Last updated : May 12, 2025
Career human resource professionals recognize it can be difficult to establish a good balance between limiting potential risks to the company while also ensuring that the employees are engaged and working well together.
Here are 10 blog posts that can help HR professionals achieve that balance:
1. Mary Barra: The rare CEO who worked in human resources, penned by Washington Post columnist Jena McGregor, outlines Barra’s rise to the CEO position at General Motors as a former human resources professional for the company. The article about Barra’s success also explains that a lack of management experience and profit margins are often why career human resource professionals do not typically climb to the top of the corporate ladder.
2. In 5 ways to rock star HR leadership, Forbes contributor Meghan M. Biro asserts that sometimes the tools human resource professionals use to screen potential new employees and safeguard the company’s interests can sometimes get in the way of common sense approaches to effective HR leadership. She suggests engaging in old fashioned practices, like listening to employees, to create a more positive culture in which problems are addressed in a meaningful way.
3. Rich Dematteo with the recruiting news outlet Corn on the Job points out the relatively new challenges employers face today in USA Mobile Drug Testing explains the impact of marijuana legalization. USA Mobile Drug Testing CEO David Bell clears up some of the burning questions about how these changing laws might impact the hiring process. Bell explains, for instance, that employers can decide what types of behaviors are not acceptable for employees, even if marijuana use is legal in their state.
4. When in doubt, hire the best writing skills, a piece authored by Kris Dunn at The HR Capitalist, suggests one way to select the best person for the job is to evaluate the writing skills of each candidate, and select the one who can write – and therefore, communicate – most effectively.
5. In her blog post at BambooHR titled 6 ways to reward a remote or scattered workforce, Jeana Quigley addresses the difficulties associated with unifying employees when more people are telecommuting. She suggests organizing company-wide team building activities, and launching programs encouraging employees to reward one another for a job well-done.
6. In Rita Trehan’s recent blog post, 5 things human resources leaders should do in 2015, Trehan recommends shaking things up by getting more familiar with social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC), and ditching practices that are no longer efficient – consider Coca Cola’s decision to eliminate voicemail.
7. Red Branch Media CEO Maren Hogan encourages a new way of hiring in 5 perfectly good job applicants you won’t consider. Hogan said companies could be missing out on great new hires because of rigid hiring requirements. These requirements cause recruiters to count out those with degrees from online universities, gaps in employment history, or those who have a wild photos posted on social media.
8. A leadership article appearing in Harvard Business Review titled Why chief human resources officers make great CEOs highlights data showing the roles of CHROs and CEOs are not as different as they were 15 years ago. A joint research project spearheaded by executive recruiting outfit Korn Ferry and University of Michigan professor Dave Ulrich found that top performing CHROs possess many of the same leadership qualities as CEOs.
9. Workforce Magazine blogger Stephen Paskoff asks Is managing grumpiness the key to managing risk?The answer, he found, is yes. Paskoff asserts that asking employees about their willingness to report wrongdoing in the company, no matter the cost or who is involved, is the place to start when determining whether employee dissatisfaction could mean an increased risk for the business.
10. This Sarge’s List article gives veterans a leg up in the job market in Hiring veterans – What do employers look for? Companies like USA Mobile Drug Testing have found excellent employees in veterans; company CEO Joe Strom is a veteran himself. Strom advised veterans to demonstrate their readiness to transition into the civilian workforce by focusing on their experiences instead of tasks they’ve accomplished, for example.
