I have a lot of news items and other trivia in my inbox that I will be cleaning out this week. First on the agenda, if you are interested in public sector HR, there is a new website for IPMA-HR Central Region. Plus, this will have information on the upcoming conference. You can find it here http://ipma-hr-central.org/

Just cannot get enough HR research. Are you interested in HR findings but just need an easy way to track research?  Alison Mallard has set up a site where she has students review recent research. You can find it at – http://www.ioatwork.com. It is a great site if you want to keep up on the research literature, but do not have the time to go through all the journals.

The OFCCP is a federal agency that enforces employment discrimination laws for those organizations receiving federal funds. The Center for Corporate Equality (CCE) has released its annual report summarizing enforcement results developed by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) on their equal employment and affirmative action requirements. The report, A REVIEW OF OFCCP ENFORCEMENT STATISTICS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008, offers a detailed analysis of the agency’s fiscal year 2008 enforcement results that resulted in $67,518,982 in back pay and annualized salary and benefits for 24,508 American workers who had been subjected to unlawful employment discrimination. In addition, this report includes a comparison of enforcement results from FY 2007 to FY 2008. The in-depth results of this analysis provide useful information about OFCCP’s enforcement programs that the agency does not make publicly available. The report is available on CCE’s website at www.cceq.org.

For the more technically oriented reader in the audience, with a specific interest in advanced topics in assessment – there is a new blog out there. It can be found at http://www.assess.com/blog/. It is a product of Assessment System Corporation. They do a lot of good work in the area of computerized testing.

According to the Akron Beacon Journal:

“A national study says 74 percent of all adults in the United States — nearly 171 million people — read a newspaper or its online component during the past week.”

So could it be true? I guess it could be, if you define an “adult” as anyone over 30.

All I know is that when I teach a class or give a lecture, I ask the class several questions. One question is “how many people read a newspaper?” – first the actual paper and then online. Usually, at most, one hand in the room goes up. As a result, I find it difficult to believe that 74% of adults are reading newspapers.

I ask two additional questions. The first is “how many are on Facebook?” Usually, every hand or every hand but one goes up. The second question is “how many are on MySpace?” Usually, one or two hands. That would lead me to the conclusion that among the college student set Facebook is much more popular than MySpace.

I love newspapers. I would be lost without a few newspapers to read. Of course, I am old and senile. The bigger question is – what if anything are young people missing by not reading the newspaper?

We have previously discussed the phenomena of employers searching social network sites for information on job candidates. The September issue of IPMA HR News report on a CareerBuilder Survey that finds 45% of employers use social network sites to research job candidates, up from 22%.

Of those:

1. 29% use FaceBook
2. 26% LinkedIn
3. 21% MySpace
4. 11% Blogs
5. 7% Twitter

My question would be what exactly people are searching for on Twitter? Are they following job candidates for a number of days? Again, the lesson, be careful of what you post online.

Originally, I was going to post job openings that I received here in the blog itself. However, I found it easier to create a separate FaceBook page. So, if you are interested in both local and national job openings in HR, you can join my FaceBook group at DDoverspike Job Listing Home page.

From Bryan Baldwin and the excellent blog at HR Tests.

Case in point: the state of Washington recently decided to abandon their efforts to implement SAP E-Recruiting after nearly three years and millions of dollars. The state will now go with a hosted solution which is estimated to be $700-800,000 a year cheaper (and hopefully much easier) to maintain.

Having been ringside for some of this, I can tell you the problem was not with motivation or energy, or even IT knowledge. I suspect that a lion’s share of the problem was related to the complexity of the program. This would match reports I’ve read that a significant number of organizations are moving away from single-vendor HR solutions and going with simpler, targeted products. Having heard about this program for a number of years, I have two thoughts:

1. As I commented the other day on another site, a problem in HR today is letting technology be the driver rather than scientifically sound HR practices. That is not to say that the State of Washington’s program was not based on sound practices, but a more general observation about issues with technology today in HR.
2. Again not specifically aimed at the State of Washington program, but a general observation, it is simply interesting how many times you see programs that receive a great number of accolades and attention, only to quickly slide into oblivion or be quickly replaced with the next hot program.

Driving is one of the more complicated information processing tasks that any of us are asked to complete in our lifetime. It places a tremendous strain on our attentional resources and ability to respond quickly.

Camille Noe Pagan has written an interesting article on driving for women for Forbes magazine. You can check it out here. According to Pagan, “Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in women under the age of 35, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and are also a major cause of traumatic brain injury and fatality in women of all ages.”

Of course, what makes the article most interesting is that she cites me and some recent research. We are currently looking at whether defining yourself as a good driver actually increases the risk that you will respond with aggressive driving. Will update you with the final results of that study, when it is finished.

Last week I mentioned the concentration of human resource consulting firms in the Northeast Ohio area. I think this wealth of knowledge and experience is a strength that should be built upon in bringing about a renaissance in the NEO area. Therefore, I would like to mention another firm, again headed up by a University of Akron alumni, and that is Linda Brown LLC, in Chardon, OH. Linda has a rich background in human resources and aims to help organizations achieve their strategic goals through the best use of their people at all levels of the organization. She works in the areas of leadership coaching and development, career coaching, performance management, team development, employee opinion surveys, and organizational strategy development. In addition to a website, Linda offers a very informative newsletter. In her most recent newsletter, she covers the ROI of inveseting in people.

A side note for those looking for employment in human resources. Rather than posting jobs in the blog, I have decided to set up and publish them in a special Facebook page. So if you look for me on Facebook, I will add you and then you can join the job group.