaction and ultimately retention. The study seemed sound, had questions that were worded pretty well, the sample size was pretty good (research phrase alert) and the conclusions were reasonable.
Employees that […]

A new survey just came out from the good folks at Accountemps, showing that for the fifth time since 1987, executives from some of the country’s biggest companies believe Tuesday is the most productive day of the workweek.  Why?
Monday:  all day meetings
Wednesday:  hump day (yes, that was the reason given, go figure)
Friday:  people just want […]

Another attention grabbing headline, this time from my friends at Time Magazine, and their March 24th issue titled 10 Ideas that are changing the world. 
The author of the article states companies love self-service for the money it saves, and with consumers finally playing along, the need to interact with human beings is quickly disappearing.
I’m pretty […]