Entertaining Brain Teasers

I’ve shared the following with students, then with four children, and more recently with grandchildren as well as with friends.

Ignore the ANSWERS below until you have read and thought about the Qs.

1.   Some months have 30 days, some have 31. How many have 28?
2.  Take two apples from five apples. How many do you have?
3.  Divide 30 by one-half and add ten. What’s the total?
4.  A square house has a window on each of the four walls that has a southern exposure. A bear strolls by. What’s its color?

and my favorite:

5. You are driving a bus. At the first stop, three people get on; at the next stop, two get off and six get on; and then at the next stop four get off and one gets on; and then at the next stop, one gets on and five get off. What’s the name of the driver?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANSWERS

1. All of them
2. You have the two that you took.
3. 70
4. White. You are at the North Pole.
5. You are driving a bus.

Can the Exit Interview Be An Engagement Tool?

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Frank Kalman for Talent Management magazine. To check out all the resources and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.

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Using exit interviews to measure employee engagement may not be the norm, but there are times it can help gauge employee sentiments.

Organizations employ a variety of methods to measure and track employee engagement, but probably none as surprising as this: In a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Globoforce, an employee-recognition-services firm, 65 percent of firms reported using exit interviews as one of the ways they measure engagement.

“It’s like closing the barn after the horse is already out,” said Kevin Kruse, author of We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement, in reaction to the finding.

“It’s after the fact, and engagement is something that happens when they’re employed,” added Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and well-being at performance management firm Gallup.

Even Derek Irvine, vice president of client strategy and consulting with Globoforce, was taken aback by exit interviews’ prominence as part of the engagement measurement process.

The bottom line, all three said, is that the exit interview is not the best place to have a comprehensive engagement conversation with an employee. Some even questioned the validity of an exit interview altogether.

Yet the three did agree, after some thought, that if an exit interview is going to be used to track engagement, there are some instances where the data could be used to help firms add value.

Harter said the exit interview might become a principal engagement measurement tool if a firm is experiencing a rash of employee defections. “If you’re bleeding, you’ve got to get the stitches out and fix it if you’ve got a deep cut,” he said.

In this case, the exit interview becomes especially important, since HR managers need to figure out what to change in the short term to boost retention and get a gauge on engagement.

“Maybe they’ve lost some of their best performers,” Harter said. “[The exit interview] is more of a short-term fix from my perspective: ‘Let’s understand what we need to do differently right now.’”

Exit interviews can also bring forth surprising candor on engagement-related subjects from departing employees, Kruse said.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Frank Kalman is an associate editor of Talent Management magazine. He can be reached at fkalman@talentmgt.com.