Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

While its true that not all turnover is a bad thing, and some people really shouldn't continue with the company, it lowers our corporate discourse to speak ill of the (vocationally) departed. Its an easy out; blame someone who had more than their fair share of human or career flaws and who is no longer here to take up for themselves. It's also unfair and can come to no good end. If the criticism is too harsh you may cross the legal threshold into disparagement. This is actionable on the part of the former employee. If the criticism is personal and distributed in writing (remember, email lives forever!) it can cross the threshold into slander. If it isn't that bad, its just cheap and should be beneath us. Remember, this industry and our company have a long history of recycling people, and today's whipping post may be next year's author, or customer, or boss. It has happened before... As with most business situations, the morally correct course is also the smar...

Its a busy summer in HR, as we're working on several corporate initiatives that I personally find exciting. While its adding to our workload, these are programs that have been approved but have "gone dark" during a period of a couple of months during which we'll be writing and debating policy language. Since some of these have been announced, but not all, I thought it might be helpful to give you a preview of what's coming down the road. 1. Equity Plan - We've completed the distribution of ESOP assets following the end of that plan. For those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology, programs that share some amount of ownership in the company are commonly called equity plans. We have Board approval for a plan that will provide most employees with an opportunity to build and share equity, although its not an ESOP plan (remember, we're privately held now). Anticipate an announcement in August and informational meetings in the August/Septemb...