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The interview remains a hiring manager's most effective tool for evaluating job candidates. Unfortunately, managers too often rely on a list of standard interview questions for which most applicants have canned responses.
The message: Ask generic questions and you'll get generic answers. Instead, try these queries, each designed to get applicants to really tell you about themselves and their skills...
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In business writing, you don't receive extra credit for slathering your sentences with fancy phrases, the way you did in college.
Do that in a memo or e-mail, and you can expect eyes to glaze over. What you cut from your writing is often more important than what you add to it, says Jane Dominguez of The Write Business Advantage. Trim the clutter from business writing with her tips:...
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Storms like the unprecedented blizzards that knocked out power, roads and transit lines in many parts of the country this winter didn't manage to shut down the workplace for everyone.
Even when workers can't get to the office, some businesses maintained operations and productivity by extending the workplace into the homes of their employees. Getting work done is more about the process than the place. Plan ahead for situations like inclement weather. When the weather or another emergency, such
as a flu outbreak or a terrorism threat, turns your employees into accidental telecommuters, your organization-and the teleworkers-will be better off if they're prepared to work from home. Your best bet: Before the next weather emergency hits, develop systems and start training your employees to work productively from
remote locations. Teach managers how to supervise from afar. Here are guidelines that have worked in organizations around the country:...
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Managers Don't Matter Managers matter more in a tough economic climate, but they are not the sole factor in employee retention.
That's the contention of experts who argue that worker defections have little to do with how well or poorly management performs. Others say managing effectively is more important for employee retention than ever before.
The old saw that "people don't leave companies, they leave managers" has become outdated-if it ever was true. Recent polls on retention reveal that crummy managers aren't the principal cause of employee defections. While employers say the manager-employee tie is the biggest or second-biggest reason workers
jump ship, employees put many other factors ahead of the manager connection, such as stress and base pay. Still, some experts argue that getting manager-employee relations right is vital now. Managers, observers say, play a crucial role in inspiring workers in firms that are often in flux, frequently riddled with distrust
and increasingly distributed across the globe. Studies show employee engagement has dropped during the recession. And in the wake of company decisions to cut staff, freeze salaries and take other cost-cutting steps, many workers are itching to bolt their firms. To knit alienated employees into cohesive, innovative
teams, companies will have to...
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The Art of Motivation Help your employees do better by introducing them to the benefits their jobs produce.
Face-to-face contact -- even for a superficial minute or two -- can have substantial impact on the motivation and productivity of workers. It may sound touchy-feely, but it's been documented in research papers -- and it may enhance employee engagement for positions that historically have high turnover and low morale.
Could a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity? In some employment environments, the answer is yes, according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant. Grant has devoted significant chunks of his professional career to examining what motivates workers in
settings that range from call centers and mail-order pharmacies to swimming pool lifeguard squads. In all these situations, Grant says, employees who know their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don't; they are vastly more productive, too. That conclusion may sound
touchy-feely, but Grant has documented it in a series of research papers. In one experiment,...
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An innovative idea doesn't necessarily depend on its strength or weakness, but on who is pitching the idea. A company's success, ultimately, may be less about the availability of innovative ideas and more about the human beings who need to share them.
It's hard to imagine that any of the world's top multinational corporations have something in common with the angst-ridden, clique-driven drama of a high-school cafeteria. But, like the adolescent years we all remember, a multinational gets just as caught up with popularity contests and in-crowds as teenagers --
especially when it comes to sharing ideas and best practices within their own organizations. Multinationals often have built up a rich collection of knowledge over the years in ways that smaller companies can only dream of. They use their vast global reach to tap different markets quickly and exploit their
on-the-ground knowledge to sniff out new ideas or products being used at rival companies in other parts of the world. "The advantage of being a multinational is exactly this knowledge access on a global basis," says Felipe Monteiro, a Wharton professor of management whose recent research looks at how and
why new knowledge spreads within firms. "What is equally interesting is the gap between the potential for that [access] and the actual use of such global knowledge," he says. At the heart of the issue is...
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At a Conference Board event this month, experts from big-name corporations candidly discussed their endless frustration over finding the right employees for the job.
Do you have the right talent in your organization? The blunt answer for many of America's largest enterprises is: "Not yet"-and the reasons are striking...
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Jim Ellis talks with Alice Schroeder, author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, about how the super-investor oversees CEOs of companies he invests in...
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Anger doesn't pay Use 'psychological flexibility' to diffuse anger and climb to the top.
If you've not studied Emotional Intelligence you should, especially if you want to be a top performer. Two powerful reasons back up that statement. First, research shows that the overwhelming difference between top performers and average performers is higher levels of Emotional Intelligence. The second reason? Emotional Intelligence is totally learnable.
Emotional Intelligence (what many call "EQ") is a type of skill or intelligence that enables you to perceive and assess the emotions, desires, and tendencies of yourself as well as of those around you, and make the best decision for all concerned that moves everyone in the direction of a common goal. There's a lot in
that definition. To succeed, one must start with some essential understandings and also become a student of the different styles of behaviors (four core styles exist), different human values (six basic value systems provide a good start), and different thinking styles (four distinct measurements form the most common
models). One could spend years studying these things, and in fact, many do, usually finishing with a psychology degree. But for us non-psychologist types, we can still learn what makes people tick. Contrary to popular belief, it's a relatively simple undertaking. Also, since more than two thirds of the difference between top performers and average performers is EQ, it's practically a no-brainer to study it if you want to be a top performer. [Therefore, if your work involves dealing with people (most jobs do), and you want a foundation upon which you can build your emotional intelligence skills, here are a few things to know:...]
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You run your own company. Think you know what works when hiring a new employee? Experts say: think again. Most managers skimp on time and energy needed to find the best candidates for a job.
You've grown it from the ground-up, and things are going so smoothly you're ready to expand. That should be simple enough: You have a knack for finding the right people to help business thrive. Right? Wrong, says Mark Clark, an associate professor at American University's Kosgod School of Business. "Managers say, oh, I
know what I'm looking for," he says. "Fact is that's the worst way to hire." What's so flawed about that way of thinking, Clark says, is that it...
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