Friday Round Up – Some of My Must-Read HR & Talent Management Posts

I wanted to share some of my must-read posts from the last couple weeks with all of you – there’s been lots to choose from, but here are just a few that struck a chord with me, and provide some unique insights.

I don’t normally read the Call Center Café blog, but picked up on this post on employee motivation by Ray Williams, which I thought was particularly interesting. It provides some great background on the study of employee motivation, and then looks at a more modern study that appeared in the July 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review.  The study, authored by Nitin Nohria, Boris-Groysberg and Linda-Eling look at four “fundamental drives that underlie motivation”: the drives to acquire, bond, comprehend and defend. What’s interesting is that with scientific advances HR has more information than ever before on employee motivation, but it continues to be such a challenging area. These four areas are definitely worth looking at in more detail, so you can assess how your organization is addressing them as part of your talent management strategy.

It’s graduation time of year, which means many speeches are being made by the famous and not-so famous. Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership Blog shares a compilation of leadership advice from commencement speakers including Robert Gates, Madeline Albright, Steve Jobs, and the new Tonight Show host, Conan O’Brien in his Leadership Advice for the Class of 2009 post. Some great insights, and a list from Dan at the end that sums everything up nicely.

And finally, for a Friday… Steve Roesler over at All Things Workplace has an awesome post on The Art of Being Brief. It includes some great insights on how less can be more and tips for performing what he calls “slide surgery” – getting to the point with those Powerpoint slides. Odds are someone on your team needs this, so be sure to pass these tips around!