The Week That Was

It’s going to be a long, hot summer, so why not buckle up and sink into some quality reading? These were the top five stories on Talentmgt.com for the week of June 18.

1. The Future of Feedback: In an era of modern feedback, organizations that pay heed to employees’ voices and act on their concerns can almost guarantee improved retention, writes Talent Management editor Jessica Krinke.

2. Will Predictive Analytics Impact the Future of Talent Management?: For talent managers, creating learning and change is as much about changing habits as it is about imparting skills or providing great experiences, writes Talent Management columnist John Boudreau.

3. Nine Ways to Make Top Performers Effective Managers: Top-performing individuals don’t instantly become top-performing managers. To succeed, new managers require time, training and guidance, write Derek Finkelman and Jonathan Corke.

4.  Get Tips to Help Leaders Maintain a Healthy Online Profile: Executives’ social media profiles can divulge information that portrays the company in a certain light. Make sure your leaders aren’t raising red flags for potential employees, writes Talent Management editor Mohini Kundu.

5. How to Measure Engagement With a Stay Interview: Stay interviews are essentially informal conversations between managers and their direct reports — not to mention one of the most valuable measures of employee engagement out there, writes Talent Management editor Frank Kalman.

In Other News

Imagine what it would be like to work for a company that has no bosses. Well, for Bellevue, Wash., video game maker Valve Corp., that’s the reality.

A report in The Wall Street Journal this week says that the tech company has been “boss free” since its founding, in 1996. Not only are there no bosses at the firm, the article said, but there are also no managers or assigned projects.

“Instead, its 300 employees recruit colleagues to work on projects they think are worthwhile,” writes Rachel Emma Silverman for the Journal. “The company prizes mobility so much that workers’ desks are mounted on wheels, allowing them to scoot around to form work areas as they choose.”

Read the full Journal report here.

Social Media Status: Party On?

Is your Facebook riddled with photos of you dancing at weddings, partying with friends on the beach and pictures of your newborn baby? And are you worried that having such a candid social media profile might come to hurt your candidacy for certain job openings — should, of course, a recruiter go snooping through your online profile?

Well you shouldn’t be, at least according to an article from Forbes.com. By the estimate of some recruiters and online media experts quoted in the article, having an honest and fun social media presence could actually be a welcoming sign for recruiters, many of whom may be attracted to the sense of personality and fun displayed on someone’s Facebook or other social media outlet.

“There’s a sense that a profile with no character has probably been scraped of some racy stuff or else the person has no social skills and won’t fit in,” said a 21-year-old recruitment intern in New York, quoted anonymously for the story by the article’s author, Meghan Casserly.

To read the full article, click here.

Telework on the Rise

The number of workers who work remotely from the office has jumped significantly during the past decade, according to a recent study by research group The Conference Board, nearly doubling among all full-time, non-self-employed U.S. workers, and more than tripling for some professions like records clerks and insurance underwriters.

Also, the report found that 84 percent of workers who worked remotely did so at least once a week, up from 72 percent in 2008.

Despite the rise, only about 2 percent of the nation’s full-time employees work primarily from home, the report said, leaving little concern that the office is anywhere near extinction.

To read more on the report, check out this blog post and story from The Wall Street Journal.