Share the knowledge – April 2012

April has seen a huge production of excellent posts, maybe it’s the spring effect:-) – so be prepared for a long list of great reading !

Like every month, here are some of the best or most relevant Compensation & Benefits, performance management, HR and/or global mobility articles that I came across recently:

• In Where’s the employee choice in the engagement equation, Paul Smith comments on employee engagement in a post filled with insight and interesting links
• … while at HR Examiner, John Sumser examines the 9 employment branding buckets, with good advice on how to segment your target audience to create a valuable employer brand
• From Trish McFarlane at HR Ringleader, here is a great resource on how to use free online resources in order to keep growing and engaging your team
• As a complement to my post on social performance management, here is an analysis for another social HR tool, this time from Saba. This one includes meeting tools such as video conferencing, but most notably a (controversial) system for assessing employee’s influence through a measure of how many other employees link to or share the content that they have created.
• …. And here is another article My colleague, my paymaster from the Wall Street Journal, exploring new trends in distributed rewards, where employees (not managers) distribute rewards to other employees. It creates lots of learning !
• Another article led me to this piece from The Economist, Too Many Chiefs. Even though it is dated from 2010, it is still valid and provides a good analysis of job title inflation, something that the GCC region also tends to be prone to.
• An excellent piece from i2i align, Why incentives shouldn’t be your go-to strategy. Don’t forget to read the comment I posted !
• A video on linking reward systems to employee engagement, shared by Abhishek Mittal at Mumblr.
• Cornell and King’s College unite and create an HR Academy to drive thought leadership and research in our industry through forums at least twice a year in New York and London.
• This piece from TLNT contends that we should not focus our incentives and rewards on results only but we should also take into account the process and qualitative aspects when designing our targets. Similarly, Cathy Missildine from Profitability  through Human Capital asks whether we should reward effort, not just results. No straight answer on that one I think ! I am not sure I agree with the concept of completely focusing on the process so that you don’t only reward your star salesperson for example, but I do believe that companies should offer a wider range of rewards and recognition so that all aspects of work can be taken into account.
• I fully agree with the points made by Jaque Vilet in TLNT on HR adding value and changing with the world, please check this article that acts as a reminder for HR professionals.
• We are already in the 4th month of 2012, yet I think this report from Deloitte on HR trends for 2012 is valid for more than the coming 8 months.
• Warren Heaps at International HR Forum starts a 5-post series on managing international assignments, here are Part 1 on Assessment slection and approval, and Part 2 on assignment planning.
• In Silicon Valley engineering salaries are finally getting fair – thank Facebook, you are presented with an interesting analysis of how pay for top engineers has evolved in the Silicon Valley lately.

For those of you who are interested in GCC and MENA articles, here are some regional pieces :

There were quite a few interesting pieces on pensions in the Gulf region and I will publish a dedicated post curating the best of that content next week.

• A new pension fund for low-income Non-Resident Indians is set to start on May 1st, 2012
• Government entity IPOs is a good idea
• UAE is favourite expat destination in the Gulf
• Why the Gulf is willing to make a trade-off with its expat professionals. This is a comprehensive piece about the complex relationships between Gulf countries and their expat population.
• Real reasons why top talent leaves their company in the UAE explores causes other than purely financial.
• Towers Watson survey reveals companies to raise salaries by 5% in 2012 in UAE
• … It is confirmed by this other survey, which also covers the rest of the GCC countries
• …. While at the same time, 67% of Egypt employees expect a raise in the coming 12 months
• If you’re a secretary in the UAE, you’d get around AED 6,850 per month – and a description of packages for certain positions at Emirates Airlines.
• An interesting article with statistics on the healthcare system in Saudi Arabia. The end of the article contains demographic numbers that can also be of interest regarding pensions.
• Bahrain set to introduce a new set of labour law. It will include increase protection in case of unfair dismissal with one full year of pay as compensation, extended maternity leave, and eligibility to sick leave with full and half pay.

Best of the rest :

• Michael Haberman at Omega HR Solutions writes about how obsolescence will eat your lunch. Great career advice – keep abreast of trends and you keep your value at work. I’ve covered these topics on Readers and creating Alerts
• As usual, Cole Nussbaumer produces another great piece on data visualisation that all C&B pros can take into account
• A view on how HR Analytics can help the company boost its bottom line

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