Companies that love to brag about their distinct and defining cultures often cite culture as a significant recruiting tool. In turn, their hiring managers often regard the nebulous “cultural fit” as the most essential factor in evaluating candidates. But is this a good way to hire? Not always. What tends to happen is that rather than hiring for cultural fit, managers hire for personal fit. Instead of seeking out...

As many of my readers know, I had an 18-year corporate marketing career that was very “successful” on the outside, but entirely unsuccessful on the inside. I faced a myriad of crises and challenges including gender discrimination, sexual harassment, zero work-life control or balance, chronic illness, narcissistic bosses and colleagues, and more. But worse than all that was the painfully nagging question “I...

I love millennials. I’ve built my career on helping companies successfully integrate younger generations into their workforces. I’ve defended millennials against those who seek to bash them, and I deeply admire their drive to improve the workplace for all of us. I am happy to be a contributor to the many conversations—at conferences, in the media, and inside organizations—about “best practic...

Many organizations have prioritized the hiring of military veterans in recent years. This is commendable, as military hiring requires a different strategy than civilian hiring because veterans do not have exactly the same needs as traditional hires. For instance, they are often attracted by different things during the recruitment process, and sometimes respond better to alternative training and development approaches. Th...

I recently had a very telling conversation. I was speaking with a man at a networking event. Let’s call him David, for the sake of this story. David regaled me with the story of his professional life. He graduated from an Ivy League university in the late 1970s, with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Upon graduation, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of becoming an accomplished stage actor. As expected,...

Amanda had a great career as a computer programmer that she put on hold to devote time to raise her sons. Now that they're older, she wants to reenter the job market, but she doesn't know where to start! Ihor, who took time out to care for his aging mother, is in a similar position. Thousands of women and men who took time away from work feel the same as Amanda and Ihor. Those who research and plan, do very well...

It’s a toss-up world. Sometimes what we encounter is truthful, sometimes it’s not; sometimes a picture is real, sometimes manipulated; sometimes a statement or “news” story is factual, sometimes “over-exaggerated,” fabricated, or plagiarized. In this kind of world, trust can seem naïve, gullible, and foolhardy. Of course, sometimes it is. Not everyone is trustworthy. But, the real...

Lighthouse Research Principal Analyst Ben Eubanks hammered home the importance of culturally embedded diversity and inclusion practices. According to Deloitte, employees that rated their employers highly for both diversity and inclusion were 80 percent more likely to say their organization was high performing. Corporate boards with three or more women have 50 percent higher return on equity, and 40 percent higher return on...

Leaders have a powerful influence on an organization’s culture. They set the tone for how employees perceive their work experience, so leadership and culture go hand in hand. In many ways, leaders’ success depends on their ability to help shape and uphold organizational culture. That’s a formidable task - and one that requires selflessness, conviction and strong character. Besides nurturing those qua...

According to Bret Swanson and Michael Mandel, author of the new white paper The Coming Productivity Boom, the next waves of the information revolution - where we connect the physical world and infuse it with intelligence - are beginning to emerge. And these waves will result in far greater productivity than we’ve seen in many industries so far. Much has been made of the proliferation of sophisticated IT into the bu...