Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

I am 48, and my earliest memories are in front of the television (I think a fudge-pop may have been involved) during the turbulent middle and late 1960s. I have thus grown up during the era of civil rights; that period that transformed this country from a Protestant, white-male dominated culture to a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and religiously diverse nation. My time in business, first in line management then in HR, has been entirely during the era of group rights and redress of societal grievances, some legitimate and some not. Now more than halfway through a career focused on business management and HR, I'm well versed in all the things you can't say, can't do, and sometimes don't dare think in regards to race, gender, national origin, etc... Along with the political correctness of our culture, which can't help but be reflected in our business culture, come a few assumptions; women are more sensitive to women's issues, non-whites are more sensitive to race i...

As of last week we have 136 people signed up to work partial weeks from home. These individuals work in three of our five divisions. In HR, we are building an email distribution list so we can send email blasts with tips and best practices, communicate directly to those in the test to see how its going, and start to build community around those involved in this innovation. One group we're watching closely is the Design group working in Production under Debbie Eicholtz , since they are Mac power-users and a key test of how the remoting software works with Macs. In trying to stay ahead of the corporate test, HR is pushing ahead with two more phases of the project. About three weeks ago, with the wise counsel and support of our IT group, we installed video conferencing software and web cams for most of our staff. Since then, we've expanded our work-from-home schedule. At first we had three salaried staff members working three half-days each from home, making sure to have ev...