Entrepreneur Jessica Rovello tells us how she came up with an innovative way to solve a routine problem in her business.
Most employees dread those long, boring staff meetings -- but not at Arkadium.
In fact, at this developer of online flash-based games, the 35 employees at the New York office look forward to the Monday meetings. They are eager to see what will happen this week, perhaps the conference table will be used for...
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Transform your unfulfilling career into something extraordinary using three strategies to overcome common assumptions that hold you back.
Do you ever find yourself asking, "Is this it?" Sure, you've had some successes in your career, made some money, received a promotion or two. Yet you can't help but wonder, "Is this what I am supposed to be doing with my life? Is this the limit of my contribution?" These questions are familiar territory for me. At the age of 35, I
was stuck in a career rut. Then, unexpectedly, my life turned in an extraordinary new direction. Over the course of the next 18 months, I...
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Instead of puzzling over the behavior of others, work on changing your reaction to it, says Peter Bregman.
A few months ago my wife Eleanor came home upset after an incident with one of the parents at our daughter's school. That afternoon, when Eleanor said hello to Michelle, Michelle completely ignored her. Thinking maybe Michelle hadn't heard her, Eleanor said hello again, this time louder. Again, no response. Michelle wasn't speaking on the phone or in a conversation with another parent. She was able to respond, she just refused to. Eleanor was getting the silent treatment. Not one to give up, she said hello a third time. Finally, Michelle mumbled something without looking up and walked away. Eleanor wasn't friends with Michelle. They had only spoken a few times in the past, most notably when she called Eleanor to complain about something our daughter did. Still, she was thrown off balance by Michelle's cold shoulder. It was one of those small things that's hard to get out of your mind. She wasn't expecting it. [At this point, should you still be surprised when your boss for the 100th time doesn't invite you to a meeting? Or when you send a colleague a nice email and it goes unanswered? Again. Here's my advice:...]
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"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." —James Thurber.
It's like fingernails down a chalkboard for me. There is a Friday night gathering of the neighbors out in front of the house. The kids are all riding scooters and doing their best to imitate Tony Romo in their game of two-hand-touch football. As one of the 3-year-olds begins to pull caffeine-free sodas out of the cooler and hand them
out to the other kids, the child constantly is talking to every parent and child as he peddles his wares looking for his next customer. Here come the fingernails down the chalkboard…one of the adults makes the comment, "Boy, he sure is gonna make a great salesman someday. That boy sure can talk!" Why does everyone think the best
salesperson is always the best "talker?" It's as if that is the only skill needed to be a good salesperson. In my 18 years of experience in sales and sales management, I have not found that to be true. Some of the successful salespeople I have observed were good talkers, but oftentimes, they were not the best speakers. In fact, the
most successful salespeople I have met were not the best talkers at all. They held a much more valuable selling skill:...
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Sourcing applicants from Twitter or LinkedIn or screening candidates through Facebook or MySpace may open employers to discrimination charges.
In the rush to cut recruiting budgets and avoid the avalanche of résumés now generated by job boards, employers are increasingly tapping professional and social networking sites as a sourcing tool. Some employers now rely heavily or even exclusively on Twitter or LinkedIn to fill open positions. While this approach may
create short-term cost savings and new efficiencies, it may also skew applicant pools and trigger discrimination lawsuits. “Networking sites, including Twitter, exclude whole populations,”...
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Weight-focused health policy can merely end up penalizing obese workers and adding to the stigma of being severely overweight. But some employers are taking a more thoughtful approach to the emotionally fraught issue in attempting to improve workers’ health and reduce medical costs.
Before he was a thin man, Mark Blei, a soft-spoken New Yorker with 20 years of sales experience, rolled with the fat jokes and perceived slights. In 2005, weight-loss surgery that was paid for by his employer, a direct marketing firm, helped him shed most of the nearly 400 pounds that draped his 6-foot-tall frame. It dawned on him
then, as he reached 145 pounds within a year of his surgery, how much his weight had made him a pariah. “Imagine being a black man in the 1950s, applying for a six-figure job,” says Blei, 41. “And then one day you wake up and you are...
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Experts on workplace violence say early intervention is the best way to deal with troubled employees but that incidents of conflict in the workplace are typically underreported.
The arrest of a co-worker in the strangulation death of Yale University student Annie Le has led police in New Haven, Connecticut, to portray the killing as an example of workplace violence that has become increasingly prominent nationwide. Police on Thursday, September 17, charged Raymond Clark III, a technician who worked
alongside Le in one of the school's animal research laboratories, with murder, alleging that DNA evidence linked him to the crime. New Haven Police Chief James Lewis told reporters the homicide could have happened anywhere in the country. “It is important to note,” Lewis said, “that this is not about urban crime, university
crime, domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country.” Yale University president Richard C. Levin said in a statement that...
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If discrimination has always been a head-in-the-sand issue for you and your organization, it’s time to get serious about your policies and practices.
Discrimination complaints of all types—race, sex, age, etc.—have climbed as steeply in the past year as the economy has fallen. Employees filed 95,402 job discrimination claims in fiscal year 2008, up a whopping 26% in the past two years. It’s the most claims since the EEOC was established in 1965. Some types of
bias—including retaliation and age claims—have jumped nearly 50% since 2006 (see chart below). Considering that employers face new laws, changed regulations and a continuing economic downturn, it’s safe to say complaints will increase for the near future. Advice: Don’t get caught flat-footed. Know exactly how to handle a
discrimination claim before one arrives. (See our primer: “How to respond to an EEOC complaint.”) Remember that your best approach is always to steer clear of the EEOC’s crosshairs in the first place by making sure your workplace is discrimination-free. Six tips:...
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HR professionals are often in the position of having to say "no" to employees. Don't make that negative perception worse with the nonverbal cues you may be inadvertently giving off.
Experts say that's a particular problem with women in business. But these are the habits that can hold you back professionally regardless of gender. All it takes is a single nonverbal tic to send a negative message, no matter how brilliant your ideas or rigorous your work ethic. “Many of us have no idea that our nonverbal cues are
making an impact,” says Carey O’Donnell, president of Carey O’Donnell Public Relations Group. “There are thousands of microexpressions, and people are reading these, even if they are only subconsciously translating these cues.” You have just four minutes to make a first impression, and, according to a widely cited study by
UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian, body language accounts for 55% of that impression (38% comes from tone of voice; the remaining 7% from our actual words). Five other negative microexpressions common to women:...
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1. Expectant and new moms get help from co-worker ‘buddies’
At Michigan-based accounting firm Plante & Moran, HR pairs expectant moms with those who’ve recently had babies so they can ask questions and get support. Buddies meet on company time, go out for lunches and participate in relationship-building exercises. Buddies also help new moms make a successful transition back to work.
Most of the moms take four to six months off after a birth. The company allows anyone who is eligible for FMLA leave to take up to six months’ parental leave. Employees tap their paid leave before dipping into their short-term disability insurance. 2...
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The FMLA entitles eligible employees to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from a serious health condition or assist an immediate family member with a serious health condition.
The key to determining whether the employee or family member has a condition that meets the law’s definition of “serious health condition” is the medical certification the employer receives from the employee’s health care provider.
What's new
In January, the Bush administration updated FMLA regulations, tightening the rules regarding who may request certification. To maintain employee privacy, the person requesting the information from the health care provider must be...
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Never had to worry about unions before? You do now – because change is on its way. As President Obama told top labor officials, “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act.”
EFCA is being called “the most sweeping pro-union legislation in 50 years.” With its controversial “card-check” provision dropped, experts predict that a version will indeed pass, making it much harder to resist a union campaign. Look for contentious debate on EFCA to begin in Congress next month. And EFCA, as sweeping as it is, is
just one of several landmark labor bills that may forever change the face of your workplace. That’s why unions will be a major topic of conversation at LEAP 2009: the Labor & Employment Law Advanced Practices Symposium, taking place November 4-6 in Washington, DC. LEAP 2009 will feature a session entitled Union Organizing – the
Rules Have Changed (Are Your Prepared?). Presenters Jonathan Kaplan and David Rittof will provide a comprehensive overview not just of EFCA, but of all the labor-related legislation before Congress and in the pipeline. In addition, Rittof will speak on the warning signs of union organizing in your workplace, including
(but not limited to):...
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You have heard all of the general advice and theories about getting “a seat at the table.”
But what does it take to jump the fence from your administrative role and be seen as a true leader in the company? The HR Specialist posed the following question to three of the leading HR...
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How Datotel overhauled its employee-appreciation, -recognition, and -incentive programs. David Brown thinks it's important to make his employees feel valued. So Brown, founder and president of Datotel, an IT services and data storage business in St. Louis with 38 employees, was dismayed when he realized his employee-of-the-month program wasn't helping morale. Recipients didn't seem enthusiastic about the award,
which consisted of a $25 gift card, a perfunctory e-mail, and a mention on the company intranet. It seems like a simple concept: Make employees feel appreciated, and they will work harder and be more loyal. But there is often a disconnect between the type of appreciation employees want and what their managers think they want,
according to a recent study by the International Association of Administrative Professionals and OfficeTeam, a staffing company in Menlo Park, California. Managers responding to the survey ranked...
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Nearly half of U.S. companies are automatically enrolling workers into 401(k) plans, according to a new Watson Wyatt survey.
The poll also uncovered that the number of employers that use target-date or lifecycle funds as their default option has increased dramatically in the last few years. Forty-seven percent of 149 large employers now auto-enroll their employees into their defined contribution plan, while one-third of those that do not currently
auto-enroll are pondering the idea, found Watson Wyatt during the March and April 2009 survey. “While plan sponsors have made progress towards encouraging greater participation, saving and educated decision making, there is still room for...
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Notice to my friends: I love you all dearly.
But I don't give a hoot that you are "having a busy Monday," your child "took 30 minutes to brush his teeth," your dog "just ate an ant trap" or you want to "save the piglets." And I really, really don't care which Addams Family member you most resemble. (I could have told you the answer before you took the quiz on Facebook.)
Here's where you and I went wrong: We took our friendship online. First we began communicating more by email than by phone. Then we switched to "instant messaging" or "texting." We "friended" each other on Facebook, and began communicating by "tweeting" our thoughts—in 140 characters or less—via Twitter. All this online
social networking was supposed to make us closer. And in some ways it has. Thanks to the Internet, many of us have gotten back in touch with friends from high school and college, shared old and new photos, and become better acquainted with some people we might never have grown close to offline. Last year, when a friend of mine was hit by
a car and went into a coma, his friends and family were able to easily and instantly share news of his medical progress—and send well wishes and support—thanks to a Web page his mom created for him. But there's a danger here, too. If we're not careful, our online interactions can hurt our real-life relationships...
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Concern Over Swine Flu Grows, Prompting a Hard Look at the Hygiene Hot Spots During the Day.
They lurk on the kitchen sponge, your computer keyboard and the dirty laundry. Flush the toilet and they become airborne. Strangers leave them behind on airplanes, gas pumps, shopping carts, coffeeshop counters and elevator buttons. Your desktop, office microwave handles, and the exercise bike at the gym are covered with them.
Don't even think about the toys at day-care centers or the kids' playground equipment. Germs—the microscopic bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa that can cause disease—cling to the most common surfaces and then hitch a ride on our hands. As swine flu spreads from person to person around the world, it is most often being
transmitted by coughing or sneezing, but it can also infect people who touch something with flu virus on it and then touch their mouth or nose, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns. And like an unwelcome house guest, a flu virus can hang around for days. [Still, I wanted to know where in my home, office and
wider world I should most forcefully brandish my disinfectant wipes and hand-sanitizer. My calls to experts turned up some surprising culprits:...]
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