In yesterday's HR Swap, we focused on how to deal with the high volume and wide variety of problems people bring to HR without taking on each problem as your own. Problems people were facing ranged widely, from hiring managers who wanted to hire in states where the company doesn't operate to managers wanting to fire people they hadn't documented as underperforming. The complexity and uniqueness of the kinds of issues HR professionals face would be funny if they didn't actual

In last week's HR Swap, we had a fantastic conversation about what it means to be "strategic" and how the participants decide where to focus their energy. We defined being strategic in a variety of ways, all of which laddered up to making something better and more efficient. So many HR professionals are overloaded with day-to-day tasks in addition to big-picture cultural shifts that any project or initiative that gets your attention should be one that makes not just the live

I was trying to make a fairly small decision recently about whether I should volunteer at my daughter's school or not and found myself really struggling. If I chose not to do it, I would miss out on some really valuable time with my daughter, and the chance wouldn't come again. But if I chose to do it, I would have to take lots of time away from my work and stop taking on new clients, which is something I don't want to do right now. It wasn't a life-changing decision, but I

A long time ago, I worked at a law firm as a technology trainer and I shared an office with the lovely gentleman who answered the Help Desk phone line. (No, he didn't just tell people to try turning it off and on again .) We were both in service roles and also happened to be two friendly people, so our coworkers often came to us when they had problems. They had a lot of problems. And after a while, it started to feel like our office was where you went when you wanted someon

One thing I've always struggled with is borrowing trouble. Making mountains out of molehills. Playing the end of the act before the curtain even rises. I look for every way something could go wrong, every way I could mess something up, and then obsess about it... until it actually happens. Not because it was inevitable, but because I made it inevitable. I'm a bit of a Girl Scout; I like to be prepared for every possible outcome. In my purse at (almost) all times there a