Five years ago, you probably never imagined you’d ever have to make a policy regulating which employees could be friends — or if they could be friends at all. But Facebook, the social media monster with half a billion members and growing, has changed what it means to be a “friend.” Once you’ve “friended” someone on Facebook, you usually have access to personal pictures, posts, and other information. While that can build camaraderie amongst coworkers, it can be a sticky situation when supervisors and subordinates become friends.

For instance, unwanted attention or comments on off-duty time, could turn into a workplace harassment ordeal. The situation only becomes more complicated when supervisors and subordinates become Facebook friends. A supervisor “friending” on subordinate and not another could lead to claims of favoritism. The revelation of an employee’s alternative lifestyle paired with adverse employment action could lead to a charge of discrimination.

read more…

Since many are either away or on their way out the door for the Labor Day weekend, we’ll keep things short and sweet this afternoon.

For those who are still in the office, please feel free to share and discuss the following query: What’s the major technology challenge facing your organization at the moment?

Look for the “Friday Tech Party” post to return Sept. 10.

Happy Weekend!

– Ralph Gaillard

One of the great things about the Internet is the access to information it allows us. Sometimes, however, all that information can be overwhelming, and it becomes hard to manage and keep up with all the sites that offer the information that interests you. This is when you need an RSS feed.

RSS — which stands for really simple syndication — is a way for you to gather information from several different websites in one place.  Instead of checking your favorite sites for news, weather, blogs, stock prices, legislation, and podcasts individually, you can set up an RSS feed as a one-stop-shop location for all your information needs.  In short, RSS feeds allow you to spend more time with the information you want and less time searching for it.

read more…

Only 8% of the CFOs who responded said they were “largely” or “highly” satisfied with their HR technology’s usefulness in quantifying the company’s return on human capital investments, according to a study conducted by CFO Research Services in collaboration with Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The authors of the study, “Human capital management: The CFO’s Perspective,” go on to paint an even gloomier picture, writing, “Historically, there’s been little love lost between finance and HR in most companies.” And to top it all off and bring it together, they assert that “the changing business landscape makes it necessary for these two areas to come together in new, more-collaborative ways.”

You want to invest in technology to help your department run more efficiently and provide better service to employees, but you are faced with the daunting task of making the sale to the CFO before any funds are approved. What is an HR person to do? read more…

If you have a Google e-mail or “Gmail” account, then check out this new feature that allows users to make phone calls directly from their e-mail applications. Cool stuff. I’m waiting for the day when my e-mail can change the oil in my car and cook breakfast for the kids.

The New York Times reports that USA Today will shift its business strategy to focus on digital and online media and add the following job to its C-Suite ranks:

“USA Today also announced a series of senior executive changes, including the appointment of a vice president for digital development, who will oversee the paper’s web, iPad and mobile phone offerings.”

Is this the job of the future? Digital executives who manage content for iPads and other mobile devices? Watch this space for further updates.

Evidence that “Senior” and “Boomer” employees are hipper than we thought.

Here’s more evidence that HR really needs to create policies that govern cell phone use in the office.

Although, this latest invention may end up making such policies obsolete:

“Time not spent on job-related tasks, though, just got a little easier for employers to track. A wrist phone made by Japan cell phone company KDDI Corp., the BBC reported in early 2010, has technology that “can track even the tiniest movement of the user” and beam that information to managers, foremen and employment agencies.” –- SHRM website

“1984” has finally arrived, albeit 26 years late.

Finally, here’s my favorite headline of the day, which has nothing to do whatsoever with technology:  “How the Washington Shakespeare Company came to offer Shakespeare in Klingon.”

Et tu, Worf?

What else is happening?

– Ralph Gaillard

In search of a unique recruitment tool, Deloitte invited members of its global workforce to make three-minute amateur films that answered the question: “What’s your Deloitte?” They ended up getting more than they bargained, delivering a jolt of employee engagement and morale across the organization.

Consider these numbers: Nearly 400 submissions were received and more than 2,000 employees participated in the film making process. In an internal survey after the festival, 33 percent of Deloitte employees indicated an improvement in their connection to the office.

Not bad for a three-minute film. A sampling of the top employee films can be found here:

About a year ago, I began planning and outlining Technology for HR: A Legal and Practical Guide for Managing E-mail, Intranets & Social Media. At the time, I considered myself fairly technologically savvy. After all, I was (and am) the master of the DVR, could build a playlist on my iPod, and even had my very own Twitter and Facebook accounts. Surely tackling the world of technology as it relates to HR would be no problem.

After some back and forth with my editor, Ralph Gaillard, we settled on the following topics for this first edition of the technology manual: e-mail, intranets, mobile technology, blogs, microblogs, social networks, wikis, online video and podcasts, and RSS. No problem . . . yeah, right.

As I dove in, my head began to swim, and I must admit I started to panic. There was just so much to learn. How could I possibly get a grip on all this information, much less distill it down into easy-to-digest nuggets? Over the next six months, I tackled each topic by reading about its history and development, looking for ways companies big and small were using the functions to improve the HR experience (for both the HR professional and employee), and, finally, wading into the deep end by actually using and building each of the items on the list.

A year later, my fear has all but evaporated because I feel like I can tackle almost any technology hurdle with enough time and effort (for those of you who don’t have the time, you can get a jump start with the Technology for HR manual). There are three rules that served me well on this technology odyssey: read more…

Oh, the places we will go…thanks to Facebook, which announced this week a new feature that allows users to share their exact locations with their friends. With the new “Places” feature, you can tap a “Check In” button to announce your location to everyone on your Facebook friends list. Your “Check In” status will then appear on your profile page and in your friend’s News Feeds. Great; more intrusive technology from the world of social media. I realize it’s called “social media” for a reason, but do we really need to tell our friends where we are—every minute of the day?  What happened to “Me” time?

Evidence that the workplace cubicle is going the way of the dinosaurs as a recent poll show that a majority of U.S. workers spend their work day away from the office.

It’s time to really, really re-think those workplace theft policies. An American Airlines employee was charged Wednesday with stealing over 150 electronic items off of planes and from passenger luggage, including cell phones, Kindles, iPods and a host of other electronic gadgets. The Dallas/FT Worth police later reported that they found three pallets of stolen American Airlines property in the employee’s garage!

More countries continue to jump on the “Ban the Blackberry” bandwagon, and there’s plenty of room for nation’s both big and small: Kuwait, China, Lebanon and Austria.

James Cameron is now “King of the Classroom” as the University of Florida experiments with using avatars to help train student teachers. The project is apparently designed to help improve a student teacher’s ability to interact with students. You know it’s only a matter of time before employee avatars start invading the workplace. We’d never know about it; we’re not in the office anymore.

What else is happening?

-Ralph Gaillard

A week ago today, Steven Slater rode a JetBlue emergency exit slide from obscurity as another abused flight attendant into the infamy of being a “working class hero.” His grand gesture made the story an overnight Internet sensation. Less than 24 hours after he took to the plane’s intercom to tell off rude passengers, it seems like every major media outlet was telling the world about it . Less than 48 hours after the incident, JetBlue responded to the incident on its corporate blog Blue Tales. If you’ve ever wondered how you might handle an embarrassing public scandal using your social media tools, the Blue Tales blog post “Sometimes the news is about us” offers some good insights.

First, the headline let’s us know that despite having its name attached with a rather embarrassing incident, JetBlue bloggers (and thus, the corporation they represent) have a sense of humor about the whole thing. After all, it’s the humorous aspect of Slater’s actions that garnered so much attention in the first place. If he had quietly taken his bag and exited through a normal route, the general public most probably would have never heard about JetBlue Flight 1052 out of Pittsburgh. The post gives a further nod to the “absurdity” of the situation in the first few sentences and even gives a link to CNN’s coverage of the “little story” about Slater. Later, the post references the ultimate disgruntled worker movie Office Space.

read more…

Have you heard about ROWE, the latest work/life balance program? ROWE, which stands for Results-Only Work Environment, is gaining traction at companies like Gap, Best Buy, and others. In a ROWE program, employees “are measured by their results, not time spent in the office. As long as employees get their jobs done, when and where they do that is irrelevant.”

I can’t imagine a program like this existing 5, 10, or 15 years ago. It seems we have technology to thank for smart, cutting-edge programs such as ROWE. Whether we like it or not, technology is increasingly making the concept of the office or cubicle irrelevant.

Evidence that ROWE adopters may be on to something as workplace stress and burnout levels continue to rise.

Following up to the “Ban the BlackBerry” movement, India has given RIM, BlackBerry’s manufacturer, until August 31 to make all encrypted information available to the government or face a ban of its devices.

But wait, there’s more…Google and Skype may be next on India’s hit list. Government documents suggest that India may ask Skype and Google for greater access to its encrypted information, including encrypted e-mail and text messages.

Recently, Twitter announced a new feature that will make it easier for users to “tweet” their favorite online articles and web pages. That’s what we need; more stuff to read online. I don’t know about you, but are we reaching a breaking point with social media? One, in which the whole systems crashes because of information overload!!!???

What else is happening?

– Ralph Gaillard