from the
C-SUITE

Brain candy: Feeding the brain and refreshing the spirit
Boxing Day, the anti-climactic day following the Christmas adrenaline high, is my favorite day of year. 
The origin of Boxing Day is not definitively known, but it may come from the traditional opening on that day of Anglican Church poor boxes that had been filled during Advent. Another possibility is that it arose from the custom of the aristocracy giving gifts to servants, employees and trades people the day after Christmas....

No one is surprised when the financial function of an organization goes through an audit process.  It’s standard practice.  However, when it comes to the human resources function, not so much!  As much as business intelligence and the perspective about the human resources function have changed over the years, the fact of the matter is, human resources departments are still significant cost centers.  If there ever was a reason to audit a function or process, money or cost would...

What do the following jobs have in common? Pool and Beach Worker, Procurement Intern, Electrical Designer, and Logistics Co-ordinator.  Truthfully, not that much.  But what is most apparent is that none of these jobs support an application for a senior executive position in finance. Yet, our executive search team sees increasing numbers of applications for senior management positions from candidates who are woefully not qualified for the job posted.   The applicants are hopefuls who have no experience in the functional...

Years ago, as a newly minted human resources graduate, I was taken aback by an article in a business magazine titled “Let’s blow-up the HR Department”.  As I was ready to take on the world and save business through human resources management, I was concerned that perhaps I had made the wrong career decision.  The premise of that article was based on viewing the HR Department as an unnecessary overhead administrative expense that offered nothing to improve the bottom line. ...

“I like to con people. And I like to insult people. If you combine “con” and “insult”, you get consult,” observes Dogbert, a comic-strip character. Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of interesting and disturbing stories from organizations about their experiences with management consultants. Business often doesn’t have a very good impression of consultants, and for good reason.  Anyone can become a management consultant if they can sell the perception of ‘expertise.’   Barriers to entry are low and people...