I feel like I am learning a lot about gender at work at the moment. I mentioned after International Women’s Day that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the message that we were sending to young women that:

you might think you’re equal – but mate you’re not, you earn less; you earn less per hour; you earn less over your lifetime; you do a heap of unpaid work because someone’s gotta do it
You don’t run things – you don’t decide things – so don’t have the illusion you’ve got choice.

Since this time I’ve found it difficult to find a position that I feel comfortable with. I didn’t like the negative message that the above sends to young women. While I’m not suggesting it doesn’t happen-yes it does happen, but are boys clubs and archaic attitudes towards women purely the reason or are there things that are within Women’s control, that are ensuring that women are not progressing to Board positions and earning the same as their male counterparts?

I’m a fan of the TED talks, and was pretty excited to find this recently.

Sheryl Sandberg is Facebook’s COO and she looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions — and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite.

She acknowledges that Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world and also that Women face harder choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. She is convinced that ‘women are dropping out’ and focuses on things that we can be doing as individuals and the right messages we should be sending to Women, in order to create change.

Her talk is about three key messages if you want to stay in the workforce:

1) Sit at the table
2) Make your partner a real partner
3) Don’t leave before you leave

It’s only 15 mins, but well worth it- so very, very insightful. Keen to hear your feedback and thoughts.

A few friends of mine have recently been made redundant and the company has handled it extremely poorly. One dragged them into a room at 5pm on a Friday and told them the reason they were hired was no longer relevant and that they should consider this their 4 weeks notice. No letters or anything. They were shocked and confused as to whether they were fired or made redundant. Bad situation.

It reminded me of a few conversations that I’ve had recently about mutual cessations. How often are they actually mutual?

For those who don’t know what happens, the employer draws up a deed which says that they won’t say anything negative about you and you can’t say anything bad about them as an employer. You “resign” and they pay you a lump sum of money. They tell the business that you’ve resigned and wish you all the best in the company announcement.

While there may be a place for mutual cessations in some instances, I think these are few and far between. Usually it’s due to a poor hire, poor managerial skills or being too lazy to manage someone’s performance.

It leaves the employee in an uncomfortable situation really because the individual (who may have done nothing wrong) is then forced to make up plausible reasons why they ‘resigned’ from their job to land the next gig and at the same time- can’t say anything negative about their former employer.

What are the alternatives? Stay there and hope they learn to like you a bit more? You’re better off taking the pay cheque and the time to pick a better employer next time.

Having been made redundant and seeing others go through it recently it’s a depressing time where you feel really bad about yourself. Sometime you feel so embarrassed you don’t want to leave the house while everybody is at their jobs during the day. This post is a bit of a rant I guess about mutual cessations- imagine how these people feel? They can’t even say they’ve been made redundant through some unavoidable restructuring.

Nope they’ve just been shown the door and given money to go away.

Next time your Manager wants to just ‘get rid of somebody’ as a HR professional I would encourage you to challenge their reasoning. Are they just trying to escape doing their role of managing someone’s performance?

Now that we’ve all hopefully had a bit of a rest over the Christmas/New Year break, a lot of people have begun asking about when the next HR Club Sydney networking evening will be, and as we haven’t had one in a while I thought it would be a good way to start the New Year.

This year I’ve come to realise that there are a lot of events out there at the moment, particularly for those who work in the Sydney CBD. This made me reflect on what I thought might add value for the HR Community.

Being free- has always been important, especially for the up and coming HR professionals and even grads
No sell jobs- occasionally I’ll come across a product or service I think is unique or worth sharing but for the most part I enjoy inviting people to a sales pitch (cos I hate them too!)
Learn something really awesome that you can use- so I’m trying to find speakers that will have something really valuable to share that can add to the development of you as a HR professional
Getting to meet other HR people- being young and more inexperienced than so many others in the HR community I can’t tell you how much value I place on the privilege of meeting other HR professionals. I learn so much from what they are doing, have done and what they’ve learned. Even working on proposals recently, I’ve asked about what is best practice in remuneration and been overwhelmed with people willing to help. This is what I think will really add value.

With that said, if you’d like to join me for dinner in Surry Hills on Wednesday 23rd February feel free. I’m recommending a place called Abdul’s that does amazing Lebanese food for around $25. It’s very casual and is BYO. Given I have had the privilege of purchasing a number of great wines recently I’ll bring along a few for us to try!

If you’d like to come along please just leave a comment on this blog with a contact email address so that I can confirm numbers with the restaurant on the day.

Hope to see you then!

Waaay back when I first joined twitter, I made friends with a guy who worked in HR in Boston, MA. Lovely guy to connect with and also hassle about when he’s coming back to Australia! Chris Ferdinandi writes at RenegadeHR.net, tweets at @ChrisFerdinandi and has written a few ebooks you may be interested in. “Culture Convo” is one for those interested in employer branding with social media.

For the second year running however, Chris has also produced “Do Amazing Things”, which is a collection of short, actionable ideas – things you can do in 2011 to become a better HR professional. This year I am proud to be featured in the book, so if you’d like to check it out grab your copy here.

The other day I read a blog post called “When your credibility takes a hit” on Women of HR, which was written by Jennifer Miller. It was hugely refreshing to read and a timely reminder that we aren’t all perfect.

Jennifer talks about being in a position where she blew it professionally; how humbling the experience was and also how instructive it can be as well. I recommend you have a read of her story here, but she explains an important message she learned through the experience that “your reputation is only as strong as your most recent performance”.

The day after I read the post, I was playing with my ipad and looking for some entertaining apps to download. I came across the Dr Seuss app for “Oh, the Places you’ll go” and downloaded it.

It’s entertaining and uplifting but there are some important messages in there as well that I think are important reminders.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way we plan it to. We stuff up because we are human. But there is a way to recover and move on to achieve better things. I promise.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never foget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
You’re off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

For those of you who I’ve spoken to over the last few months, you may have noticed a spring in my step, a smile on my face and a general look of improved wellbeing. I am happy, and a large part of this has to do with doing a job that I love. It has meaning; it gives me purpose every day and makes me proud to know I am making a difference in Human Resources.

At my new company, our core purpose is around bringing more sociability and wellbeing to our world, which may sound like a fluffy statement to some but it really is something that I’ve found the company really sticks to and tries to live out every day.

So when I heard about the floods in QLD and I watched the telethon on TV, I must admit I held back my donation because I knew that they were going to do something amazing and well thought through. And they didn’t disappoint. It comes out of true concern for our people, our customers and our consumers (now I sound like a spokesperson but I guess I’m just blown away by seeing it come to action so quickly).

• Our XXXX brand is donating $100,000 to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal
• Our Dairy Farmers brand is contributing at least $50,000 and currently investigating how we can use that money to assist our farmers
• Our Castlemaine Brewery (which produces XXXX) is going to help out our customers by donating product and aid publicans in assessing damage and recovery requirements
• Our farm services team are working hard with affected farmers to understand their issues and any potential impact on supply.
• National Foods are also going to participate in a cross-industry flood recovery group, led by the Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation, alongside a range of industry participants.
• For those cricket lovers, please donate up big at the KFC Big Bash game on Tuesday 25th January. Get this, ALL PROFITS from XXXX beer sales at the match will be donated to the flood relief. All 4s and 6s hit during the match, XXXX will donate $500 and $1,000 respectively and there will also be team members collecting donations at the grounds to raise funds.

Best of all, they have set up via our intranet a way for us to donate to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal pre-tax from our next pay, and they have agreed to match dollar for dollar. What a great effort, turned around so quickly.
Feel free to share what your company is or plans to do. It’s great to share awesome ideas.

For those who haven’t donated, it’s not too late! Donate here.

Tis the season for thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Many people will want to lose weight after indulging over the Christmas period, however with this approach I know I make the resolution and never revisit it again.

It does have to become more of a lifestyle choice, which also means that when you fall off the wagon or even fail, you have to be prepared to treat it as a speed bump in the road and keep on travelling.

After reading the book “Eight steps to happiness”, I started to plan my goals for the coming year and things I wanted to incorporate into my life. I want to track myself against these goals to really see how I am doing (so that’s not just another New Year’s resolution that I never got around to doing).

I was pondering about all of this when I was reminded of the “Five ways to wellbeing” that I had heard about at work. There is a lot of research out there which tells us that employees who experience greater wellbeing are happier and more engaged at work, so I think this is an important thing to consider from a HR perspective. I personally love free massages, but this might be a more sustainable plan for the workforce.

The “Five ways to wellbeing” come from the Centre for Wellbeing at nef (the new economics foundation) who seek to understand, measure and influence wellbeing. In particular, they look at policy making and what the economy might look like if its core purpose were to promote wellbeing in society. A very interesting concept.

They have a number of projects they investigate including The Happy Planet Index (demonstrating high wellbeing with a low ecological footprint), National Accounts of Wellbeing (comprehensive international analysis of wellbeing) and Children and young people’s wellbeing (showing how the UK would save billions in public spending on future social problems by investing in the wellbeing of children and young people).

However, the Five Ways to Wellbeing is the tool I wanted to share with you today. Simple concept, but a good one to remember.

If you have read the book “Eight steps to happiness” you can see a lot of related points there around mindfulness, being active, spending time being social and doing nice things for other people. Both based in a lot of scientific evidence and research. Food for thought this holiday season.

Goffee and Jones say that the main body of literature on Leadership talks about the characteristics of leaders and that is gives it a strong psychological bias. I’m sure we can all think of a few, and we may have also been witness to discussions on whether a person can learn to be a leader or whether they are simply born a leader.

However, have you ever considered Leadership to be a relationship?

The underlying assumption is that leadership is something we do to other people. But in our view, leadership should be seen as something we do with other people. Leadership must always be viewed as a relationship between the leader and the led.

The point? There is no magic recipe or list of characteristic that can make someone an effective leader. It’s not one way. It’s about the relationship between the leader and their followers. After all, a leader is nothing without followers.

It’s been pretty busy in life lately. New job, new house and it is almost Christmas. This year has flown! I have also been spending my free time reading an excellent book called “Why should anyone be led by you?” by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones. My organisation is going to be doing a lot of cool things in the Authentic Leadership space next year so I thought I would get a jump start and read it. As per usual, sharing is caring- so anything interesting I plan to blog about here and hopefully you might find something useful in it.

The first chapter is called “Be Yourself- More- with Skill”.

It starts out with an awesome little gem about the structure of an organisation.

It seems every organisation whether it’s the local cricket club, the not-for-profit or the big company- wants to see leadership. When answering the questions of why effective leadership is in such short supply, Goffee and Jones say that some organisations are structured in such a way that means they are ‘machines for the destruction of leadership’.

“They encourage either conformists or role players with an impoverished sense of who they are and what they stand for. Neither makes for effective leaders. And of course, this gives rise to the legions of disenchanted followers, producing the deepest organizational malaise of modern times: cynicism”.

Whether it be an experience in a public sector organisation, one that’s highly beaurcratic, or ancient in its operations; I think we may have all experienced this at some point. You know, a place where doing things the way it’s always been done is a thousand times easier than coming up with something new and getting it approved. I’m also willing to bet that there are others of you who have worked in professionals services organisations for example, which micromanages and controls employees to the point of which their brains disintegrate and they become lemmings!

How do you want your structure to make people feel? Is this articulated in your EVP?

Every now and again I come across something a bit different, and share it because I think people will be interested. You may have read about this in HC Magazine or even heard the reviews from our sister club, HR Club Newcastle.

I think most of us in HR are interested in employee engagement and value services like Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) for the support that they can provide people during difficult times.

Current research shows the extent of financial ill health in the Australian community is significant – 70% of Australian couples experience conflict over money, 86% of individuals saying they should know more about personal finance than what they do, and 95% say they experience difficulties with managing money.

Financial stress leads to significant mental, emotional and physical costs to the individual, and in turn, the organisations they are a part of.

This is one way to look at it. Another is to look at a benefit that you could provide for your employees that could mean much, much more than a pay rise or bonus- and this is what interested me. I was first introduced to Innergi when I was working at a law firm, and spoke to a lot of employees in their 30s who were earning extremely good money but weren’t doing anything useful with it. This is a tool that could help employees get in control of their finances and value the total reward package you offer them.

Intrigued?

On Wednesday 1st December, Matt Linnert will share a light hearted look at the serious challenge of raising financial wellbeing in Australia, including an overview of the strategies which leading organisations are using today and are predicted to use in the near future.

The event will be held in the Oak Room, at Swissotel Sydney, Level 8, 68 Market Street, Sydney. There will be a light breakfast served from 7.15am (yum!) and the presentation starts at 7.40am sharp so you can head off to start your day.

Registration is essential so please register via the eventbrite link. It’s a good way to meet and network with others in the HR Community