Welcome to another round of Carnival of HR! We are honored to be hosting the July 2020 edition. For the uninitiated, the Carnival is a collection of blog posts loosely coordinated around a theme. Or it’s just a collection of posts the host of the Carnival found interesting. Either way, it’s a win-win for the readers.

This month, we asked for posts that highlighted what organizations have learned recently, or innovations that they’ve put forward. We had quite a response rate, so let’s get right to the content.

Rethinking Equality

Not surprisingly, equality and diversity was top of mind for many of the contributors. Organizations have been challenged to do better and many contributors had suggestions:

• Stacia Garr shares her thoughts on how revising a business’s approach to performance management can foster more opportunities for women in the workplace.
• Sometimes organizations have to admit they have a lot to learn before they dive in. This story from Mike Sipple, Jr. shares his company’s process of self-reflection as they contemplated partnerships in their community.
• Not all innovation is about process and technology. Anthony Paradiso shares his views on a different kind of innovation – a real need to have necessary, uncomfortable conversations to help move organizations (and society) forward.
• Having difficult conversations about race was also on the mind of Dr. Marcia Robinson. Her post outlines the different roles we take in conversations, and how important it is for us to be Validators.

Recruiting is ever-changing

Another common theme from contributors was around recruiting in an age of rapid change:

• This post from Micole Garatti challenges organizations to rethink the need to recruit leaders and to focus more on recruiting good followers. In a world that focuses on leadership, the idea of flipping our thinking on the concept of leadership is intriguing!
• Mark Fogel takes a different approach and challenges organization’s thinking on recruiting in the age of activism, pointing out that not every situation follows a simple playbook.

Potpourri (the greatest Jeopardy category)

Rounding out our Carnival is the group of “and the rest” – these are posts that focus on ways organizations are rethinking the employee experience, rethinking what makes a worker an “employee,” or general thoughts on lessons learned:

• It takes an experimental nature to rethink work today and in the future. Kurian Prasad outlines the idea of a “human process lab” to help organizations innovate and drive creativity.
• Sometimes the best way to know what you learned is to look back on a situation and conduct a post-mortem – which is exactly what Sabrina Baker recommends in a recent post. (The questions she recommends? Fabulous.)
• A new way of working means a new way of thinking about the employee experience. When redesigning it for your organization, it can be helpful to have a foundation upon which to build your future. This post from Gil Cohen helps you be intentional about your approach, providing structure to drive your innovation.
• A little in-house shout out to IA’s own Kimberly Carroll‘s post on how businesses can continue to reinvent and transform themselves by adopting a mindset of continuous improvement.
• As work continues to evolve, businesses will be challenged on the very definition of “employee.” Stuart Rudner highlights recent court decisions that the business world needs to be aware of.
• And last, but certainly not least, John Baldino is the very model of self-reflection as he celebrates his 50th birthday. It’s a beautiful look back on his life so far and what he wants to carry forward – applicable to so many situations.

So there you have it – the July 2020 edition of the Carnival of HR. Hopefully you are inspired to try something new, feel challenged in your assumptions, or find some new voices to follow. If you do like something you read, reach out to that author and let them know – people like to know someone has connected to their work.

Be good to each other, take care, and keep learning!