ormer employment attorney and author Jathan Janove writes for SHRM Online on how to inject greater humanity into HR compliance. He welcomes your questions and suggestions for future columns. Contact him at the e-mail address at the end of this column.
Perhaps more than anything else, the University of Chicago is known for proposing and studying economic theories, such as the so-called Chicago school of economics. When I attended law school there, I received an immersion into economic theory. I had been an English major before starting law school; studying there was like learning how to swim by being thrown into the deep end without water wings or nose plugs.
Yet years later as an employment law attorney and then as an HR coach and consultant, I came to appreciate the value of using basic principles of economic analysis to help HR step up its game.
Likelihood x Magnitude = Value
Previously, I wrote about the Solomon Paradox—the notion that our decision-making tends to be flawed because we don't consider enough information, we make too many assumptions, we limit our options and we impose too much rigidity.
In the 18th century, mathematician Daniel Bernoulli offered a solution to the Solomon Paradox. He stated that the key to happiness was making good life decisions. That meant, he asserted, assessing likelihood of outcome multiplied by magnitude of outcome. This would give you the present value of any contemplated action.
Bernoulli's formula underpins modern behavioral...
A court has ruled that Seo Mi-hwa, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker, and media outlets that reported her interview claiming former National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Standing Commissioner...