Tours through the Blogosphere: A is for About.com HR

 

   You may have noticed that I've started a regular series of updates of posts from across all the HR blogs at HR Zone.

To support this, I've been trying to get my RSS reader and list of feeds a bit more up to date.  And I thought it might also be a good idea to share a bit more information on the HR / HCM and other feeds that I regularly review.  I do have a blogroll on Strategic-HCM's side bar, but I keep this quite short, as other wise I think it looses value (to a reader, if not in SEO terms).

 

Tours through the Blogosphere

So welcome to the first of my new irregular series of posts providing an alphabetical tour of the HR blogsphere.  Taking a letter at a time, I'll list those blog feeds I subscribe to which have a title beginning with this letter, and will also highlight one of these that I think may be particularly worth you reading too.

 

A is for About.com Human Resources

My favourite 'A' blog is Susan Heathfield's Human Resources blog on About.com.  This blog deals with fairly practical HR issues, but generally from a quite insightful perspective.  One post that got me thinking recently was Don't Blow Your Employee Survey:

"Recently, several of my clients have initiated employee satisfaction surveys. In one instance, the company employed a marketing firm to run focus groups. In the second, an online survey, developed by employees, was used. Both processes left a lot to be desired despite the fact that they also supplied some useful information.

I was struck, in both cases, by the poor methodology used. The methods make the results suspect, although in both cases, there were no surprises in the results. The employees pinpointed work processes the companies already know they need, and, in some cases are working on, too. In both employee survey situations, employees complained about confusing, leading questions."

 

It's a post that resonated with me, because I also come across many situations were engagement surveys don't provide me with the information I would really want in order to be able to help my client most effectively.  And there is still a surprising level of confusion over satisfaction and engagement (the key difference isn't about commitment or retention or anything, it's about whether we're most interested in the person or the processes).  Presentations like Richard Beatty's recent tirade don't help.

I'm going to be posting more on engagement surveys soon.

 

Other blogs

I also read:

HR blogs:

• All Aboard - Madeline Laurano, Bersin & Associates
• All Things Workplace - Steve Roesler
• Ask A Manager

Others:

• A Shel of my former self - Shel Holtz
• Andrew McAfee's Blog
• Andre Neil's Blog
• Apophenia - Danah Boyd

Any others 'A' blogs I should be paying attention to?

 

Technorati Tags: HR blogosphere,About.com Human Resources

 

• Consulting - Research - Speaking  - Training -  Writing
• Strategy  -  Talent  -  Engagement  -  Change and OD
• Contact  me to  create more  value for  your business
• jon  [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com

  .