Hmm.. some more comments from Jack Welch

I was reading a blog this morning about Jack Welch’s speech at the SHRM conference and was quite appalled at some of the things that were said- and also surprised that I hadn’t heard more about it to be honest.

Earlier I blogged about Jack Welch and praised him for his comments about the importance of HR in the business.

Then this morning I heard reports from the US about what he said about work-life balance and women.

Essentially he said:

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

Welch said, “We’d love to have more women moving up faster, but they’ve got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.”

WTF??

Seems like we are back in the ages… I have seen women do both, and its disappointing that such a prominent CEO thinks it isn’t possible.

Read more on the whole thing here

Jack Welch Says HR Managers Have the Most Important Job in America

Earlier this week I wrote a post “Banking on People”, which outlined David Morgan’s speach at the AHRI National Convention. He made a number of genuine statements about how important people are to your business and how important it was for him as a CEO to work extremely closely with the HR Director.

Additionally, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, was the opening keynote speaker at the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) 61 st Annual Conference and Exposition in New Orleans this week. He says that HR managers have the most important job in America and that CEOs should value their HR managers as much as their chief financial officers.

I think the fact that highly succesful CEO’s in America and Australia are openly coming out and making these statements is so powerful and is necessary in order to drive a change in the way that leaders in the business view Human Resources.

Read more on Jack’s speech here