Yesterday, I dealt with how HR in general can help drive strategy. Today, I discuss specifically how assessment professionals can drive strategy.

Ask HR Lite: What is the potential for HRM to assist in the strategic development of the business? From Seat at the Table

HRLite Responds: Great question. Once again demonstrating my complete inability to give a simple answer to a question, I thought I would answer this question in a couple of parts. Today, I will start with the general question of how HR can help to drive strategy or strategic development. But to demonstrate I am trying, I have made this answer a top 10 list. (For anyone interested in strategy and HR, I would suggest starting with the classic book by Ulrich, Human Resource Champions).

I received a question about hr & strategy, which I have decided to address starting on Monday.

In the meantime, as a warmup, if you can get a hold of the latest IPMA-HR News (November 2008), there is a thoughtful article by Lindsay Muirhead on HR Transformation in the Public Sector, that deals with HR and strategy.

The US Dept of Labor is posting an update to the FMLA or final rules on the FMLA. Noteworthy sections include the treatment of military positions and perfect attendance awards. For perfect attendance awards, the rule:

Perfect Attendance Awards: The final rule changes how perfect attendance awards are treated to allow employers to deny a "perfect attendance" award to an employee who does not have perfect attendance because he or she took FMLA leave but only if the employer treats employees taking non-FMLA leave in an identical way.

A second reminder on this local event

The Northern Ohio Chapter of the IPMA-HR will meet Thursday, November 20, 2008. They will have two speakers: 

It has been a number of days since we have blogged. My apologies. I was out of town. Now I realize that in this day of wireless covering every corner of the earth that should not have been a big problem. However, I have always had an bad memory (not an aging problem) and when you have something like 100 passwords, I sometimes forget. So I could not remember my password for posting purposes.

To make up for it, here are two upcoming local (Northeast Ohio) events.

Last week I blogged about an article in the Wall Street Journal on Performance Reviews. Mark Hammer and Bryan Baldwin replied with excellent comments. If you have not reviewed their comments, I encourage you to go back and do so.

Monday a couple of letters to the Editor appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Those letters also supported the use of performance reviews. I do not think they were as informative as Mark and Bryan's comments, but you might want to take a look at them. Or just go to the whole discussion list provided by the WSJ, there were a large number of comments.

If you live in the US, I encourage you to vote today. (I am one of those people who like to vote on Election Day itself. It is the whole feel of the event. To me voting before Election Day is like waiting till after Christmas to buy presents just because they are on sale).

I voted and I voted using these huge cards, where you had to fill in ovals using a pen. The cards were so big, I had no idea what to do with the first one while I filled out the second card. Of course, one of the people in front of me jammed up the scanner.

The Northern Ohio Chapter of the IPMA-HR will meet Thursday, November 20, 2008. They will have two speakers: 

Andrea Battle Sims, Senior Consultant with Waters-Oldani Executive Recruitment.  Her presentation will be titled:  Executive Search - Care in selecting a "headhunter."  Her focus has been on municipal, county, state and non-profit organizations.