It’s spring and I want to plant flowers. With that, a post drafted last winter. Enjoy.
Some brand has introduced toilet paper rolls without the cardboard center: marketing idea is less waste, more environmentally friendly. First time I saw that I was like ok.. for people who throw those away?
How to Make Your Own Fire logs
Even when it’s not a snowpacolypse ‘blizzard’ of two inches, it does get pretty damn cold in Atlanta. Relaxing in front of a warm toasty fire happens. Been doing this for years, making my own fire kindling or starter logs.
1. Old plain paper. Newsprint. Junk mail. Spring clean your filing cabinets, any paper you’d shred, use that.
2. Save toilet paper, paper towel, wrapping paper rolls (also good for saving ribbons).
3. Roll. Stuff. Burn.
Untapped Resources – So Very Human
As I plot shift my career towards corporate communications, I know I’d be an ideal person to integrate HR and PR. When I read some anemic job listings it hits me how terribly most business silo one of their most important publics: Employees.
You know these kinds of companies, where “promote from within” and “two way, open door communications” is all talk, zero walk.
Employee Relations seems to have nothing to do Public Relations; Communications is shoehorned under business development; and no one seems to be talking to Human Resources. The left hand doesn’t know the right hand is cutting hours, piling on more work in the name of productivity and the almighty dollar.
TPTB don’t pay attention, managers don’t even know who the ‘best and brightest’ are let alone make effort to create opportunities to keep them. The brain trust in HR bankrolls expensive sign-on bonuses and new employee training; ask for retention bonuses, investment in better resources and stay interviews, you get blank stares.
[This is where I’d link to my ‘better company newsletter’ post, the kind employees actually read. Someday I’ll write publish it.]
Waste Not.
In this age of content marketing buzz and brand advocacy hoopla, silos are dangerous. Companies scare employees away from social media, then want them to be brand ambassadors. Employers treat front line staff as the most expendable, then wonder why productivity and morale take a nose dive.
There’s something so wasteful about a talented employee being pigeonholed and silo’d, insecure about seeking advancement; or feeling their ideas for improvement are unwelcome. That’s a symptom of bad leadership and a toxic corporate culture. The cure: HR meets ER, say hello to PR with some SM on the side; aka integrated communications that walks the talk.
Have a bad experience with human resources or employee relations? A good one? Do share.
Thanks so much for sharing, really awesome post. Definitely more interesting of a read than I thought it would be, great work! Thanks so much for writing this, it definitely sheds a bit of a different light on human resource work!
Thanks, glad you liked it.