How interns are handled and treated during an internship will often determine whether they come back seeking a job after graduation. Similarly, how well a company trains their interns can have a huge effect on the interns hiring potential within the company. Why not take make the most out of your company’s internship program and use it as an opportunity to find your next star?

Reach out early

Professional sport teams often begin scouting high school students. Even if they don’t intend to hire them right away, they are aware of the future potential. If a qualified high school student has an interest in the type of business you run, why not have him or her come in once or twice a week and learn about what goes on in the company? Instead of limiting college internships to a specific year, consider allowing freshmen to participate. Reaching out early will give you the opportunity to really develop your interns. By the time that they graduate, you will know how to best utilize them as an employee.

Cultivate relationships

A company is only as successful as the employees who work for it. Building relationships with your interns will help make them feel vested in the company. Make an effort to speak with interns and listen to what they have to say. Ask for their ideas on the work that’s being done. Assign them real tasks so you can see what they are capable of. Give interns a chance to work on projects that excite them, such as social media implementation. The more that you put into your interns, the better suited they will be for employment.

When the internship ends, interns will remember how they were treated. If an intern has a bad experience, they will tell their friends. Moreover, many universities ask their students to provide feedback after an internship. Negative internship programs can make a company look unprofessional. The best graduates want to work for the best companies, so a bad reputation can seriously hurt a company’s recruiting efforts.

Build a solid internship program

An internship program that seeks to teach interns vital career-related skills will be far more successful and enriching for everyone involved. Consider the internship as a training period. Treat and train the intern like you would a new hire. Give them the tools they need to become an asset to your company.

Try introducing interns to different facets of the business. This will allow them see what works best for them while maximizing their hiring potential. Not only does this help enrich the intern’s experience, but it also allows you to see how versatile the intern’s skill set is.

Internships should be fantastic opportunities for the intern and employer alike. The intern should leave the experience with new abilities and a larger network. The employer should end up with a strong potential candidate that is well-versed on the company. Having someone fetch your coffee is nice, but molding someone into the perfect employee is even nicer.

Today’s guest post is by Erin Palmer of Bisk Education |Villanova University’s online programs. If you’re interested in a Masters in Human Resources degree, Villanova offers this program 100% online in addition to a human resources certification training program. You can follow Erin at @Erin_E_Palmer.

P.S. Note from Karla — In the photo is Catherine Kline, who interned with me the summer of 2011 in HR & Workforce Development. She got an A+.

In the job search, you gotta show employers what you got. — TheLadders

If sexual innuendos salty with partial nudity, inappropriate touching of oneself and others in the workplace and potentially hazardous behavior by climbing on furniture and dancing on desks  make oneself more attractive to employers is the message TheLadders purports to convey — they have succeeded.

If TheLadders made this commercial using the same psychological ploy a child does to commit inappropriate acts to gain attention — because any attention is attention,  they have succeeded.

I can’t support propaganda that goes against the very principles of professionalism and dignity that are the cornerstone of my career. I got where I am because of my professional competencies and verifiable accomplishments — not because I laid on a boardroom table with a skirt on lifting my leg in the air while caressing myself.

If TheLadders thinks this is cool hip and fun then call me a prude — but as soon as I hit the publish button on this post I’m canceling my subscription, because I no longer have respect for their on the job behavior…

How many times has someone appeared in your doorway about to faint? “I was told to come to HR by my Supervisor, am I fired?” You reply with a smile, “Relax, you just forgot a signature on a benefit enrollment form, no biggie, just sign here and you can go back to work” right?

How many times has this happened and it was simply for a signature on a form, to provide an update on FMLA hours used or to ask for documentation?

It should be no secret to anyone who has worked in HR for a month that it has a stigma amongst employees of all levels as the place for time out, the naughty corner, a dungeon of doom, kiss of death — a most horrid place you want to stay away from like the plague, the kind some people never return to their work area from.

My last employer had white boxes they would pack employee personal effects in — in front of staff trying to work, while employees were undergoing termination in HR. The joke was, “I got called to HR, if you see a white box you know I’m not coming back”.

In addition to losing an employee on those days, one in which a significant investment in training, coaching and mentoring had been made and would be costly to replace, productivity and morale would be shot, psyches wounded, employee satisfaction eroded.. the list went on and on until it got down to the bottom line..

Yet, unless all those peeps that still like to keep me apprised of the drama have forgotten to mention it, in spite of a C-Level overload of brain power in the organization.. they have yet to learn why attrition is high, morale is low and if other jobs were available people would bail like on the last voyage of the Titanic.

It doesn’t have to be that way. The accountability of how human resources is perceived is self-fulfilled prophecy. Here are my 10 best practices to ensure being called to your HR department is not viewed as the kiss of death.

1. Don’t call people to HR without letting them know why.… Hello.
2. Being a role model for respect in the workplace and insisting that the corporate culture adapt it as an imperative is doing the right thing… from the C-Suite down, of course.
3. Internal marketing for HR is as important a function as any in the long list of what we do.
4. Ensuring supervisory personnel (through C Level — of course) receive initial and ongoing training on how to deal effectively with employee relations issues is one of the best “best practices” in HR I can think of.
5. We should never forget that while confidential knowledge is shared on a need to know basis (hopefully) an HR communication vacuum is hazardous in an organization.
6. If you ask for feedback (like e-sat surveys and even suggestion boxes) be prepared to deliver the results along with recommendations for improvement to the big guns.. and stand your ground firm that if they aren’t going to be prepared to act upon results they should skip asking for opinions.
7. During new hire orientation let employees know the best way to communicate with HR and what your department’s strategy is to communicate with staff.
8. Create a service level agreement for HR, track, analyze and report quarterly how you’re doing. You’ll find “areas of opportunity” for yourself *gasp* and put your department up for the same scrutiny you are always subjecting others too.
9. Be there. Be available. Be visible. You don’t have to take the door off the hinge but you should have posted open door hours. Hiding behind closed door gives the perception you are not available, you are getting ready to fire someone or you are plotting how to cut benefits..
10. Get out from behind your desk and into the work area. Interview random employees about their jobs. Compare your notes to their job descriptions and their last performance evaluations. If the math doesn’t add up it’s a predictor their resumes are posted all over Internet job boards.

I have a lot of HR friends with tons of great experience. So chime in please, can you add a step to avoid running an HR dungeon of doom?

What I found was a ton of validation that HR is not the ER or Human Services. Those are very important places in every community, but they are never located inside a company, unless of course it is the nature of their business or there are clinicians installed there with that purpose.

Most HR professionals don’t acquire first aid skills by osmosis because they administer health care benefits and FMLA. It’s clearly not logical to assume they should be responsible for alcohol wipes, thermometers and the blood kit — or counseling personal problems or be subjected to gory stories about bodily functions, despite the fact that in so many companies in the HR Suite, there is a sick/lactation room, massive first aid kit, freezer with ice packs, red bat phone to call the police, info on suicide prevention, toll free numbers for the mental health help line, etc.

Organizational Development God, it needs to change — that’s not our job.

The basic HR Generalist job description is something like

Responsible for all human resource activities for the company. Provide advice, assistance and follow-up on company policies, procedures, and documentation. Coordinate the resolution of specific policy-related and procedural problems and inquiries, perform specific research/investigation into operational issues, as requested. Provide on-the-job training to new employees.

Who is this reminder for?

• Anyone who got into HR because they “like people” and is now miserable because of people or confused HR with  Human Services.
• Those who favor spending hours counseling people on personal problems instead of how to maximize organizational performance.
• Those who aspire to be the next Mother Teresa or feel they can save people.
• Ditto for those considering a career in the field.
• Managers who send people to HR because they don’t know what to do with them or don’t want to deal with their issues.
• Employees who go to HR like they used to go to the nurses office in school — to get out of assignments, talk to someone or take a nap.

If you aspire to the sainthood, don’t dial 1–800-work-n-HR to inquire about canonization.

In the US 7000 high school students dropout every day

Are you shocked? I have never brought this up here before because I generally blog about the HR side of my job not the workforce development side. Get ready for a ride with me.…… Here’s my hypothesis (same as professional 2 cents):

I think the reasons students drop out of school and employees leave jobs are the same.

Employee disengagement & student disengagement have the same root. Employees leave managers and students leave teachers. They are bored, feel disrespected, treated unfairly, unchallenged, patronized, lack rapport and have personality conflicts.  Both quit when they have seemingly insurmountable problems with peers or when the environmental drama is overwhelming.

People quit jobs when life gets in the way and they can’t figure out how to stop it from interfering with attendance policies, competing with  mental and emotional real estate, family obligations, etc. Students have the very same problems. They sometimes have to assume the role of sibling or parental caretaker and income earner. They have abusive families and significant others and they become parents themselves sometimes.

Employees check out on the job and collect the check doing the minimum to get by until they stop showing up physically too… Others are performance managed out.  It’s the same for many students.

So what’s the lesson?

We know that good great companies, the ones with the hot employer brand, the ones people line up for at the career fairs and and try to network with on social media to get an “in” and have a candidate advantage — have great retention, career paths and prestige. They have reputations as innovative, fair, flexible and transparent. They give their employees autonomy and accountability, do employee satisfaction surveys and are prepared to hear the feedback — and act on it. They treat their employees as internal customers.

What if schools did that?

What if the public school model used best practices from exceptional companies in their organizational structure, policies and approach to education? What if it more closely mirrored (not that it does at all right now) corporate training departments? What if high school kids were treated a little more like individual learners and less like herded cattle?

Where are the work plans and clear expectations, team work and goal attainment as an indicator of performance metrics? If students have personal problems shouldn’t they have personal LOA or FMLA like plans that wouldn’t cause them to be held back?

Does it make sense to have disciplinary action that hurts students by out of school suspension that puts them further behind? Should school employees be allowed to verbally abuse students, belittle and berate them?

Motivation is unique to the individual. That’s another thing top employers understand. It’s not one size fits all.. shouldn’t motivators be assessed, recognized and developed in elementary school? It might be helpful to chart their learning and motivational style in their records. The next teacher that gets them wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Where is the S Sat Q12 survey? What forum or vehicle do students really have to provide feedback about their experience? Where’s the 360? Report cards are a one dimensional performance review.

We all hate supervisors and systems that operate like that… They never make employer of choice lists..

What’s your take?

My take away from the session was that change continues to be uncomfortable for organizations even when it means optimization is on the horizon. Not that it completely fazes me.…. Message to all those C-Level types out there –>

It’s time to crawl out of the Cold War trenches, warm your hands and learn what employees want and need to stay engaged in 2010 — your troops are your bottom line.….…

Traditionally, the job fair has been of the standard variety with employer booths and newspaper advertising. My contributions to the event in my first year as a planning partner were the upgraded website & blog, social media and seminar.

There was nothing wrong with the job fair as it had always been for the past 19 years except that in my opinion it lacked modernity of the times, the use of technology and an educational component. Actually, it wasn’t just my opinion. As a vendor in past years I often heard the word on the street that every year it was

The same old thing

I vowed not to allow that happen another year since now I was empowered to have influence and make change. Here are some reflections on what went down and what I learned.

Contrary to what you might think, the most popular seminar session was not using social media for job search (it was 3rd place). The most attended was how to get government employment. It requires no networking at all… The attraction is all too understandable why all the seats were taken and the overflow of people stood in the back of the seminar area.

The second most popular session was how to do well in an interview. There were a lot of questions on what to say, how to say it, how to cope with nerves, how to know if it went well.. Attendees appreciated hearing the “real deal” because the process is confusing to a candidate who doesn’t understand it. We could do a much better job on our websites and in our candidate selection process of letting job seekers know expectations, time lines, process..

Social media for job seekers was interesting, a lot of questions on Myspace (I attribute this to a cosmic vortex) and what to do once one creates an account. In other words, what does one do to “social network”? This is making me think a lot. There were a lot curious people there that either haven’t created accounts because they don’t know what to do, or started accounts and didn’t do anything with them — because they didn’t know what to do…  It seemed the crowd was comfortable visiting websites and job boards but they didn’t “get” the networking angle. So, we covered the basic principles, and because an hour is not nearly enough time to really delve into technique — I promised to hold workshops.

These are people who have been out of work a really long time — some go to the library for internet because it isn’t within their monthly budget. Perhaps a sponsor will offer to help. If not, I’ll do a series for free because I can’t fathom charging the unemployed for this.

The résumé tips session was fraught with questions on what and what not to include, what style to use, how many pages it should be, if references are required, the normal stuff… What was clearly obvious to me was that the average job seeker doesn’t understand the document is a marketing piece for Me Inc. I referred them to the free résumé writing classes offered at the local branch of the State one stop shop. It’s not the gourmet service offered by some of my certified résumé writing friends.. but none of these individuals was in the situation to be able to afford paid services.

What do you people want from me??? That was the question answered in the session on employer expectations. You would think this is work 101 stuff — but not.. Some people think they should be able to bring excuses to work and not be charged PTO, others don’t agree sick dependents should affect their attendance or be cause for separation when it does. How to “move up in the company” is interesting to many and “I shouldn’t have to so someone else’s job” is common. We need to do a better job with employer branding and marketing to educate prospective employees on what our expectations really are so that they are empowered to be decision makers in the process too on whether employment with XYZ would be a good “fit”.

How to work with a recruiter had an executive gathering of note takers. So many people think the title recruiter has one definition and clearing up that misnomer is important. When and how to follow up, what to do with the feedback, everyone was curious and confused about these things. I’m thinking we don’t put out enough information on what a recruiter does… like it’s some secret order or something. OK, maybe it is =)

Imagine if everyone understood the importance of psychology in the job search and workplace. The session on emotional intelligence was incredibly interesting, if not too short and poorly attended. The presenter understood why. People in general aren’t really in touch with their emotions, don’t understand how they sabotage quality of life, and many push them away and are horrible at managing them. When it came time for interactive exercises it was men in the session that volunteered. There were some women sitting there with their eyes glazed over. <— Look, this is just my observation. I’m trying not to be judgmental.

I thought adding a Job Seeker Strategy seminar to the job fair was a good idea. Now I think this seminar needs to go on a road tour to high schools and colleges, one stop shops and job fairs in every community and town across the country.

If you work in HR or recruiting, please implement it in your community. Or if you would like to sponsor my roadshow, let me know. I could really dig a national tour…

THE Conference is the multi-track business conference of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce and will bring professional development and networking opportunities to northeastern PA on Tuesday, April 27 at The Woodlands.

The day long, comprehensive professional development and business conference will begin at 8 a.m. with Myra Golden, nationally renown keynote speaker and author of Beyond Wow. Myra consults for organizations that represent the brands and services you know and love to help them differentiate their service experience from that of their competitors.

Multiple tracks in business and nonprofit disciplines will continue throughout the day for C-level, marketing, fund-raising, human resources, entrepreneurship and management. Participants will enjoy interactive sessions on social media, media relations, branding, green marketing, ethical fund-raising, grants, board governance, employment law, recruiting and retention, diversity, business financing, business start ups, economics of technology, digital time management, global trends, capacity building, C-suite challenges and more.

I’ll be conducting a session on how to attract quality candidates and retain top performing employees through employer branding and employee engagement. There will be several panel discussions and a number of “Toolkit” sessions from which participants will walk away with ideas and strategies that can implemented in their business or nonprofit right away.

THE Conference concludes with Cocktails & Connections, a business mixer at 5 p.m hosted by POWER! Wilkes-Barre. What other way would you end an event like this?

If you’re in northeast PA you can’t miss this professional development and business networking event. If you are not in the immediate area but are looking for a mega quality event at a price that can’t be beat then by all means join us! Registration is $99 ($79 for Chamber members and nonprofit employees) and includes continental breakfast, lunch, conference materials and entrance to the Cocktails & Connections networking mixer.

For 6 tracks and 30+ speakers and events for only $99 it’s worth driving from NYC, Philly, Harrisburg and even flying in from Texas or Timbuktu… «—- Go back and read that sentence!

If you’re interested in a great way to showcase your business why not rent an exhibitor booth for $150?

Tip for Students: Take advantage of the very special deeply discounted student rate of $49 to come for professional development and to network with potential future employers.

I can’t wait to see you there!

The strategic and coherent approach towards management of an organization’s human capital

Short, sweet, open to a world of interpretation. Whether you like my definition or another one you subscribe to, social services and mental health professions are different BLS Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC). HR professions are SOC 13–1070 under the parent SOC group 13–0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations.

Do you see where we work? Business and Financial Operations Occupations.

If I would have chosen to work in human resources because I wanted to help people my priorities would have been mixed up and I would have made a poor choice. Perhaps you think that sounds cold hearted. But what should the focus be for a human resources practitioner? It seems clear to me that it is to ensure the profitability of the company through the management of its human capital.

Why do some of us get wrapped up in employees’ problems, think we are their parent, think we have to “take care” of them, think we have a responsibility to help them live their lives and even solve their personal problems?

Do some of us pursue a career in human resources for the wrong reasons?

Do a quick self assessment to check– you know, kind of like taking your temperature with a thermometer, to contemplate if you contribute to or enable the unhealthiness of a sick work environment or even help create one with a lopsided view or bad definition of your role in human resources.

If you find you have a fever, head on over to Free management Library’s The Free Micro-eMBA℠ for treatment.

Image: Confusion by Adi Ron (2005) licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

We all remember our math class and those interminable equations. Well, for some of us it’s been a while but memories linger like perceptions!  I am often asked what do you do?  (You HR people!) It seems as long as I can remember I have been asked that.

Here’s the thing, it’s a great question.

Just get a few HR folk in the same room and ask the question. I tried it once and we all said different things. Blast and they talk about alignment!

I was momentarily speechless, reflective and then passionately said,  “I am a culture agent, I make a business grow and design a place where people want to be and give of their best. I work on the soft fluffy stuff, which actually is the real hard stuff that is the glue to everything, and I remind my naysayers that not much fantastic happens without people all working together, enthused and engaged!”

As the conversation advanced, eyes widened and I was given a curious look. I thought to myself that we have much to do (as a profession), people don’t get it because we don’t get it.

We need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we are going to make a REAL difference.  Not by simply responding to a perception-functional role but how to fast-forward the time machine into the future state model.

I am a proud HR professional, it’s in my blood, and yet, the perception of HR is getting old! Why do people still think we are the “welfare department or just hire and fire and work on benefits”?

What is it that’s old I hear you ask?  Well it’s simply the barrage of insults the HR profession continues to get!

And … I wonder are we getting the perception we deserve?

After all, we are professionals. We get diplomas and degrees and training and education and we have institutions and chapters etc. etc. So why have we not broken out of the mold?

I recently heard that the only people who go into HR are those that could not make it in business.  I also heard from a fellow Twitterer that it’s all in the mind of the HR folk themselves!! Well that is a great disservice to our thousands of professionals out there on the front line. That view has to come from someone who is as disconnected as the “current state” I am seeing.

Oh no, I just had a flashback to the movie Dirty Harry, to when he gets busted and is sent to H.R. Can anyone remember those fateful Eastwood lines???

The days of being simply great at the transactional stuff are long gone and in the words of Morgan Freeman, in one of my other favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, “We have to get busy living or get busy dying.”

For HR it means getting busy adding value and engaging the talent in our organizations.

It’s simply wrong that engagement levels in the USA are a woeful 20 something %. That means 4 out of 5 people are not giving of their best. Now that is just not right, and what are we, the “people profession,” doing about that (and I don’t mean simply conducting surveys!)?

It has been simply too many years for us to be having the same conversation about HR being at the Leadership Table.

“If we are still not there then we are not there because? (Look in the mirror!) Accountability starts with you!”

I have been thinking about this for a while and thank Bob Tarver for sending me a great article on the subject of  “HR as Change Agents”.  My thought when I read it was that change has simply passed much of HR by.

Michael Lee Stallard, in his book Fired Up or Burned Out, enthuses us by talking about connections and the thrive chain. Right on!! Thanks for reminding us. Why do we need to be reminded I wonder?

Well, it’s true, “Common sense is not very common and business sense is even less common.” And, both are critical competencies that we share with a CEO! Stallard’s wisdom was consolidated when over the weekend I watched that fascinating movie Into the Wild and in the words of the young Chris McCandless, “Relationships come from everything we do – not simply people– God gave us the world.” The greatest leader of all time gave us a clue over 2000 years ago!

Both Stallard, and then Ulrich and Brockbank in their book The HR Value Proposition, remind us that we need to look at the value chain.  They remind us that people don’t pay for what they don’t want! They only pay for what they recognize as valuable to them. Why do we forget that?

So I say, reverse the golden rule! I mean it works, but when I think of the golden rule I think of I will treat you like I want to be treated! Then I think to myself whoa… that’s not right. That means you don’t have to even bother asking me what I want or find out what my values are and assume I am like you! Methinks not!

So my plea is to treat me like I want to be treated. That means, you have guessed it, you need to ASK me what I want and what is important to me.

Another concept coming up:

“Ask the customer what they want and when you give it to them you have started the process of “likelihood to recommend.”

Translate that message into how we serve and impact what we do for our stakeholders internally and externally including the communities in which we live and suddenly relationships and business get better! Believe me, perceptions will change and the seat at the table will become available, you will have not only earned it but they will want you to be there.

So what do we in HR need to do? Boils down to three things!

My 2010 Decade List

Ask ourselves three Questions – Green Yellow and Red Lights

1. What we are going to start doing?
2. What we are going to continue doing?
3. What are we going to stop doing?

Get these three things right and we will change perceptions and we will be making a difference in our professional and personal roles. Now that’s something to shout about! And incidentally, it will give us the voice we seek and the leadership role we absolutely should aspire to.

So start making those lists and share them in the comments. We will do a follow up posting!!

Peter is a highly regarded, successful and personable Business-Human Resource Leader with achievements in delivering strategic H.R. and change management programs in Europe and North America. He has worked in number of business sectors including telecoms, automotive, health care, television broadcasting, lean advanced manufacturing, education and the public sector. His brand is “Turning strategy into reality”. Peter enjoys life, networking and building life long relationships, reading and golf. You can tweet with him at @peter_lanc.