Talent and HR News Weekly Update: What's Trending

There were a lot of different topics covered in this week's news review, so we didn't want to limit this week's Talent and HR News Weekly Roundup. This week we're featuring what's trending. Enjoy! 

1) Play This Game and Win a Job! from The Wall Street Journal

"Last fall, Barclays PLC began testing a new tool for attracting young job applicants: a mobile videogame. More than 4,500 mostly college seniors have played the Barclays-branded version of Stockfuse, a free stock-trading game that uses real-time market data. About 8% have applied for positions at the international bank, and so far 17 have landed jobs. Stockfuse, developed by SHFuse Inc., a New York-based startup, is just one of a new breed of apps that invite people to play games that also serve as real-world recruiting tools. Such apps aim to shed light on how a candidate might perform in a job based on how he or she performs in a game. With Stockfuse, for example, what stocks a player invests in and the returns achieved typically provide plenty of data for consideration. Games from other developers range from solving mazes to managing a simulated sushi restaurant."

2) Why Are So Many Managers Afraid Of Talking To Their Employees? from Fast Company

"Having a staff doesn't automatically make you a great communicator. Here are the reasons why people sweat giving feedback. Giving feedback—positive or negative—ranks high on managers’ lists of challenging responsibilities. Who wouldn’t sweat in anticipation of giving an employee a performance review or debriefing a team after the completion of a project? So it’s no wonder that a new survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Interact revealed that a majority (69%) of leaders confessed to being uncomfortable communicating with their staff. The online survey polled 1,120 employed U.S. workers, 616 of whom manage employees in the workplace. Among those in leadership positions, more than a third (37%) admitted to being uncomfortable giving direct feedback to an employee if they believed that person would respond in a negative way."

3) Why So Many Thirtysomething Women Are Leaving Your Company from Harvard Business Review

"What is the main reason women in their early thirties are leaving your company? Organizational leaders report that women are leaving primarily because of flexibility needs and family demands. Women in their thirties disagree. A recent global ICEDR study revealed that leaders believe that the majority of women around the age of 30 leave because they are struggling to balance work and life or planning to have children, whereas men leave because of compensation. However, according to women themselves (and in sharp contrast to the perceptions of their leaders), the primary factor influencing their decision to leave their organizations is pay. In fact, women are actually more likely to leave because of compensation than men. Not only are women’s reasons for leaving misunderstood, differences between women and men are overstated. Four out of the five top reasons thirtysomething women and men leave organizations overlap."

4) How Social Media Wreaks Havoc in the HR World from Inc.

"You might think it best to walk away from social media entanglements with employees, but lawyers say you need to take a direct approach to potentially delicate situations. Yelp had a situation on its hands at the turn of the month. For the second time in two weeks, an employee was blasting the company on blogging platform Medium. This particular employee was disputing Yelp's motivation for firing her, in a post titled "Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me." Yelp responded by tweeting out its reasons for firing the sales employee, Jaymee Senigaglia, claiming it had issued warnings to her about absenteeism. Senigaglia responded with a follow-up post on Medium, challenging the company's position. "Hey Yelp, can you send over a record of these repeated warnings you speak of?" she wrote."

5) Why Employees And Management Have Such Different Ideas About Company Culture from Fast Company

"A new survey illustrates the wide gap between the opinions of workers and management on what's important to creating a great culture. Culture. Although the word is as battered as a corporate buzzword can be, at its core, workplace culture can actually make or break a business. Case in point: An expose of the Volkswagen emissions scandal suggested that the company's culture, which was influenced by its history and challenging leadership styles, may have encouraged employees to cheat. Sales plummeted as a result. On the flip side, Netflix’s culture, which is based on trust and autonomy, is propelling the video service’s revenues to new heights, even as it shifts into a new business model."

6) Tips For Hiring The Best Candidates For Your Small Business from Forbes

"One employee’s influence can potentially be felt more strongly in a small business than at a large organization. Likewise, when one person leaves a job at a small company, it can be more difficult to cover his or her responsibilities than it would be at a larger firm, especially since most small-business employees wear many hats. One good employee can also propel the business forward, while a bad hire can set back productivity, damage morale, and cost an employer both time and money. Small businesses created 79,000 jobs in January 2016, according to the ADP Small Business Report. How can hiring managers ensure that these jobs are filled by the best candidates who can set their small business up for future success?"

Lexi Gordon is a Lead Consultant for exaqueo, a workforce consultancy that helps organizations build their cultures, employer brands and talent strategies. Contact exaqueo to learn more about our employer brand innovation, workforce research, and recruiting strategy offerings.

Related Posts