Article: Bring Back the Beer
    Article: Flu Bug Brings New Headaches to Employers
    White Paper: Guidelines for Choosing a Screening and Flu Shot Vendor
    HR Humor: Salary Increase - Or, Dear Bo$$...
    Webcast: Board of Directors' Responsibilities Managing an Economic Downturn
    Podcast: Using Social Networking Tools For Better Career Management
    HR 180: Grade School Cafeteria and the Coolness Spectrum

Article: Bring Back the Beer
Source: Kevin Herring, president, Ascent Management Consulting, Ltd.

When I was just cutting my teeth in my career, I found myself working with a business unit that had been swallowed up by the mega-company that hired me. Old timers in the shop of that unit liked to tell me about the good ole days when every month the owner would shut down the plant early on a Friday afternoon and throw a beer bash in the parking lot for all the employees. The owner was tough, they would say, but he wasn't afraid to talk to the workers and he knew the business inside and out.

Article: Flu Bug Brings New Headaches to Employers
Source: gNeil

The swine flu is the top story on most news sites, as new cases are being confirmed around the world. High-density locations such as offices, schools, airplanes and nursing homes are considered higher-risk areas for spreading the flu. As an employer, what are your rights and responsibilities when it comes to protecting your workforce from contagious diseases?

White Paper: Best Practices in On-Site Wellness Series: Guidelines for Choosing a Screening and Flu Shot Vendor
Source: Summit Health

First in a planned series, this complimentary report offers scenarios and sample questions to help companies navigate the largely unregulated employee health screening industry and avoid legal pitfalls. In addition, this white paper features an appendix of sample questions that should be asked of a potential screening partner during the selection process - a significant time-saving step for employers.

HR Humor: Salary Increase. Or, Dear Bo$$,
Source: Amusingfacts.com

If you plan to approach your boss for a salary increase, then here is a true story from which you might learn something.

Webcast: Take Five: Board of Directors' Responsibilities Managing an Economic Downturn
Source: Boardmember.com and Paul Zumbro, partner, Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP

What is the most important thing for a board to consider in a downturn? What should the board of directors of a healthy company be considering in a downturn? What about board members at a distressed company? Paul Zumbro, partner, Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP, answers these questions.

Podcast: Social Media Engagement
Source: Shane Gibson of Closing Bigger Sales Podcast & Blog

There's a lot of talk about being engaged. In particular, in social media we talk about engagement as one of the key benchmarks of being a successful brand, marketer, blogger or personality online. Today's podcast is on what engagement is...

HR180: Grade School Cafeteria and the Coolness Spectrum
Source: Scott Blackburn

Ahhh, the elementary school cafeteria. I can still smell it. A rich, aromatic mix of "wagon wheels," tater tots, ammonia, and kids. The cafeteria served far more purpose than serving mysterious meals to youngsters; it was a measuring stick of a kid's acceptability at school. Yes, the cafeteria could make or break the reputation of a 4th grader, much like tennis shoes.

What's New? The Latest in HR Software and Services

* Please note that the editorial team at News for HR does not recommend or endorse any of the companies or products mentioned in our newsletter. We also cannot support any claims made by the respective companies. These are products and services we have found interesting and are sharing with our readership. If you have any experience with these companies you would like to share with us, we'd love to hear from you!

Recruitment & Staffing:

Costly employee turnover is the greatest staffing concerns for top executives. However, most companies don't have the tools in place or the knowledge for preventing employee turnover.

The Retention Institute (SM) offers HR professionals a new comprehensive certification program that enables companies to measure the business impact and reduce the costs associated with employee turnover. Additionally, HR professionals enhance their skills by learning how to combat employee turnover and provide value to an organization by positively affecting the bottom line.

The Retention Institute's process-driven Certified Employee Retention Professional (CERP) program for HR professionals is based on The Rethinking Retention Model (SM) developed by retention expert Dick Finnegan. The Rethinking Retention Model is a research-based method that offers three specific principles, seven proven strategies and more than 300 tested actionable tasks to improve employee retention. The CERP designation enables companies to benefit from an in-house expert that will continue to apply the skills they have gained from the program to maintain retention results.

Compensation & Benefits:

Salary.com's CompAnalyst(R) allows companies to analyze pay competitiveness, simplify cumbersome survey participation and automate market pricing, all in a single, Web-based solution. The new edition simplifies market pricing when using multiple surveys for large numbers of jobs. Read the press release here and visit their site for more information.

Talent Management:

Taleo, a leader in on-demand unified talent management solutions, announced "Talent Grid," which is effectively a B2B social media platform for customers, partners and employees. A set of three online communities, the Talent Grid provides an exclusive place for Taleo customers to interact and share best practices, discover pre-integrated partner solutions, and connect with millions of candidates in an open marketplace. The three new exchanges connect over 175 million candidates, 4,100 customers, millions of users and dozens of partners in the talent management ecosystem. Read the press release here and visit Talent Grid for more information.

Training & Development:

Halogen Software's eLearning Manager(TM) solution received a Top Training Product award from Human Resource Executive Magazine. Halogen eLearning Manager is the industry's first performance-based learning management system that fully integrates learning with performance appraisals and other key talent management functions. Read the press release here and visit the company's web site for more information.

About "News For HR"

"News for HR" is a monthly newsletter profiling new products and services in the human resource marketplace and timely articles on various HR topics. The newsletter's content is selected by our editorial committee and is not the result of paid advertising.

Most of the content comes from the Human Resources Directory - one of the HR industry's largest and most up-to-date knowledge centers with a library of over 2,000 white papers, webcasts, podcasts, articles and more. Please let us know how we are doing by e-mailing newsforhr@hrmarketer.com.