Fun interview this week with HR firebrand Leena Nair. She is the youngest and first female CHRO at Unilever, and is responsible for the human capital needs and global people agenda of 160,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Some interview highlights: Nair says her purpose is to ignite the human spark to build a better business and a better world. One perception about HR she wants to change? That we are always filling the cracks for the business but not laying the road. (Amen, Leena!) Her learning mantra? Learn. Unlearn. Relearn. People Matters
Why does employer brand matter? What are the best ways to communicate your employer brand? How does EB connect to engagement and retention? Can you do all of this on a small/minimal/barely existent budget? Drive Thru HR podcast hosts Mike Vandervort and Robin Schooling talked this week about these and other issues (and shared some laughs) with keynote speaker extraordinaire James Ellis, director of employer brand at Universum. If you haven’t found this high-energy, highly entertaining podcast, give it a listen. Drive Thru HR
The fifth KPMG International Global CEO Outlook report is in, and the results might surprise you. CEOs are looking to grow their businesses by creating the organizational agility to disrupt existing business models and challenge the status quo. Great, but just over half of CEOs are confident they will succeed, with 53% projecting cautious three-year growth of up to 2%. They are also maintaining a positive three-year growth outlook for the global economy. This confidence is shown by their commitment to hire, with 36% of CEOs projecting to add more than 6% to their workforce in the next three years. Other notable stats: 70% said their capital investments will be in tech, and 84% believe a “fast fail” culture is required in today’s marketplace, in which lessons from failures are learned quickly, yet only 56% say that kind of culture is in place in their organization. KPMG International
Flanked by dozens of striking fast-food workers, Kamala Harris stood behind a large pro-union banner in Las Vegas, chanting, “McDonald’s pay is really low.” The next day, on Saturday, three other Democratic presidential candidates joined a protest against the restaurant chain in Charleston, South Carolina. Beto O’Rourke joined a group of striking workers before they marched, while Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg spoke to the strikers afterward. Protests for a $15 minimum wage have become a regular campaign stop for Democrats running for president as they court unions and workers — and the place they regularly choose to protest, outside McDonald’s, puts the country’s second-largest private employer in an uncomfortable spotlight. In addition, eight Senate Democrats, including four presidential candidates, sent a letter last week to McDonald’s CEO on a different topic, accusing the company of failing to address sexual harassment. Bloomberg Quint
The Economist’s Bartleby blog always has something interesting to say about HR. This week, he takes on whether promotions are really necessary. Many workers focus their hopes on climbing the hierarchy of their organizations. This scramble can often end in disappointment. The Peter principle states that workers get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. It makes perfect sense. If you are good at your job, you rise up the career ladder. Eventually, there will be a job you are not good at and at that point your career will stall. The logical corollary is that any senior staff members who have been in their job for an extended period are incompetent. Bartleby is not an expert at climbing the greasy pole. When he was last promoted, Iraq had yet to be invaded. In part, that is because he has observed a variant on the Peter principle — what might be dubbed the Bartleby curse. People get promoted until they reach a level when they stop enjoying their jobs. At this point, it is not just their competence that is affected; it is their happiness as well. The Economist
