mrwilliamcook

[mrwilliamcook]

Build Your Recruiting Pipeline: Use Pre-Employment Assessments to Highlight Talent

 (Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Criteria Corp, a leading provider of pre-employment testing services. If you want to learn more about how pre-employment testing can benefit your recruiting strategy, check out Criteria Corp’s “Definitive Guide to Pre-Employment Testing”. I found this to be a comprehensive resource that I keep on the corner of my desk all the time. Enjoy the post!) 

Many famous CEOs have said that employees are the cornerstone of their business. No matter what industry you’re in, employees play a key role in helping the organization take care of customers and ultimately achieve its goals. So regardless of what’s happening today with the unemployment rate, organizations want to create a recruiting process that helps them find the best talent. 

Pre-employment assessments are a part of that process.

It’s time for us to reconsider how we’re using pre-employment assessments. Instead of using an assessment to filter out candidates, organizations should consider using them as a way to filter in high-potential candidates. What I mean by that is, pre-employment assessments can be used to surface candidates that the company might have overlooked based on their resume alone. Soft skills are a perfect example. Organizations can use cognitive ability assessments to identify areas of potential and trainability in candidates. Something that might not be obvious from a resume. 

Using Assessments to Find the Best Talent

Before an organization starts using pre-employment assessments to highlight talent, they should examine four key areas of their recruiting strategy.

Decide the goal of using pre-employment assessments. Any time an organization uses an assessment, the company needs to decide and agree on the reason. What’s the purpose? Using an assessment to filter out candidates is going to be different from using it to highlight talent. The purpose will drive many other decisions. Also, make sure that the assessment being used is valid and reliable for the employment process. Valid means the assessment measures what it’s supposed to measure. Reliable means the same results happen in a consistent fashion. There are many terrific assessments on the market, but they are not all valid and reliable for recruiting purposes. Choosing the right assessment will help deliver the intended result.

Consider conducting cognitive ability assessments earlier in the hiring process. According to CareerBuilder’s 2018 recruiting forecast, forty-five percent (45%) of HR professionals currently have jobs that they can’t fill because they cannot find qualified candidates. As a result, many organizations say they’re willing to hire candidates and train them. They just want to know that the candidate is trainable. As I mentioned earlier, this is the perfect application for cognitive ability assessments. The organization can use the assessment to uncover the candidate’s potential. But the ideal time to learn this information is early in the interview process not after the hiring manager has selected a candidate. This would change when in the hiring process an assessment is administered. 

Include behavioral career development interview questions. This ties into #2. Once the organization receives the results of the candidate’s cognitive ability assessment, then there might be an opportunity to ask a few follow-up questions. Of course, that only really works if the assessment is conducted early in the recruiting process. The key here is to make the questions behavioral in nature. Ask employees to tap into their past experience and share stories about what they’ve learned in the past. An example would be “Tell us about a time when you needed to learn something on your own.” Or “Tell us about a situation when your boss asked you to do something you didn’t know how to do. How did you handle it?” 

Provide training to everyone involved in administering and evaluating a candidate’s assessment results. When the goal of using an assessment is to filter candidates into the organization, the assessment results will be used long after the recruiting process. It’s essential for everyone to be able to read, understand, and react to the results. For instance, at the point the candidate becomes an employee, the company could use the cognitive ability assessment results as part of a personalized onboarding journey map for the new employee. The manager will also want to consider those results as part of a career development plan. 

Assessments Help Organizations Find the Best Talent

Pre-employment assessments can help organizations find the best talent … and this has always been their goal. Instead of using an assessment to weed people out of the process, flip the process and use assessments to bring people in. It does mean making a few changes, but the results can be much more positive.

P.S. If you want to learn more about using pre-employment assessments to highlight talent, take a listen to the webinar I did with Criteria Corp on “Hiring for Soft Skills: 3 Strategies to Find the Best Candidates”.  We go further in depth with this concept and talk specifically about the skills organizations can start evaluating earlier in the hiring process.

The post Build Your Recruiting Pipeline: Use Pre-Employment Assessments to Highlight Talent appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2Dtk6Nw

[mrwilliamcook]

3 Spring Shrubs Serving Up Yellow, Red and Almond Joy

As spring roars in behind its exuberant parade of dogwood, redbud, magnolia and cherry trees I sit ready to praise a trio of shrubs that bring me almost as much joy without all the press: the vivid quince, the golden kerria and the oh-so-lovely pink almond, the latter often derided in highbrow horticultural circles.

The knock on all of them – somewhat justified – is they may be interesting about 10 days a year but what about the other 355 days? Well, I know a lot of people I would put in the same category.

‘Dragon’s Blood’ quince

I have no idea where I got my first quince – or why? They were purchased in that phase of gardening life during which I wanted one of everything. They all come under Chaenomeles speciosa, which is Latin for “comes in an absurd variety of colors to about ten feet tall.”

All of mine ended up along our long driveway, the ubiquitous “Welcome Home” plant that defines my gardening aesthetic. The first one up is a vivid orange; the cultivar name tag lost to history. Truth be told, I’ve lost most of my plant name tags. I almost don’t care anymore. I’m sure it’s a quince. The rest is all the quince’s secret.

The one quince I know I have for sure is ‘Dragon’s Blood.’ It’s not just red, it’s screaming in-your-face-red. Horror movie double-bloom red. In full cry, as it is right now, it is the most stunning flower on our eight acres.

Yet it doesn’t dominate the landscape. It’s a bit hidden away under a clump of huge pink and white dogwood trees, themselves somewhat worthless because after years of pruning to allow needed access underneath, their blooms are about 15 to 20 feet above the driveway.

Quince do well in full to part sun, can take some drought, and seem very willing to just disappear into the landscape once their 10 days are up. I wish I could say the same about those people I was talking about earlier.

My kerria shrubs, or Kerria japonica and Japanese Rose for its Asian heritage, grow on the far side of our yard in front of our huge arborvitae hedge. Kerria, especially the double-flowering ‘Pleniflora’ and large-flowered ‘Golden Guinea,’ always belong on the far side of the yard.

Then you can walk outside in early to mid-April, look way across the yard and see that those bright yellow blooms you always forget will appear in early to mid-April. It’s the perfect far-away plant.

What is that,” the mind asks?

Oh, yeah. It’s the kerria.

Actually, kerria also come with whitish flowers and variegated leaves – but what’s the point in being a basically yellow-flowering shrub if you can’t use your given 10 days to show off?

Here’s perhaps the very best thing about the kerria: It will bloom in the shade where the flowers will stick around a little longer, maybe even 11 days and 42 minutes. How many shrubs do you have that will bloom in a fair amount of shade? Then, as with the quince, it can sort of disappear under there until next spring.

It will get a little leggy in the sun so just whack it way back after those yellow flowers are all gone. I whacked ours back last year and will not mess with it this year. I need to be surprised again next spring.

Which brings me to our dwarf flowering almond, which I believe is a Prunus grandulosa. If not, it should be. The sad truth is if this almond were a puppy it would be the last one to go from the kennel, at least when not in flower.

For 355 days a year you could not give away this plant. It is ugly, scraggly, totally ignored and forgotten, even criticized as a Dollar Store shrub, which may be doing a disservice to Dollar Stores.

Yet please pause a moment from this text and look at the photo of this discount store shrub. Have you ever seen anything more lovely, more exquisite, more charming? Cinderella should have had it so good.

So there she is, a Cinderella planted along my gravel driveway, albeit way too close to an orange quince. But I know what’s coming. I begin looking for signs of those pink blooms in late March or early April.

Yes, there is a hint of pink bloom. Then there are a half-dozen; then a dozen. Then a Fairy Godmother shows up and Cinderella is all dressed in pink. It’s her 10 days at the ball.

Prince Charming hasn’t shown up with a glass slipper yet but – as with everything in horticulture – you gotta believe.

3 Spring Shrubs Serving Up Yellow, Red and Almond Joy originally appeared on GardenRant on April 22, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2vf26Ca

[mrwilliamcook]

Thanks to NY Botanic Garden and U. Chicago Press!

Here at GardenRant we don’t use Google ads or aggressively pursue advertisers because we blog for the love of it, not to pay our mortgages. But like any website, we DO have expenses – for hosting, site maintenance and improvement.

So boy, do we ever appreciate our advertisers – like the prestigious organizations promoting books and educational opportunities on GardenRant right now. And today we interrupt our usual assortment of news, opinion, plant and people profiles and outright rants for a brief mention of our advertisers, with our thanks.

Speaking of prestigious, a New York Botanic Garden Certificate is definitely that, and can be pursued on an accelerated basis through their Summer Intensive Programs in Floral Design, Landscape Design or Gardening; intensive classes are also available in Botanical Art & Illustration and Horticultural Therapy.

If I lived closer to NYC I’d sign up for the course in Landscape Design myself. (I’m loving the class in Landscape Architecture that I’m auditing at the University of Maryland, but it’s teaching me how little I know.)

You’ll also find in our sidebar a new book about oaks from Kew Gardens, being distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press Books. They’re a long-time advertiser on GardenRant.

We’re honored by the support of such highly respected organizations.

Thanks to NY Botanic Garden and U. Chicago Press! originally appeared on GardenRant on April 21, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2GyGAyI

[mrwilliamcook]

Employees: This Is What You Should Do If You Get a Suspension – Ask #HR Bartender

I’ve written before about employees who have been suspended. In those older questions, the focus has been on the details of the incident. This reader note has a bit of different twist. It’s focused on what the employee should do.

I got suspended pending an investigation and did not get any details. It’s been a week. What kind of questions can I ask my boss so I’m not on a limb?

Before you say to yourself, “We can’t answer anything because we don’t know what happened.” Yes, that’s true. We don’t know what the employee was accused of. But there are some steps that an employee should take anytime something like this happens. 

To offer some insights, I asked employment attorney Donna Ballman to help us out. She’s helped us before with one of my favorite posts titled, “Can You Bring Your Mother to a Meeting With HR?” Donna’s work focuses on employee-side employment law issues, so whether you’re an employee or an HR pro, these insights will prove to be valuable. Also, please remember that Donna’s comments should not be construed as legal advice or as pertaining to any specific factual situations. If you have detailed questions, they should be addressed directly with your friendly neighborhood labor attorney.

Donna, just as a refresher for our readers, what does “suspension pending investigation” mean?

[Ballman] Sometimes employers will suspend an employee if there is a complaint or possible disciplinary issue so they can investigate. 

If an employee is suspended, what basic information should they know about the circumstances of their suspension?

[Ballman] There are three key questions employees need to ask:

Find out if the suspension is with pay or without pay. Regardless of the answer, ask how long the suspension will be. A suspension without pay for an indefinite amount of time can amount to a termination. Employees don’t have to wait months or years to apply for unemployment or start applying for another job. If it’s a suspension with pay, that’s not a termination.

Ask what you are expected to do during the suspension. There may be required times to check in with a supervisor or HR. Employees may be prohibited from entering the premises, even to have lunch with a coworker. If the premises have other offices like a doctor’s office and you need to go there during the suspension, make sure that won’t be held against you.

Ask yourself whether others did the same thing you were accused of who weren’t suspended. This last question is for the individual. What’s happened to others in a similar situation. And were they of a different race, age, sex, national origin, or other protected status from you? Or were you suspended right after announcing a pregnancy, seeking FMLA, or seeking a disability accommodation? If so, then the suspension might be illegal discrimination. 

If you think you have potential claims, you might want to take some time during the suspension to talk to an employee-side employment lawyer in your state about your rights and discuss some strategy.

This note says the employee has been suspended a week. In your experience, how long is the typical suspension?

[Ballman] There’s really no such thing as a ‘typical’ suspension. That being said, I hear x-number of days or x-number of weeks as the most common suspensions. 

It’s really a dirty trick to suspend indefinitely without pay because the employee is in limbo and doesn’t know if they are still employed or not. Some employers will do this and then claim the employee quit when they apply for unemployment or start applying for other jobs.

I would completely understand if an employee is surprised by being suspended and they forget the information. Who should they follow-up with if they have questions about their status?

[Ballman] If they have questions, they should ask HR or the person who suspended them. I suggest getting any clarification in writing, such as by email or text, and keeping a copy for proof. 

If you get no response, maybe check with someone higher up. Failing to respond is really unprofessional.

Last question, if an employee feels that the company is taking too long or not responding to their questions, is there something they can do?

[Ballman] At some point, and it’s hard to judge, a suspension without pay is a firing. It’s hard to say where that line is, but the employee needs to follow up and if nobody is responding, then it may be time to apply for unemployment and start applying for other jobs. 

What employees don’t want to do is start contacting witnesses or the person who complained about them. This could result in being fired for interfering with the investigation. Also don’t start threatening or doing anything that could be deemed insubordination. You are under a microscope, so don’t give the company a reason for termination.

My thanks to Donna for sharing her knowledge with us on this difficult topic. Please be sure to check out her blog, Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home. It’s been named one of the American Bar Association’s 100 best legal blogs. And she’s the author of the award-winning book “Stand Up for Yourself Without Getting Fired: Resolve Workplace Crises Before You Quit, Get Axed or Sue the Bastards.”

While organizations should be providing employees with information during suspensions, I also believe that sometimes the employee is in shock about what’s going on and they forget to ask. If companies want to get to the truth, then they need to answer employee questions. I totally agree with Donna that it’s incredibly unprofessional to leave an employee in limbo.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Oklahoma City, OK

The post Employees: This Is What You Should Do If You Get a Suspension – Ask #HR Bartender appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2VVZ3KQ

[mrwilliamcook]

Favorite Shrubs and Ground Covers in my April Garden

Here in the Mid-Atlantic there’s plenty of blooming action among bulbs, but in my own garden I only have eyes for my newest plants, especially the ones with big job requirements – shrubs for screening and groundcovers to do the obvious.

So take this Koreanspice viburnum, for instance. (V. carlesii). It’s full-grown now in its 7th year – a nice small size for small gardens – but this year it’s in a new spot, where it provides just enough privacy between my porch and the sidewalk behind my back yard.

After its super-fragrant blooms are gone the shrub looks a bit boring but hey, it’s still doing its job, with no work on my part.

Here’s a different view of that Viburnum with blooms of a ‘Forest Pansy’ redbud in its second spring here. On the right you see the privacy screen I had built about a year ago for the purpose of blocking of an ugly view, and love it!

Here’s a closer shot of the screen with ‘Ogon’ Spireas on either side and an Oakleaf Hydrangea leafing out in the middle.

Above and below are views of the screen from the sidewalk at the rear of the back yard. Above, the ‘Rising Sun’ redbud I planted last fall, in bloom.

Here the redbud’s leaves have turned yellow (thus the name ‘Rising Sun’) and a Fothergilla is blooming. Like the Koreanspice viburnum, Fothergillas aren’t much to look at once the blooms are gone, but in this out-of-the-way location that’s fine.

Now for a couple of groundcovers, starting with golden groundsel (Packera aurea), which is evergreen, native, and a reliable spreader in shady spots. I love it in this spot where it’s far from any azaleas, which bloom at the same time and to my eyes, look terrible combined with gold blooms like these.

Another groundcover I’m forever recommending is also evergreen; it’s the old-fashioned comfrey (Symphytum grandiflorum) just starting its long bloom period. Comfrey can also handle shade and spreads reliably, so I can’t figure out why no one grows them. Or sells them, for that matter.

Here in my front garden, more comfrey is filling in quickly around the foundation shrubs. Another ‘Ogon’ Spirea is at work hiding my new mini-split HVAC, which can just barely be seen behind it. Also shown is an Osmanthus heterophyllus ‘Goshiki’ (another of my favorite shrubs of all time) and an unidentified azalea.

That’s all for now from my little Maryland garden.

Favorite Shrubs and Ground Covers in my April Garden originally appeared on GardenRant on April 17, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2V9RKSN

[mrwilliamcook]

Bookmark This! Parental Leave Policies Edition

Sadly, I must admit that I received this question a while ago and have been looking for a way to offer some good resources. Parental leave is an important subject and one that the U.S. often fails at miserably. 

Hi Sharlyn. Quick question for you: what do you think is a ‘good’ maternity policy for a startup of 15 people to have? My company is in Missouri and they offer disability, which is all that is legally required. I’m working on building a business case for more but am struggling with a baseline for a company of our size. Any thoughts or suggested resources? Thanks!

This question is so hard for many reasons. We don’t know what industry the company is in. It’s possible the industry has a baseline that should be considered. We also don’t know the company’s growth plans. The organization might want to think about the future when making this type of decision instead of creating a policy today and then changing it in a year or two. I’m taking a broad approach, but here are a few resources to consider when it comes to parental leave:

First of all, if you are a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), then you have access to their “Ask an Advisor” member benefit. You can call, chat or email with an advisor who will send you relevant resources. I’ve used it for inclement weather policies, breaks and lunch policies, etc. 

Additionally, the SHRM website has a forms section, where you can find parental leave forms as well as information about California parental leaves and guarantees of reinstatement. Not only do companies need to think about the best benefits to attract and retain talent, but how to legally implement and maintain those benefits.

If you’re looking for a specific policy that will give you some creative inspiration, I shared some details about Cisco’s parental leave policy in the post “Organizations: It’s Time for Family Friendly Leave Programs”.

And if you’re trying to sell a policy to senior management, it might be helpful to check out this post where our friends at Kronos share the details of their MyTime program, an open vacation benefit. While this reader note isn’t about unlimited vacation time, Kronos’ MyTime program provided them with the cost savings to expand their parental leave benefits.  

We don’t always have to look at the United States to get creative inspiration about employee benefits. This infographic shares some information about parental leave policies around the world. 

Finally, it’s important to remember that parental leave is a topic that is changing rapidly. Michael Carty from XpertHR discussed the impact of UK’s shared parental leave lawrecently in an HR Bartender post. 

Parental leave is an important topic. Employees want to know that they are working for a company that respects their family life. Today and in the future. Honestly, it’s just good business. Ultimately, organizations will want to do their homework and create a benefit that aligns with their company culture. 

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby at the Venetian Resort Hotel in Las Vegas, NV

The post Bookmark This! Parental Leave Policies Edition appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2IvCXvN

[mrwilliamcook]

HR Careers for Legal Professionals – Ask #HR Bartender

I’ve been asked many times to share resources about HR careers and becoming a human resources professional. Today’s reader note has an interesting facet – they’re studying to be a lawyer.

Hi there. Thanks for taking out the time to read my query. I am a law student currently in my final year. I’m contemplating earning a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) with human resources as my specialization. I have received a call from a respected business school with one of the best HR programs in the country. I want to make an informed decision whether to pursue the Master’s so I have a couple of questions:

I’m struggling with how I would align my existing legal knowledge with the knowledge I would gain in a business / HR program. It would really be very helpful if you could provide me with some guidance regarding this. That leads me to my second question. What HR opportunities could be leveraged by a legal person such as myself?

Any help would be welcome. Thanks again. 

Obviously, the decision to earn a degree (and in what subject) is a very personal one. So, I don’t know that it would be fair to give out specific advice. But there is definitely a relationship between HR and the law. 

When I received this note, I immediately thought of a friend of mine who I know has sat on both sides of the HR and law table. Carrie B. Cherveny, Esq. is senior vice president of strategic client solutions and chief compliance officer at HUB International Southeast, an insurance brokerage providing a full-suite of coverage, investment, benefits, and wealth management services. Luckily, I asked Carrie if she would share her story and she said “yes”. 

Carrie, I know you’ve been both an HR pro and now you’re a practicing lawyer. What would you say are the common knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) between the two professions?

[Cherveny] In the role of legal advisor and in human resources I have always understood that I was there to serve and support both internal and external customers. I am, at the very core – a in a service role.  My philosophy:

I am here to serve and support those who rely on me.

When someone calls me, he/she is likely concerned/stressed – it’s my responsibility to do what I can to put him/her at ease, make a potentially difficult call as pleasant as it can be, and most of all – be helpful and responsive.

There’s always someone out there who would be happy to take my place, so I remind myself each day that I’m fortunate to do the job I do.

It’s this philosophy that has shaped my paradigm for the job I do and the service I provide. The four KSAs that I use every day are:  

A Service Mentality – My first job in human resources was in the hospitality industry. After I completed my masters, I began working for Marriot International in its healthcare division. At 24 years old (or so) I traveled to Washington DC where I spent several days at the Marriott International headquarters. Many years later I still remember the vital lessons I learned: 1) We are here to serve those who rely upon us and 2) Our service should be courteous, professional, and prompt

Analytical Skills – Near the end of my HR career, I worked for a boss that required I develop a myriad of spreadsheets and conduct extensive data analytics. I’ve grown to appreciate his insistence that we compile data, organize it in a variety of ways, and look for patterns, details, and anomalies to help better understand our circumstances. Both as an attorney and an HR professional you have to allow the facts, data, and documents tell the story.  

People and Communication Skills – I’ve met all kinds of HR professionals and attorneys in my life and those who excelled in their profession were the same people who knew how to communicate with and relate to the people they served. Empathy, compassion, and the ability to deliver constructive and honest feedback are key skills for an HR person and an attorney.

Reading People and Circumstances – Both as an attorney and as an HR professional, reading the person that you’re speaking with, along with contextual circumstances, is an extremely valuable skill. What I have learned is that in all cases there is more going on than what ‘meets the eye’. Pay attention to non-verbal’s, tone of voice, facial expressions, and the smallest details and pieces of information. The details tell the story. 

If I’m a legal professional considering HR careers, what would I be surprised to find out about the job? 

[Cherveny] I think attorneys would be surprised by the nature of many of the issues that make their way to the HR department. Quite frequently, the nature of the issues that arrive in human resources can (at times) be relatively small or inconsequential. Attorneys generally become involved in matters of significance, consequence, or risk.  However, the day-to-day in human resources can be quite different. 

HR professionals very frequently do far more than employee relations. I think an attorney may be surprised by the variety of projects and areas of work that arrive in the HR department. As an HR professional I’ve been responsible for in projects including marketing, budgeting, sales, safety/OSHA, purchasing, commercial insurance, and vendor relations/negotiations.

And let’s do the reverse. If I’m an HR pro and decide to get my law degree, what would I be surprised to learn?

[Cherveny] Your professional success won’t mean much in law school. By the time I went to law school I had been in charge of two different HR departments for multi-million-dollar organizations. I was mentoring several new HR professionals and I was a frequent contributor and speaker at HR events. I was confident. I was successful. I was totally unprepared! 

Think of law school as a total reboot. Who you were in your past professional life is not particularly relevant in law school – especially in the first year. The first year of law school is a pre-defined curriculum. In year-two you can begin to add electives. Imagine my excitement to finally take an employment- law class! After 12 months of total discomfort and stress I was sure I was going to finally find my groove. I was very excited to read all those cases that I heard attorneys reference throughout my HR career. Wrong! Would you be surprised to learn that my employment law class was my third most difficult class in law school (just behind property and agency)? It was! 

Why was it so difficult for me? What I learned during my time as an HR professional was the practical application of legal principles. Black-letter law and cases are very different than real-world application.  Law school will remake you into someone stronger and more capable than you ever imagined you could be. Trust the process. Be prepared to feel like a fish out of water for at least the first semester. Be open to reinvention. Be excited about the possibilities. 

One of the things that I was surprised to learn is that some individuals study the law and get a law degree, but don’t practice law. Is this a strategy? What are the pros / cons to this approach?

[Cherveny] Sometimes it’s a strategy – sometimes it’s a necessity because of challenges passing the bar. In today’s increasingly competitive educational environment, a Juris Doctorate (aka ‘JD’) is a way to set you apart from the MBAs and other advanced degrees. Let’s talk about the cons first:

CON: Law school is expensive! And stressful!!Even in-state tuition at a public law school is by no means a cheap endeavor. Individuals who choose to attend law school and take advantage of law-school loans should be prepared to carry some significant debt after graduation. 

Law school stress is nothing like any other stress I had experienced. I had a master’s degree, worked in corporate America, been in court hearings, depositions, board meetings, and even had a shoe thrown at my head by a very angry CEO. I thought I knew stress and anxiety well – I felt we were old friends! Law school is a completely different kind of stress and anxiety. Its fiercely competitive and failure of any kind is completely public. 

CON: Perception of a JD vs. Practicing Attorney– recently I was partnering with a co-worker who is a JD but chose not to sit for the bar. Instead, she went right to work and is now a very successful sales professional. She shared with me that initially when she graduated from law school, she encountered some people who viewed her choice not to sit for the bar negatively – as if she were somehow less qualified or less intelligent than other people who had a JD and sat for the bar exam. 

PRO: Competitive Edge- In a world where MBAs seem to be a far more common achievement – JDs remain a unique and impressive achievement. A JD sets you apart from many of the other advanced degrees in a very competitive educational environment.

PRO: Versatility and Relevance- When I was making the decision to go to law school everyone had an opinion. I was well on my way in my career and had already realized some significant success and growth in my career path. Why would I toss it all aside? Because I knew that a JD degree could never be a bad thing. 

While I initially followed the traditional path of litigation, in the past 8 years I’ve had non-litigator opportunities become available to me that never would have been an option without my JD. The work that I do now – helping clients operate compliant employee benefit plans and HR departments – would never have been available to me without a JD. Regardless of whether you take a traditional path of litigation or go in another direction with your JD it will be something that you rely on throughout your career. 

Last question. The reader mentions talking to a college / university in evaluating HR careers. What are 2 – 3 questions that someone considering a Master’s or Juris Doctorate should ask (to help them make this decision)?

[Cherveny] To quote Stephen Covey, ‘Begin with the end in mind.’ I would suggest finding professionals who have achieved the goals that you are considering for yourself. Find individuals working in the field or industry of your interest. If you’re interested in a JD and applying it to a corporate position, then speak with executives in organizations who have a JD and never practiced law. Ask the questions that will help you make your decision:

Was the JD helpful or instrumental in his/her success? How did the JD add value to his/her career and growth?

Would he/she do it the same way if he/she did it all over again? What would he/she do differently? 

As a person who makes hiring decisions, would he/she value a candidate with a JD over a candidate without one? What skills and experience are most important to him/her when making a hiring decision? 

Another great resource is recruiters. Speak with recruiters who recruit for your industry of interest. Recruiters will have the best view into the job market and the desirable educations, skill-sets and experience. 

A huge thanks to Carrie for sharing her experiences with us. As the mantra of “owning your career” becomes more popular it’s important to do our homework and ask ourselves a few questions before making big career decisions. Carrie’s advice to reach out to your network and understanding the job market are spot on no matter what career path you’re considering. 

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby at the WorkHuman Conference in Austin, TX

The post HR Careers for Legal Professionals – Ask #HR Bartender appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2GsCHv8

[mrwilliamcook]

Tulips For A Cause

  Botanically speaking, I suppose most horticulturists don’t do much with tulips in their home gardens. Despite a history rife in treacherous explorations which brought a plant from the dry eastern Mediterranean to low-country Holland, most horticulturists are on to other things. They dismiss the anthropologically fascinating story of markets, economies, and logistics. Many are likely ignorant of the sordid tales of obsession that prompted good, stout, Calvinist Dutch to try one or more of seven deadly sins. They’d probably take a leering interest in this if they knew, but they don’t. The transformative alchemy of selection and breeding from the earliest days of the Renaissance to modern times? Not the coolest subject in these times of native plants, naturalistic gardens, permaculture, and environmentally conscious gardening. So, okay. Maybe, just maybe, tulips are not, in fact, the most important thing going on in the Horticultural world at the moment. But, Lord help me, they just might remain the most beautiful.

The largest tulip bed at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Design by Zoo Horticulturist Tosh Dobias. Planted by Zoo Hort staff and many wonderful volunteers.

No other flower that I know of can conjure such saturated colors from soil, sun, and rain. No other flower glows with, seemingly, its own light. One alone, magnificent. In droves, beauty beyond measure. Enough beauty to melt the coldest heart of the most skeptical, disgruntled, and ideologically pure horticulturist among us. To the innocent masses, tulips are simply a glorious, breathtaking, and joyous gift to enjoy without restraint.

Crowd pleasers. Let’s face it, we need them. When we’re an expert and an ambassador, they are a tool. When we’re dumb consumers, a joy. They are, almost always, the impetus that stears ordinary people toward great passions. Without Meet the Beatles, we would never have gotten to Sargent Peppers. Without Sargent Peppers, how many other bands would have never begun? Or pushed the boundaries? How much other great music would we not have?

A Kodak moment and a memory of a spring day and gardens to treasure.

Tulips for truck drivers. Why not? 50 mph color to brighten anyone’s day.

If we’re smart, we leverage crowd pleasers. I work at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and right now our tulip display, which is about 110,000 bulbs strong, is at its peak. Our visitorship is rocking. Each day, a thousand kids are parked in front of gardens and digitally captured for the ages. Who knows how many of them will take in these displays like a seed? In which of them will that seed grow into a lifetime of enjoying plants, making gardens, and beautifying our communities?

    Last Saturday the Garden Clubs of Ohio held an event based around the tulips. They had tours, they had lunch, and then heard a talk on the best plants for their gardens based on our plant trialing, and how these plants in more yards and gardens can benefit pollinators, human well-being, and more.

  Last night we held an evening fundraiser called Twilight in Tulips. The weather was perfect. The tulips never looked better and people enjoyed a great social event. They received tours of the gardens that introduced many of them to the plant trialing, native plant conservation, pollinator programs, and more that the Botanical Garden side of the Zoo does. Our guests then had a fine dinner, drinks, and then heard an inspiring and informative talk by acclaimed ethnobotanist, Mark Plotkin. Money that will support further work was raised. But just as importantly people met other people. They heard a message of amazing science, heroic conservations efforts, and hope. Who knows how many ideas were hatched?

What was it that brought them all together in the first place? A mass planting of an age old plant of enormous popular appeal. Sheer, unapologetic beauty will always get attention, as it should. Life without it is so greatly diminished. Not experiencing such beauty is a shame. Not leveraging it for a better world for the greater good would be a terrible, missed opportunity.

      Tulips For A Cause originally appeared on GardenRant on April 17, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2Ir1hyC

[mrwilliamcook]

Stop scaring the gardeners

These are among the perennials I am enjoying now. You can bet I am cutting away old stalks and raking away debris so I can see them.

It’s not that there isn’t plenty to feel bad about these days. Occurrences like yesterday’s horrific fire at Notre Dame cast such a dark pall that it’s easy to be tempted into end-times gloom and despair.

Which is all the more reason that we need to find hope and happiness in the small miracles of nature that we find in our gardens. We need to feel enthusiastic and confident about wresting beauty and sustenance from the landscapes, small and large, that surround us.

But that can be difficult when dark warnings of how gardeners are causing pollinator apocalypse and other disasters hurtle in via social media on a daily basis. As a co-administrator of a local garden group on Facebook, I’m finding that, even on this local level, communication via meme seems to be preferred over actual discussion. (Or, if not memes, then links to dubious-sounding blogs that I’ve never heard anyone refer to anywhere else.) “Don’t clean up your gardens!” is a popular cry, and now it’s not just in the fall, it’s in the spring too. Because in the spring, apparently, we’ll kill all the pollinators still hiding in the garden debris left from fall. If we in Western New York were to wait until consistent 50plus temps to do anything in the garden, nothing would get done until mid-June. Which is kind of late to get the garden going and also takes away well over a month of doing what we enjoy: gardening. And then there are all the “only natives” directives…

To be honest, I pay no heed. I’ve been at this too long. I do as much as I can: whatever makes sense to sustain the creatures and the plants. But then I see an actual worried post from someone who went out in her garden and raked when it was 48 degrees. Fortunately, I have a wise co-admin who has been gardening for many years and she replied: Nobody wants to kill pollinators, or ruin the soil, or destroy the environment, and you won’t. Gardening is fun. It’s the most sensuous activity you can do—PG rated—and you really won’t hurt anything.

She’s right. It’s the people who don’t even know memes like that exist, who have probably never gardened, and who only see the natural environment as something to employ for financial benefit who are really hurting things. We’re not them. So, meme people: Stop trying to scare us and go after the real problems.

Stop scaring the gardeners originally appeared on GardenRant on April 16, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2V5aW46

[mrwilliamcook]

FREE Learning Opportunity: Kronos Spring #HR and #Payroll eSymposium

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. For the second consecutive year, Kronos has been named one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For. Many congratulations to them! Enjoy today’s article!)

Last fall, I shared with you a wonderful (and FREE!) learning opportunity offered by our friends at Kronos. Well, it’s back by popular demand. The spring HR & Payroll eSymposium will be held on Wednesday, May 1, 2019 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern. This is one event you do not want to miss.

I don’t have to tell you about the importance of professional development. But I also know that sometimes we’re so focused on everyone else’s development that we forget to schedule time for ourselves. That’s why I wanted to share with you some specifics about this event. 

HR and Payroll eSymposium Agenda

The eSymposium is designed to bring HR and payroll professionals education on the topics we deal with most. This one-day experience will offer three tracks – HR, payroll, and workforce management – with many sessions eligible for recertification credits (more on that in a minute). As participants, we can follow one track or switch back and forth to explore the topics that we think matter most to our organizations. I checked out the agenda and there are five sessions that caught my eye, both HR and payroll related.

The Turning Employee Experience into Financial Strategy – If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear John Frehse, senior managing director at Ankura, speak, this is your chance. John is going to talk about the challenges associated with quantifying the value of investment in employees — and how this lack of clarity can cause an unintentional misallocation of human capital investments. He’ll explain the steps that organizations can take to improve the employee experience through strategy and technology. 

The Future of Work: Don’t Believe All the Hype About Robots Wiping Out Human Jobs – Another speaker that I was delighted to see on the agenda was Mollie Lombardi, co-founder and CEO of Aptitude Research Partners. She’s going to share what steps top companies are taking today to balance people and automation along with some strategies for integrating people and technology to adapt and stay competitive. Prepare now for the changing technology and employment landscape.

But strategy sessions aren’t the only type of content being offered during this eSymposium. We’ve seen a lot of conversation lately about compliance matters and I was happy to see that this event is going to cover those issues from both a payroll and HR perspective. 

Charting Your Course Through Changing Regulations – Explore how a multistate workforce comes with challenges that include compliance with a variety of rules and regulations across different states and municipalities — some of which may conflict with federal law — and how failure to comply could be quite costly. Multnomah Group Senior Consultant and CCO Bonnie Treichel will not only cover recent and expected changes but she will also discuss best practices for monitoring changes to the rules to ensure that HR can grow the company without drowning in legalese.

Payroll Compliance Update: New Laws and Required Changes in 2019 –The requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are complex and often misunderstood by employers. These misinterpretations about how the FLSA is applied and the rules for determining overtime pay can expose an employer to millions of dollars in back pay claims. Calvin House, partner with Gutierrez, Preciado & House, LLP,will explain the requirements for white-collar exemptions, how tipped employees are treated under the FLSA, the facts that the Department of Labor (DOL) uses to determine whether a worker is exempt as an intern, as well as trends in enforcement. 

And in full disclosure, I certainly hope you will take a few moments to listen to my interview with Kronos CEO Aron Ain. During the interview, Ain takes us inside Kronos’ award-winning culture, showcasing the surprisingly simple rules that any organization can follow to replicate their success. Kronos employee engagement has continued to climb to an all-time high of 87 percent and has earned the company many coveted best-place-to-work distinctions around the world, including the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) When Work Works, Glassdoor’s 100 Best Places to Work, and Forbes’s America’s Best Employers.

Work Inspired: How to Build an Organization Where Everyone Loves to Work – Imagine a company where everybody loves to work, where employees feel not just “satisfied” but truly cared for, respected, and energized. Think of the impact this would have on recruitment, retention, customer satisfaction, innovation, and overall performance. This session will focus on how to create an inspired culture by embracing employee development and engagement as a growth strategy, including holding managers accountable and giving employees their time back. 

Now of course, I couldn’t list the entire agenda (as much as I would love to). This is just a sampling of the sessions being offered. You’ll notice when you check out the complete agenda on the Kronos website that there are more sessions than you have time. Please don’t let that discourage you!

Listen to the Recordings if You Can’t Make the Live Event

There will be recordings of each session and you’ll be able to download any session materials. So, if you’re not able to listen to the live sessions on May 1 OR your learning preference is to space listening out over time, then you certainly can. That’s the beauty of this learning format.  

Also, let me add that there have been a few times in my career when I’ve been responsible for both human resources and payroll. Having an event for both payroll and HR is a big selling point. I could see this as an opportunity to bring everyone together, order lunch, and listen to a session as a group. Because the event is free, it’s a good way to encourage HR to learn more about payroll and vice versa. 

As someone who has attended Kronos conferences in the past, I can speak from experience that Kronos delivers quality professional development. I know that I’ll be signing up for the eSymposium and hope you will do the same. 

Kronos HR & Payroll eSymposium

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern

Registration and Details: 

https://www.kronos.com/about-us/events/kronos-hr-payroll-esymposium-5-1

Oh, and P.S. The Kronos Spring eSymposium is eligible for recertification credits! I’m sure some of you were wondering if this event qualifies for continuing education credits. And yes, it does. Most of the sessions have been pre-approved by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI), and the American Payroll Association. Kronos will be providing a certificate of participation for your files. So, if you’re certified, this event is a no-brainer. It covers the trifecta of learning: 1) free, 2) high quality programs, and 3) approved for recertification credits. I don’t have to tell you that this doesn’t happen very often. So sign up now. 

The post FREE Learning Opportunity: Kronos Spring #HR and #Payroll eSymposium appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2UXAeB5

[mrwilliamcook]

Brent Heath Knows his Daffodils

Brent and Becky Heath

I thought I knew how to grow daffodils – because who doesn’t? They’re critter-proof, perennial, drought-tolerant, and so on. Or so I thought until Brent Heath, co-owner of the beloved bulb company Brent and Becky’s, disabused me of my assumptions in his recent talk at Brookside Gardens outside DC.

Having been in the bulb biz forever and traveled the bulb-growing world, Brent knows his stuff. Here are my take-aways from Brent’s very informative talk.

(By the way, I first met Brent when we kids vacationing with our families in Nags Head, NC. He and my sister became friends, or something like that.)

Daffodils are NOT good pollinator plants. I knew that animals don’t eat them, but it hadn’t occurred to me that that included pollinating insects.

They’re also not native to the Americas, growing in the wild only in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. Interestingly, they were brought here sewn into the hems of transatlantic passengers’ skirts. Bulbs were able to survive months that way, enabling immigrants to grow a little something from home when they got here.

Daffodils need sun to keep blooming. So that’s why some of mine haven’t produced flowers long-term. As Brent mentioned, people proclaim, “Oh, but my daffodils DO get sun when they’re blooming, before nearby trees have leafed out!” But that’s not enough; they need sun for the 8 weeks after they bloom – you know, that period when you want to remove the ever-uglier foliage but know it’ll reduce the blooms the next year.

Daffodils also need to be fed, and Brent recommends good old compost. I don’t believe I’ve ever done that but will now because Brent (who ISN’T selling me a fertilizer product) told us to.

Daffodils are best harvested, not cut. Brent says to snap them off as close to the ground as possible.

The 4th most popular daffodil is the Dutch Master, the 3rd is Ice Follies (which multiply very well), and I didn’t catch numbers 1 and 2. Damn my note-taking!

Hydbridizing takes patience, like 5-7 years of it to get a single bloom on a new daffodil. Brent’s talk included images of varieties that are clearly show-quality and others not, and please don’t ask me to remember which are which or why.

Above, early tulips and hyacinths were also blooming that day at Brookside.

In the immortal words of Brent Heath: “Plant bulbs and harvest smiles.”

Parting shot: remains of a Quinceañera party in the gardens earlier in the day.

All photos taken by the author at Brookside Gardens on March 31, 2019.

Brent Heath Knows his Daffodils originally appeared on GardenRant on April 11, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2X9q6CN

[mrwilliamcook]

Change Management: A 3 Step Model

Kurt Lewin Change Model

Everyone needs to deal with change. Doesn’t matter if it’s a change we’ve decided to make or one that’s forced on us. It also doesn’t matter if it’s small or big. In fact, sometimes it’s the small changes we decide to make ourselves that can be the most difficult. 

Regardless of the type of change you’re processing, it’s important to find a change management model that works for you. Personally, I’ve always like Lewin’s model. Kurt Lewin was a psychologist and major contributor in the areas of group dynamics and organizational development. His change model is very easy to remember, which is one of the reasons I like it.

The UNFREEZE stage is where we realize that change is necessary and how it will impact us. We start thinking about how to create change.  

During the CHANGE step, we begin to do things differently. We work through the discomfort and challenges of changing our routine.

Finally, in the REFREEZE phase, we acknowledge the new normal. This is also when we can celebrate the success of dealing with the change.

I recently learned another way of thinking about Lewin’s model that I thought was pretty creative. I was facilitating the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) seminar on “Organizational Development: Designing Successful Organizational Performance” and we were talking about change interventions. One of the participants said they talk about change in terms of “pencils, pens, and Sharpies”. So, I asked for permission to share their idea here.

PENCILS represent those current processes, policies, or habits that we have. They can also be considered tentative. Things written in pencil can be erased and changed. 

PENS are things that become more permanent. It might be an action we plan to have for quite some time, but still realize that at some point in the future it’s going to change. 

SHARPIES are for those actions that are going to be around for a very long time. We want everyone to know about this change. Think bold and ingrained in our culture!

I immediately liked this 3-step approach because I could see it being used as part of organizational decision making. For example, the group can agree that an idea is “ready to be PENNED” or we don’t have enough experience with this process to “document it in a SHARPIE”. It also makes for a good visual. 

Next time your organization is going through a change management process, think about where they are. Is the group still penciling? Or have they moved to pen? Maybe even Sharpie? It might help to guide the process change in a new and different way.  

The post Change Management: A 3 Step Model appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2Ua4yUz

[mrwilliamcook]

Tell Us Your Favorite Conference Swag [poll] #SHRM19

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post with tips for attending the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference and Expo. The event is June 23-26, 2019 in Las Vegas. I received a comment on the post asking what kind of swag will be available at the event. Frankly, it’s a great question! 

I believe conference swag is important. It’s marketing. When you give someone a logo item, the goal is for them to keep and use it. So, every time they look at it, they see your logo and think of you. That’s the purpose of swag. This means the goal should be to give people swag that they want to keep and/or use.

Honestly, I don’t know what kind of swag exhibitors are planning to give away during the conference. But it did occur to me that instead of finding out what kind of swag exhibitors are considering, let’s tell them what kind of swag conference attendees want to receive. Right? This will tell exhibitors what will attract you to their booth and what you’re prepared to keep and use. 

I’ve put together a quick one question poll about conference swag. I got this list from a Facebook group I belong to where I asked about conference swag. The group gave me some awesome feedback about their favorite swag items. Some people even posted pictures of them. Just proving the point that people will keep and remember companies that give out good swag. I’ve put their comments in categories for easy reading and voting. 

If you could only choose ONE, what is your favorite kind of conference swag?

Clothing (i.e. sweatshirts, t-shirts, socks, golf items)

Food and Drink (i.e. metal straws, lunch containers, Yetis, pizza cutter, mini liquor bottles, gift cards, chip clips)

Health and Wellness (i.e. hand sanitizer, stress balls, mini first aid kits, lip balm, hand lotion, sunscreen, foot cream)

Office Supplies (i.e. sticky notes, notepads, pad folios, business card holders, rolling backpack, books)

Technology (i.e. tech tacos, jump drives, pop sockets, power banks, screen wipes)

Vote

I hope you’ll take a moment to answer it AND share it with your colleagues. And if I didn’t mention one of your favorites, please feel free to add it in the comments. While this survey is a result of a post about SHRM Annual, other conference organizers might find it valuable for their events. Ultimately, the results of this survey can be used by conference exhibitors as they’re planning their swag buying decisions.

Here’s to you getting what you want in conference swag. And conference exhibitors getting what they want too – booth visitors and brand ambassadors. Thanks in advance for voting and sharing! I’ll post the results in a couple of weeks.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the SHRM Annual Conference in Las Vegas, NV

The post Tell Us Your Favorite Conference Swag [poll] #SHRM19 appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2WWt5hS

[mrwilliamcook]

Customer Service In the Age of Full Employment

If you haven’t checked out Steve Boese’s HR Technology blog lately, he ran a great explanation of the latest job openings and labor turnover survey (i.e. JOLTS report). What I liked about his summary was the closing paragraph that talked about the pros and cons to having more open jobs than job seekers. 

Obviously, lots of open jobs is great for companies because it could be a sign of increased business growth. It could also be a great thing for job seekers because they can find good career opportunities. Boese also points out the downside to this situation. Companies might feel it’s a negative that they have to raise wages to attract talent. They might end up paying more for a candidate who ultimately doesn’t deliver excellent performance. It could also be a negative for job seekers who make a leap to another employer and later regret the decision. 

But there’s another player in the “more job openings than candidates” scenario that organizations need to keep in mind. That’s the customer. In recent months, I’ve become very aware of how not being fully staffed impacts customer service. 

I went to have some routine maintenance done on my car. While I was there, the mechanic suggested having some belts replaced. So, I said, “Okay, let’s do it.” The mechanics response? “Oh, I don’t have the staff to do it. Can you come back in a few weeks? I hope to have hired someone by then.” Guess what happened. I found another mechanic to do the work. 

Since we moved to Gainesville, I finally found someone I like to style my hair. One day, I get a call from the salon saying that my stylist is pregnant (good news!) but she’s bedridden (not good news for me!). Unfortunately, they only a have a part-time back up stylist and she’s booked for the next three months. They said they would put me on a waiting list. Guess what happened. I found another stylist. 

These stories are examples of how being understaffed can impact the customer experience. This doesn’t even touch the other scenario that happens when companies are understaffed and load extra work on the remaining employees, who then get stressed out and cranky because they’re overworked. And they may pass that along to the customer. 

I wish I had a magic formula to answer a company’s staffing challenges. Unfortunately, I don’t. But here are five things I do know. 

A better employee experience will help keep the employees you have.

A better candidate experience could increase the number of people who accept job offers.

Candidate sourcing involves more than posting jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed. (No offense to LinkedIn and Indeed).

Hiring managers need to plan for jobs to be open longer than a few days or a week. 

HR departments should start building a freelance network to help fill staffing gaps. 

The numbers would lead us to believe that the more job openings than candidates scenario is going to be around for a while. Organizations have to start thinking about how they’re going to take care of the customer while continuing to look for the best talent. 

P.S. Hey everyone! Just a quick note from behind the scenes. Mr. Bartender and I are celebrating our anniversary this month. We will be posting content but do have a few things planned so it won’t be on our regular schedule. Thanks for reading and supporting HR Bartender! It means a lot to us.

Image capture by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World

The post Customer Service In the Age of Full Employment appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2KesUgf

[mrwilliamcook]

Gardeners Mourn the Closing of Beloved 89-Year-Old Garden Center

Yesterday my long-time favorite garden center announced it’ll close soon. Here’s my tribute to the company and its people on a local blog. I’m reposting it here for the Rant’s broader audience because the closing is part of a very sad national trend. Also, it shows what great independent garden centers are doing for customers and the community and why their disappearance is such a enormous loss. (Sob!) 

It’s official. In today’s press release, Behnke Nurseries announced that after 89 years, it will be going out of business in June. Thousands of local gardeners will mourn this incalculable loss.

Why It’s Closing

It seems that the time has just come, and not because business is bad; it’s because there are no family members coming up to take over the business. The only Behnke still working there is vice president Stephanie Fleming, granddaughter of the founder, who told me “We love our customers but the Behnkes are all in their 80s. The time has come.”

To answer your protestations of “But, but…” every possible alternative to closing as a garden center has been explored. Selling to another garden center or a buyer interested in renovating and keeping the nursery open isn’t feasible in today’s market, with independent stores closing and almost none opening. Some of the remaining garden centers are morphing into “lifestyle” stores, selling beachwear and pet supplies.

What about an employee buy-out, you say? If only! Many are retirement age or near it, and really, could they collectively buy almost 12 acres along busy Route 1?  Hardly, at today’s prices.

What’s Next for the Site Zoned for miscellaneous retail use, the property could be just another car dealership, but the family wants whatever replaces the nursery to be an asset to the community and is participating directly in development of the property, rather than selling to a developer. To this end, the family has solicited suggestions and input from the county and local community groups and has obtained additional zoning that would permit their preferred use of the property – for townhouses, with a 1-acre green space in the center and a walking path around it.

Albert Behnke in the 1960s

Highlights from Behnke’s History 

The nursery was founded in 1930 by Albert Behnke, who was born in Germany in 1904. He worked for his father’s rose and cut-flower business and decided to immigrate with his wife Rose to the U.S., for more opportunity, settling in Beltsville.

First Behnke greenhouse, with three of Albert and Rose’s children

At first, the Behnke greenhouse was a homemade affair attached to the side of the family house. In 1946, Albert and Rose Behnke had a modern steel and glass greenhouse built and by 1951 there were five greenhouses.

Albert Behnke at his most dapper. Rose Behnke at work. Her granddaughter Stephanie Fleming says she’s “really was the one that was the reason we were so successful.”

Sonja Behnke at 17, and more recently

Albert and Rose’s 17-year-old daughter Sonja was featured on the cover of the Washington Star weekend magazine watering African violets, which was one of the nursery’s mainstays. Behnke’s sent violets to every first lady from Bess Truman to Nancy Reagan, and they still have thank-you notes from them to show for it.

A Gardener’s Appreciation

Here’s just some of what Behnke’s has meant to its thousands of long-time customers, like me.

Plant Choices and Knowledge

Behnke’s has always stood out from the small crowd of garden centers with its extensive selection, including hard-to-find varieties. It’s so famous for its selection that garden club tours from out of state have included Behnke’s on their itinerary when visiting the garden highlights of the DC area.

According to perennials specialist Larry Hurley, “Selection has always been our claim to fame. We are ‘plant people’ and we love plants, and we are always excited by what’s new.” When Behnke’s grew its own perennials, it carried 1,500 to 1,800 of them. Even after its growing facilities were shut down, it still offered many more varieties than, say, the box stores. (According to company records, Behnke’s carried 1,465 perennials in 2014.)

Another reason the plant selection changed, especially for perennials, was the plague of deer in this area. Larry says it’s made a “huge difference in the demand for hostas and daylilies.” I’ll bet.

Teaching Gardeners 

Peter Kukielski, author of Roses without Chemicals

Behnkes staff didn’t just source and sell plants, by a long shot. They gave free classes and workshops in the store and at garden clubs throughout the region. They sponsored still more free talks by well known authors and experts from throughout the East.

More learning opportunities throughout the nursery included a stormwater demonstration site, display gardens, and beehives.

The company’s website, blog and social media accounts have been packed with accurate gardening information and resources perfect for local gardeners. (You don’t see Home Depot doing that.) Stephanie Fleming tells me that they’ll be keeping the Behnke’s website and blog live online after the store closes, as long as there’s interest,  

Environmental Leadership

In roughly 2000 Behnke’s became involved in the movement to study and stem the tide of invasive plants through the horticultural industry, a bold move for a retailer! John Peter Thompson, grandson of Albert Behnke, led that project and eventually left the company to pursue that issue full time.

As a result, they stopped selling problematic plants like English Ivy and Burning Bush Euonymus, and for plants like Barberry, restricted sales to the better-behaved varieties that produce little or no fruit.

At the same time, the nursery increased its emphasis of native plants, for which there had finally begun to be a market, especially for pollinator plants. They’ve published many articles about native plants on their blog.

Behnke’s was also an industry leader in prohibiting the application of neonicotinoids to its plants and urging their grower-suppliers to use the least-toxic alternatives.

They also stopped carrying products by Scotts Miracle-Gro, despite the huge demand for their products ginned up by expensive advertising throughout the media. (Here’s my round-up of reasons that company has so few fans.)

Who Hasn’t Worked There?

Behnkes staff clockwise from upper left: Christopher Lewis, Larry Hurley, Bill Mann, Constance Cleveland, Susi Ohara (who started at Behnkes as a teenager), Marian Parsley, Terri Poindexter, Miri Talabac, and in the center, Orion Taylor

From left, Patrica Bouton, Anita Garner and Becky Beaver

Behnke’s large staff is known for its well-trained, full-time experts ready to answer every possible question, none too specific or ridiculous. They’ve answered them all!

So how did they find or train their staff? Many are Maryland Certified Professional Horticulturists; some have college degrees in horticulture or related fields. They all receive in-house training and are encouraged to attend training provided by the UMD Extension and other educational opportunities.

Clockwise from upper left: Larry Bristow, Hank Doong, Helmut Jaehnigen, and Alfred Millard

But their staff is also known for longevity and for loyalty to the company. President Alfred Milliard, for example, started there when he was 13, never left and is the longest-serving employee. The second-longest is Hank Doong, the company’s  CFO, who started in 1970 when he was 14. Operations manager Larry Bristow has been with the company since he was a teenager. Helmut Jaehnigen is another long-timer. Imagine their job hunts now, in an ever-shrinking market for their horticultural knowledge.

As Larry Hurley wrote me, “We have a lot of very old and grizzled staff members and we try to impart our experience to the younger folks. Many of us oldsters grew up working for Mr. Behnke (always “Mr.”), Helmut, and the other Behnke icons.”

Many employees got their start at Behnke’s through the PG Police Department’s Young Explorers Club, where Officer Hibbert apparently has a knack for finding the very best potential employees from among the many applicants at High Point and other nearby schools.

Behnke’s employees have gone on to get jobs at these highly respected institutions: White House greenhouses and grounds, the Naval Observatory grounds, the Smithsonian Institution Gardens, the University of  Maryland, the National Arboretum, and the Architect of the Capitol. Others have gone on to establish their own nurseries, including homestead Gardens, Metzler’s Nursery and Jos Roozen Nurseries.

Supporting Local Clubs and Societies

Lastly on this long list of ways that Behnke’s will be missed are the many events at the nursery – the Garden Party where clubs and societies could recruit members, the many organizations that held their events at Behnke’s, rent-free (including Brookside Gardens, local societies for roses, gesneriads, orchids and bonsai), holiday parties, yard sales, and even paper-shredding.

Of course the company also donated directly to dozens of local causes, like the food bank at Beltsville’s United Methodist Church, to which Behnke’s donated the $600 it raised recently from its winter tool-sharpening service.

Other frequent recipients of Behnkes’ generosity are the Beltsville Rotary Club, the Beltsville Lion’s Club, the Beltsville Fire and Police Departments, and Toys for Tots.

That’s me with Behnke granddaughter Stephanie Fleming

Customers Mourn, Especially ME

In anticipation of this dreaded closing, my local gardeners friends have been consoling each other, or trying to, with limited success because we’re devastated by the news! No exaggeration. We struggle to suggest alternative sources for plants, reliable advice and fun gardening gatherings but those other stores are all farther away and frankly pale in comparison.

I’ve bought nearly all my plants at Behnke’s since the ’70s and loved the nursery and the people who worked there, but not nearly as much as I came to love them after I started writing their blog and other materials for their website in 2010. That’s when I got to work with the best boss I’ve ever had – Stephanie Fleming. Since retiring, I now go to Behnke’s any time I want to be surrounded by fabulous plants and the people who love and know them, whether I need to buy something or not.

Will I ever say that about Home Depot or even Patuxent Nursery, our closest independent alternative? I’m guessing never.

Thanks to Stephanie Fleming for the photos and information she contributed to this post. 

Gardeners Mourn the Closing of Beloved 89-Year-Old Garden Center originally appeared on GardenRant on April 5, 2019.

from GardenRant http://bit.ly/2HYgqHH

[mrwilliamcook]

Worrying Is a Symptom of Employee Stress [infographic]

One of the recent trends we’re seeing more conversation about is wellness and well-being. Frankly, it’s about time. I’m happy that organizations are realizing that the old saying “Leave your personal life at the office door.” doesn’t and shouldn’t apply.

Employee stress is a real workplace issue. According to a study from Colonial Life, more than 20 percent of workers spend more than five hours on the clock each week worrying. An additional 50 percent of employees said they lose between one and five hours of work to worry each week.

I don’t have to tell you that when employees spend their time worrying, they’re not being productive. And this costs organizations money. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates there are approximately 128.5 million full-time employees earning an average of $21 per hour. This means the cost of employee worry is in the billions. 

What I did like about this infographic is how worry was separated from the category of stress. I’m not trying to get into a semantics argument, but I do wonder if employees just figure worry is part of being human and don’t take steps to address it before it becomes a bigger issue. 

Add to that the number of times an organization feels they’re being transparent or authentic when the reality is their doing “corporate vaguebooking” and adding to an employee’s worries. The infographic says that an employee’s biggest worries come from where? Yep, work.

Bottom-line: organizations and employees need to recognize worry and take steps when necessary to manage it. Some examples include:

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

Mindfulness and stress reduction programs

Financial well-being programs

Flexible work arrangements

Paid leave programs, such as parental leave and unlimited time off

My guess is many organizations already offer these types of programs either in-house or as part of a well-being program. If organizations do offer these types of programs, it’s important that employees know they exist and how to access them. An employee might be reluctant to stop by HR and ask about them. Don’t simply mention them during orientation and believe that’s enough. Sending regular reminders about all of the benefits available to employees is the right thing to do. 

Ultimately, organizations need to create a work environment that supports employees and provides a psychologically safe place for all. That happens through comprehensive benefits programs and supportive management. 

The post Worrying Is a Symptom of Employee Stress [infographic] appeared first on hr bartender.

from hr bartender http://bit.ly/2D1pcka

[mrwilliamcook]

My Wake-Up Call

  Spring beauties, Claytonia virginica, in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

I’ve got a favorite spring-flowering plant, and I bet you have one, too. But I can’t fully warm up to spring, or any flowering favorites, until I’ve shaken winter’s lingering, gray dreariness.

I piddled through the late winter calendar this year with hellebores, witch hazels, snowdrops and crocus. I love these teasers, but since late autumn, I have been a lazy winter gardener. I’m working on a slow-to-rise groundhog’s schedule this spring.

By mid-March our garden was in tatters—a jumble of brittle phlox stems and chickweed. I walked around it, thinking, glancing at a few early blooms and putting off chores. I can’t trust fickle March until I’ve set the clock forward an hour for daylight savings.

My mother and I differed on daylight savings. She complained that moving the clock forward was the worst night of the year. One hour’s sleep was stolen, but there was no way mom was going to miss the 8:00 a.m. Sunday communion.

I know daylight savings is arbitrary time travel, but it is also my wake-up call—an extra, blessed hour of evening daylight. A warmer, sunnier day of salvation, near the spring solstice, brings me to my senses faster than smelling salts.

For years, I’ve been rescued by a trusted, lucky charm that steadies my nerves. I am unchained when spring beauties come into bloom. Spring begins barreling along with tornado warnings and blue skies.

Spring forward!

The few steadfast admirers of spring beauties grow weary of arguing in favor of an underappreciated eastern North American wildflower. Maybe we could upgrade its standing if we promoted the rarely used, cheerful common name: good-morning-spring.

Spring beauties with Glory of Snow, Chiondoxa lucilliae.

I make a pilgrimage each year (one of many) to Louisville’s beautiful Cave Hill Cemetery where spring beauties have naturalized for a hundred years or more. For several weeks, I’ve been eyeing a small patch of spring beauties, Claytonia virginica, that are happy with other little bulbs—Puschkinia scilliodes var. libanotica and Chiondoxa luciliae.

Elsewhere last weekend, all over the cemetery, there were hundreds of thousands of spring beauties in bloom, along with flowering cherries, forsythia and daffodils. The Star magnolias are in full flower. The pristine-white blooms narrowly avoided the usual hard freeze. Freeze-burned blooms look like charred parchment. I love spring-flowering magnolias and will bet against the odds of frost every year.

Spring beauties in Salvisa, KY

Several years ago, I found two-dozen spring beauties growing in the shade of 45-year-old white pines on the farm in Salvisa. The little plants are seeding around. Now, I’ve got a hundred. I only need another hundred years to begin competing with the bounty of spring beauties that Cave Hill Cemetery has.

Jared Barnes, the phenomenally gifted and engaging Assistant Professor of Horticulture, at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, described the blooms, on his excellent blog, as dime-sized with “white-flowering and dark-pink-flowering plants in the same area with color morphs along that gradient.” (Note to Jared: Can we start a spring beauties support group?) Check out Jared’s blog post on spring beauties from March 16th.

Deadnettles, Lamium purpureum.

Okay, the shy spring ephemeral may not have the grace of bloodroots or the recognition of trilliums, but I don’t care. Have I mentioned versatility? Author and botanist Pat Haragan mentions an edible tidbit in Olmsted Parks of Louisville: A Botanical field Guide. The little corms can be “boiled in salted water and taste like chestnuts.” I thought the flavor leaned more toward buttered turnips. Boil the corms for 2 minutes, slice in half and throw them in a salad with chickweed and deadnettle or henbit flowers. I’m still building up stock on my spring beauties, but I’ve got all the chickweed leaves and deadnettle flowers you’ll need. Beauty and flavor are in the eye of the spring beholder.

Field of deadnettles in Salvisa, KY.

What is your favorite spring-flowering plant that welcomes the trustworthy arrival of spring for you?

My Wake-Up Call originally appeared on GardenRant on April 3, 2019.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/2OH6B1f