The Semco Way

Here I found a quite interesting way of organizing a company.

The Semco Way

Basically people work in small groups without titles. They can choose their working hours, working budget and their salary. They only get measured by their colleagues.

I know that this might sound very liberal and can not work with every company , but if a company has skilled and reliable employees it can be very efficient.

http://www.agreatsupervisor.com/articles/lessons.htm

Feel free to share your thoughts!
Do you think it could work?

5 benefits of using contractors

hey guys.
i found an article concerning the benefits of using contractors..
what do you think about this topic? do you agree or disagree with the author on the benefits??
and what do you think about using contractors in general?

in my opinion using contractors is really a benefit for a company. the benefit that is most important is the flexibility as every company needs to be flexible today and needs to adapt to the fast changing environment really quickly.
furthermore also the cost saving point is an important and really nice advantage of using a contractor. many companies put cost saving on top of their to-do lists today.
last but not least i think also the aspect of the contractor bringing fresh aspects to the company is important. the person is not bound to the company for a long time but is new to the company and therefore much more likely to see problems or challenges the company has to face.

so, what do you think about this topic? do you also think it is really beneficial to the company or do you think using contractors is a bad idea?

i am looking forward to your opinions :)

-steffie

http://www.hrmtoday.com/featured-stories/the-top-5-benefits-of-using-contractors/

The Role of HR in Expatriate Training

 

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/role-hr-expatriate-training-2854.html

As we have mentioned this topic shortly in class and I am really interested in going abroad, I found this article. If it makes sense or not, but when a company decides to send employees abroad, the HR department has a major role in this process. Beginning with the training and preparation in the home country, the most important part is the support within the country. If the whole family is going, things like renting, visa procedures, kinder garden and school for the kids, language training as well as regularly feedback-meetings in order to be able to react to certain issues as fast as possible.

I worked in China for a German car manufacturer and their were a lot of expats. In general everything was organized very well; like contracted housing- and Visa-agencies as well as a quaterly Expat-table, were current issues are discussed. Also an international kinder garden and a school with german speaking teachers is available.

What do you think about expatriate-assignments in general and the role of HR in this process?

I worked for a big company, but what about the small ones?

Looking forward to your contribution!

Markus  

When the H.R. Office Leaves the Building

Here the Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/jobs/more-companies-are-outsourcing-their-human-resources-work.html

In my opinion, the HR department is an important part of the company, especially when it comes to personal contact, employee selection and know- how about the company. The HR Managers need to be part of the company, to know the philosophy behind it, to know which person fits in the company and which employee can e.g. be switched to a department to be more productive, because they know each other. I think an outsourced HR company does not have the ability to judge, what is good or bad for a company they do not work for directly.

Without an internal HR department the workers have barely people to talk to and the problem solving process has to be done by telephone or E-Mail.

What do you think – should companies outsource their HR departments, or maybe work with a good mixture between in-house and external? Did the tasks and accountability changed so much and became more and more complex, so that companies are forced to search for help? 

3/4 of applicants lie

Hi guys,

I found this article and I think it's particularly interesting for us as students, as many of us will be sending out applications soon. What do you think of "embellishing the CV"? Is it okay to exaggerate a little bit? Is it completely unacceptable? Or maybe you have already lied a little bit yourself?
Personally I think that most people lie, because they are afraid the truth just doesn't look good enough. Especially when there's a lot of competition they might be desperately looking for something to brush up their applications.

EDIT: Sorry! I completely forgot to inclued the link. Here it comes:

http://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/three-quarters-of-applicants-have-already-lied-to-you-129553.aspx?keyword=3/4%20of%20applicants%20have%20already%20lied%20to%20you

HR at a breaking point?

http://www.workforce.com/articles/is-hr-at-its-breaking-point

I think it is a really interesting article. I could see part of that happening during my PTS. I wasn't really assigned to the HR department, but ended up there working anyways. First it was only sorting files (very challenging...), then entering all the applicants for job vacancies from the past 10 years in an EOCC log (required by the US government for data analyzes) and then I was also present, when the potential candidates were being interviewed. 

The first decisions (reading the resumes, declining or accepting those people who got an appointment for an interview) were taken by the HR manager. But when it came to the interviewing process, also the supervisors or managers of the respective departments were involved. Because it simply doesn't make too much sense if the HR manager is the one deciding about who gets the job and who doesn't. In my opinion those people, who will closely work together with the new employee should make the major decisions in the hiring processes. How can a HR manager of a large company possibly know whether this person will fit into a certain team and get along with all the co-workers and team members? It is not only about who has the best CV and skills.

Admin rights

To make this blog more structured and easy to follow, I would ask you to send me the email address you use to blog on here, so I can make you an admin (and thus able to create your own posts).

To avoid confusion and receive all email addresses in one place, please send them to

tanita.lagler@fh-krems.eu

You will then receive an email to that account, asking if you want to be an author.
Just hit confirm invitation and you are free to post.

(even if you have another of email addresses, my phone number or facebook, please send them to the above on only, otherwise i have to track them down all over the place, which makes it a lot more time-consuming)

Thank you!

Br, Tanita

PS: Thanks to all of you who already posted something (within the first few days already!), your contribution is very much appreciated. Seems like we are off to a very promising start.

Happy Human Resources

Welcome to our new blog!

Here we will be analyzing HR topics, sharing our opinions and thereby creating a place for vivid discussion.

If you have any ideas or comments, do not hesitate to let the rest of us know right here.
Suggestions for new topics are always more than welcome, so if you read, heard or watched anything that you deem interesting, this is the place to share.

Thanks to evereyone in advance and happy Human resources.