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| Volume 9, Issue 9 |
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In This Issue:
 Get ideas flowing with a job swap
Take your career from good to great
A secret for contending with colleagues
Six Sigma makes a comeback
 Free handout for managers: 9 strategies for unleashing employees' creativity
How to silence 7 common employee gripes
 The Good, the Bad and the Manager's Role
Why 30-year-olds rule the world
 Three levels of persuasive conversations
 Shredding the workplace rule book
 Building a culture of employee appreciation
 Understanding users of social networks
 How Facebook ruins friendships
 The 'new' sexual harassment
When a colleague falls gravely ill
Top five money mistakes we all make
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Get ideas flowing with a job swap
To keep workers fresh and help inspire new ideas, try rotating jobs and departments within the company.
Mike went to a high school with hundreds of kids in each class, which made gym class kind of a circus. But a technique that his gym teachers used to make sure all the
kids got to participate is a great model for how to infuse energy into your team while generating powerful new ideas at the same time. Let Mike explain...
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Take your career from good to great
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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A secret for contending with colleagues
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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Six Sigma makes a comeback
With the outlook for sales growth dim, everyone from Target to Cadbury to Merck is turning to Six Sigma to squeeze out more savings.
Here's one more reason why the world may face a jobless recovery: Six Sigma. In an attempt to boost earnings without putting more people on the payroll, companies are embracing the controversial data-driven system that aims to radically reduce production defects and improve processes in everything from marketing to manufacturing...
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Free handout for managers: 9 strategies for unleashing employees' creativity
True or false: Employees are either creative or they’re not—creativity isn’t a skill you can teach.
The answer: False. Some employees are more naturally creative than others. But managers can play a key role in creating an environment in which employees will want to look for...
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How to silence 7 common employee gripes
A recent study says that 40% of managers in the United States are considered “bad bosses” by their employees. Yet most managers assume that their relationships with their employees are running smoothly.
Obviously, some of those bosses are wrong … and that can create major problems for a business. A Gallup poll says organizations are 50% less productive—and 44% less profitable— when serious boss-employee conflicts exist. According to a new book, 30
Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers, some common employee complaints about management, plus ways managers can silence them, include:...
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The Good, the Bad and the Manager's Role
As the economy starts to improve, to retain their current employees and attract more as business demands increase, organizations will need to have their managers start acting like managers and less like individual contributors.
Today's employees have much higher expectations of what managers should do to support them compared with prior generations. Young workers are accustomed to praise and reinforcement, and they need time to develop interests and skills. Further, they expect immediate feedback and development.
Leverage Employee Engagement to Liberate and Retain Talent
No one else can affect how an employee feels as dramatically and tangibly as an employee's immediate manager. The most effective managers can engage employees and help them unleash their potential. They know their employees' strengths and development needs so well, they can give assignments that balance the employee's and the organization's needs. Coaching and feedback get...
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Why 30-year-olds rule the world
Of course, 30-year-olds don't actually rule the world. But in the next few years, they may get a stranglehold on the workplace.
Baby boomers aren't retiring nearly as quickly as was predicted before the recession hit, but there will still be knowledge and experience gaps that need to be filled. "There's approximately 70 million baby boomers and approximately 43 million Generation Xers. That results in a 33 million people shortfall. If you look at
census data, it's going to take at least two generations to fill the knowledge gap left by the baby boomers in the U.S., and it may be even worse in other countries in Europe and the Far East," said Karen Jackson, managing partner of C-ChangeWork LLC. "The implications of that shortfall mean we're going to have more knowledge gaps and
less people to fill those gaps. These 30-somethings are going to be able to write their own ticket if they have particular skills or if they are A-team players or provide heavy levels of contribution to the business." "Organizations need their...
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Three levels of persuasive conversations
"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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Shredding the workplace rule book
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It's a myth that restructuring is creating a labour market awash with talent" |
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There's striking disagreement on the shape of the economic upturn – being touted are 'J', 'L', 'V', 'U', 'W' or even a 'saxophone shaped upturn', however what's sure is it's coming. With the upturn – welcome or not – is a complete shredding of the workplace rulebook!
Today's workplace consists of finely balanced interdependencies between people, space, technologies, culture, and management practices. It demands HR professionals talk fluent real estate, real estate professionals talk fluent talent and collaboration, technologists talk fluent culture, and managers be fluent in trust,
agility, and social connection. Get it right and the workplace is a vibrant, inspiring place that motivates creativity, innovation, and untold performance levels. Get it wrong and it's dull and disenfranchising, with staff bored by the tedium. This isn't some abstract theory – everyone reading this article will, at
some point, have experienced a dull workplace and equally will have experienced a vibrant one. The current economic turmoil has brought about a unique combination of factors that's not merely overturning workplace rules, it's completely shredding the rule book! Prominent factors in this upheaval are:...
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Building a culture of employee appreciation
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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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Understanding users of social networks
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"Women actually say things, guys give references to other things."
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If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski.
"All first drafts are terrible. I don't care if you're Hemingway." "What comes out unfiltered from anyone's mind is mud." The first two quotations come from writing professors whose names I've since forgotten (and they were quoting other people whom they'd forgotten). The last one is one I just made up myself. But regardless of the
source, the advice is sound: no email should be clicked-to-send without revision. I've found that for your average email, the number of revisions largely depends on the number of recipients. Here's my experience:...
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How Facebook ruins friendships
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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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The 'new' sexual harassment
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Sexual harassment isn't about being chased around the desk anymore. It's about flirtation, subtle power plays, retaliation and, of course, text messages.
The past decade saw the explosion of wage-and-hour class actions brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act. This very technical and complex statute requires an analysis of an employer's business and employee-job requirements to ensure proper compliance. Therefore, smart employers gladly commit the necessary recourses to
wage-and-hour audits and training because failing to do so invariably leads to devastating legal consequences -- especially in light of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis's recent announcement that she is adding more investigators in the DOL's Wage-and-hour Division to seek out and prosecute noncompliance. Because
misclassification of employees for wage-and-hour purposes is a prevalent employer problem, in addition to answering the specific wage-and-hour reader questions this month, I have included (within the limited space allotted) more detailed information to help you tackle this often confusing legal issue...
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When a colleague falls gravely ill
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What do you do? To start with, acknowledge the condition and offer specific help.
In July, Melanie Holmes, a vice president at the staffing firm Manpower, in Milwaukee, Wis., received devastating news. The breast cancer she had fought and conquered a decade ago had returned with a vengeance. It had crept into her bones, forcing her, at 58, to undergo new, toxic chemotherapy treatments once a week,
possibly for the rest of her life. Less than three weeks after starting chemo, she had lost her hair. She says she feels well, but she takes off Thursdays to undergo treatment. Fridays are personal days to recover and regroup. A 28-year veteran at Manpower ( MAN - news - people ), Holmes has written a blog about workplace issues
for the last two years, covering everything from leadership to interviewing techniques. Since receiving her cancer news last month, she has turned her attention to a topic all working people confront at some point in their lives: how to deal with a gravely ill colleague...
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Top five money mistakes we all make
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When it comes to money, there are some classic female financial flubs. Here's what to do about them.
In June, when Kate-Lynn Timmermans, a 25-year-old compliance associate at a hedge fund, received a foreclosure notice on the door of her Manhattan rental apartment, she realized she'd have to do something about it. Despite knowing she would shortly need a cash infusion for moving costs, a broker fee and a deposit, Timmermans went
out to drinks and dinner with friends. "I thought, 'I deserve it,' " she says. What she deserved didn't stop there. After dinner, she got on her computer, saw an e-mail from a favorite online sample sale site and scooped up a $150 Michael Kors watch. Three months later, still feeling "anxious" from the move, she treated herself to
$2,500 worth of new rugs and furniture, including a motorized recliner that she admits was completely impractical for her small new apartment. "I thought, 'The move was really rough, I might as well treat myself,' " says Timmermans. It was only when the credit card bills starting to roll in that her shop-phoria wore off. "I've
always been an emotional spender," she sighs. "It's not very logical." Maybe it's not logical, but it's quite common...
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