November 11, 2009
Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe
Published by Success Performance Solutions. Major Sponsor,
2008 Best Places to Work In Pennsylvania
What's Inside this issue of The TotalView:
1. Almost Well-Rounded Employees Can Leave You Flat
2. Perfect Labor Storm Warnings
3. Generational Gaps - Age or Attitude?
4. eSKill Office Skill Testing
5. Quotes from the Hire Authorities
1. Almost Well-Rounded Employees Can Leave You Flat
Just like a tire, sometimes employees go flat just when you need them to keep rolling the most. And almost round tires don't roll very well.
A flat tire isn't very functional even though 80 percent or more of the tire is round. Not only does the 20 percent flat area stop one tire from rolling smoothly but it totally immobilizes the car.
People are no different. Everyday businesses hire and promote employees into positions that look 80 percent okay and only after they are in the job do they discover the leaks. A flat tire doesn't ride smoothly. An individual with potential but one "flat" side is not very useful nor effective and he can bring teamwork and productivity to a screeching halt.
Did you ever have a flat tire when it was convenient?
To continue this analogy one step further, a flat tire on a slow moving vehicle is inconvenient. A blow-out while traveling at full speed is downright dangerous. Flat tires always happen at the most inconvenient times.
How many times does a team ride along with one of its members losing air and everyone else is working a little harder to compensate for him. All of a sudden, just when you need him most - Bang! He blows and brings the entire project down with him.
When it comes evaluating new hires and employees for promotion, managers are generally good tire-kickers but seldom do they take the time or invest the resources to check out the slow leaks. They hire and promote what appear to be well-rounded individuals, only to discover their tire goes flat when pressure is applied and they need to roll.
A better test for hiring than tire-kicking... and more accurate, too - are pre-employment and leadership tests. When hiring or evaluating employees, it is not only important to look at job fit but to ask, how can they fail at the job? Personality tests like Prevue and ASSESS help both employees and managers recognize performance strengths as well as how the well-rounded employee will hold up under stress.
Perfect Labor Storm Warnings 
While the U.S. unemployment rate rate hit 10.2% in October 2009, this figure doesn't tell the whole picture. The jobless rates for adult women is only 8.1 percent, the rate for teenagers is 27.6 percent, blacks (15.7 percent), and
Hispanics (13.1 percent).
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
For more workforce and hiring trends. subscribe to the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog.
Purchase the NEW Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 books (soft and hard cover versions) at PerfectLaborStorm.com.
Generational Gaps - Attitude or Age?
Listen to Ira S Wolfe explain in this interview with David Greenberg the importance of age and attitude in creating generational clashpoints.
Social Media and Manager Training for the "Wired and Tired"
Attention Meeting Planners, Program Chairs, HR Professionals
Don't miss out on the opportunity to schedule Ira S Wolfe for your next meeting on one of the following hot topics:
Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization
When Boomers and Young Workers Collide
Social Media 101: Link Me, Tweet Me, Nudge Me
Marketing Your Business: Using Facebook
Learn more about these seminars. Contact us today.
Test for Office Skills Accurate & Affordable
eSkill assessments are an effective method of ensuring your candidates have the skills needed for your jobs before an extensive interview process. eSkill's online testing tool creates valid, job-based tests by combining multiple subjects and skill levels as needed into a single assessment.
- Accounting
- Bookkeeping
- Arithmetic
- English and grammar
Click here to learn more
Quotes from Hire Authorities
First we are children to our parents, then parents to our children, then parents to our parents, then children to our children.
Milton Greenblatt
| |
|
Follow us on |
Permission is granted to consultants, managers, business owners and
HR professionals to reproduce content from this newsletter for your
internal publications, or to distribute copies to your workforce, on
the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information
as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success
Performance Solutions. Copyright 2008 Ira S Wolfe." We also hope you
will forward the newsletter in its entirety and recommend to others
that they subscribe.
Ira S. Wolfe Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only. |
