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June 26
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Jamie
gave  to:
How to Measure Human Resource Management (3rd Edition)
by
Jac Fitz-Enz
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
Jamie said:
"One of my old psychology professors was fond of saying "If something exists, it exists in some amount and can thus be measured." It's not a bad axiom for a Human Resources professional to adopt, whether they have a background in psychology ...more
One of my old psychology professors was fond of saying "If something exists, it exists in some amount and can thus be measured." It's not a bad axiom for a Human Resources professional to adopt, whether they have a background in psychology or not. This book by Jac Fitz-enz and Barbara Davidson takes the idea to heart that HR isn't just a function built around transaction and enforcing compliance. If the benefits of typical activities of HR can be measured --even roughly-- then the function can have an increasingly important role to play at the higher, strategic levels of business.
After some introductory material and naval gazing, the meat of the book is split into sections on the familiar facets of HR: staffing, compensation, training, and employee relations. Each section talks a bit about the function and why it's important, then stamps out a series of equations for measuring things related to that function. For example, here's the formula for "Sourcing Cost Per Hire:"
SCPH = Advertising + Agency Fees + Referral Bonuses + Free Hires / Total # of Hires
That's it. And that's one of the more complicated equations. See, the issue I have with this book is that it's extremely cursory and only gives things a surface treatment. The equations are given, sure, but there's little to no discussion about how to go about collecting and organizing the data. There's also not nearly enough about how to use the data to influence and steer strategy. It's all just very basic. And some of the stuff, like measuring quality of job performance, is embarrassingly superficial and wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny by anyone with a bias towards scientific vigor.
What the book does an okay job of doing, I suppose is giving you some starting points if you're trying to start a HR metrics program from scratch. That's a task that can be so huge so as to be paralyzing, but with this book in hand you can pretty easily flip to a chapter and say "Okay, I'm going to calculate our Time to Fill." Or the cost of benefits. Or the cost of training. Or whatever. You can worry about being more sophisticated and more encompassing later, because doing any of these simple things that will be a start that you can build on.
Still, for anyone with a background in research methods or just looking for something with more meat on it, I'd recommend Cascio and Boudreau's Investing in People way above this one.(less)
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June 22
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Jamie
is currently reading:
Dune (Dune Chronicles #1)
by
Frank Herbert
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
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June 19
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Jamie
gave  to:
James and the Giant Peach (Hardcover)
by
Roald Dahl
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my rating:
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read in May, 2009
Jamie said:
"My wife and I actually read this book by Roald Dahl to my daughter, but I thought I'd go ahead and comment on it. James and the Giant Peach follows the same winning "Cinderella" formula that a lot of other writers like J.K. Rowling have use...more
My wife and I actually read this book by Roald Dahl to my daughter, but I thought I'd go ahead and comment on it. James and the Giant Peach follows the same winning "Cinderella" formula that a lot of other writers like J.K. Rowling have used, and which Dahl also modifies in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: a miserable orphan child is stuck living with wicked relatives but is rescued by some magical force that takes him away to adventure and happiness.
In this case, James's parents were killed by a rhinoceros and he's living with this nasty Aunt Spiker and nastier Aunt Sponge. One day James is given some magic ...things by a stranger and after spilling them at the base of a peach tree he awakes the next morning to find a gigantic peach growing in his back yard. So he hops inside, meets some talking bugs, and rolls away to America. Well, actually he flies through the kingdom of the cloud people, first.
So, yeah, it's fanciful and silly, but it's clearly a children's book. It's very much got the feel of something made up on the fly, and I could imagine Dahl narrating the story off the top of his head and then going back to jot it down. My 5-year old daughter Samantha loved it, though, and it marks the beginning of her transition from books whose pages are dominated by pictures to ones where pictures only appear every few pages. Sam was enamored by the bug friends James meets in the peach, and I have to admit that I liked them too, particularly the bickering duo of the Earthworm and the Centipede. The pacing was also really quick, with one thing happening after another without dwelling on descriptions or dialog too much. About the only thing I didn't care for were the poems/songs that cropped up occasionally, but I could skim those. So all in all it makes for a good book for kids around her age or for older kids learning to read to themselves. So does Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, also by Dahl.(less)
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June 15
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Jamie
gave to:
Developing and Validating Multiple-Choice Test Items (Hardcover)
by
Thomas M. Haladyna
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
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June 12
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Jamie
gave  to:
Reaper Man (Discworld, Book 11)
by
Terry Pratchett
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my rating:
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read in May, 2009
Jamie said:
"Death (with a capital D, or even all small-caps if you're a particularly cheeky typographer) is the only character to appear in just about every one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. And better yet, he occasionally gets to star in one, like Reap...more
Death (with a capital D, or even all small-caps if you're a particularly cheeky typographer) is the only character to appear in just about every one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. And better yet, he occasionally gets to star in one, like Reaper Man. The gist is that Death seems to be developing a bit of a personality and compassion for the souls he collects once their lifetimers have counted down, and that's a big no-no according to certain guardians of the Right Proper Order of Things. So Death gets fired and sent off to live as a mortal until he dies.
Crazy, right? Well, par for the course on the Discworld. The problem for the rest of the Disk’s humans is that their Death isn’t replaced in a timely fashion, so the souls of the newly departed either just sort of hang around or decide to stick to familiar ground and pop back in to their bodies. So you’ve got a plague of thoroughly confused and moderately annoyed zombies roaming around the place. Only they’re not the "Blearg, brains!" kind, but rather the "Hey, what did you guys do with all my stuff?" kind. There’s also some fairly incomprehensible stuff about killer shopping carts, snow globe eggs, and runaway shopping malls.
As a book, Reaper Man is two thirds good. I loved the parts with Death learning about life by living as a farmer named "Bill Door" and facing down death --irony! existentialism! Plus there was this great running gag with a dyslexic rooster who crowed things like "Dock-a-loodle-fod!" all the time. And the parts with the late Unseen University faculty member Windle Poons coming back as a zombie and taking up arms in the equal rights for the undead crusade was a great bit of social commentary. The only part I didn’t like (or even really comprehend) was the tie-in part where the wizards and undead team up to fight shopping carts and city destroying things posing as …shopping malls? I dunno. That was kind of weird.
On balance a great Discworld book, though. I love seeing Death fleshed out (so to speak) as a character, and he’s got some really nice moments here with some other characters. (less)
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June 09
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June 08
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Jamie
added:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to 401(k) Plans (2nd Edition)
by
CFP, Dee Lee
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
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Jamie
gave to:
Witches Abroad (Discworld, Book 12)
by
Terry Pratchett
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my rating:
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read in June, 2009
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May 29
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Jamie
gave to:
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Hardcover)
by
George Johnson
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my rating:
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read in May, 2009
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