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If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. Volume 7, Issue 7      In This Issue:   Your personal best: A magical team building activity   Keep company and employee information safe   Work dress codes and image collection   Celebrate halloween at work   I can get your kid into an ivy   10 tips for networkers   How do you manage an off-site team?   Netflix: Recruiting and retaining the best talent   7 lessons from a bad manager   10 ways project management skills can help your career   Public speaking panic   Americans don't use their vacation time, studies show   Developing a conflict-competent organization   Toxic success: Managing the cult of productivity   What is your employment brand?   Beyond day one   Secrets of the self-made 2007   How to be a workaholic... without killing yourself   Best fitness benchmarks   Las Vegas' finest buffets Your personal best: A magical team building activity Picture this. I'd been asked to lead the final team building activity of the day before drinks and dinner. The audience will have been in meetings since eight in the morning. The attendees would be police officers who are experts at making what they call "cop faces," expressionless features that don't provide much information or feedback for the facilitator. I had to come up with a prize winning team building activity. I think I did; if it worked with them - and it did - it will work with your teams, too. Take a look at the new team building activity: Your Personal Best: A Magical Team Building Activity. It's magical because it was a huge success with a tough-to-please and involved audience... Read the article.  Back to top Keep company and employee information safe Jeremy Wunsch, our guest author, says: "Right now, someone within your company may be accessing confidential corporate information either dishonestly or by accident." In the news virtually every week, you read about large, well-known companies suffering from the loss of sensitive corporate information at the hands of employees. Given that Human Resource departments often hold the key to valuable corporate and employee information, the risk of data breaches presents unique challenges for HR. "Fortunately, through simple and effective internal threat management procedures, HR can help prevent employee information leaks from happening to their company." Jeremy provides exceedingly important information about what companies should not do if they want to preserve the integrity of their investigation and respond effectively to any possible litigation. You will also want to take a look at: Identity Theft: Corporate Data Security Challenges... Read the article.  Back to top Work dress codes and image collection I went crazy writing dress codes for workplaces over the past few weeks. I was regularly receiving questions about what to wear for business casual workplaces, so I developed several of those dress codes awhile ago. But the questions increased recently about casual dress codes which more employers, especially employers who don't host customers in their workplace, were asking me to define. There is, indeed, a difference between business casual and casual. And, the more comfortably you allow your employees to dress, the happier they tend to be at work. Think about it. The less an employee needs to think about his or her attire for work when dressing in the morning, the better. You have removed a whole layer of stress from their lives. Since I was defining casual and business casual, I added a formal dress code for the possibly unfortunate people who still need to dress to the nines. I am careful here, however, because many people still enjoy dressing up for work. And, there is some research that indicates that productivity suffers in more casual workplaces. Off to find it, and when I do, I will share it, because my experience differs. See my complete dress code and work image collection... Read the article.  Back to top Celebrate halloween at work Traditions are important in companies just as they are in families. And, Halloween is one of the best holiday traditions to establish and to celebrate at work. Halloween has climbed right up the holiday charts and is now the second most popular holiday, second only to Christmas, so it's popular with employees, too. Celebrating Halloween at work appeals to the child in each of us and helps create a motivational, team work-oriented work culture... Read the article.  Back to top I can get your kid into an ivy Michele Hernandez boasts that 95% of her teenage clients are accepted by their first-choice school. Her price: As much as $40,000 a student. As I listened to my 8th period English teacher drone on for the third time about how Finny, a character in A Separate Peace, was indeed the main character although he was not the narrator, it finally dawned on me that this was not the exciting world of high school that I had hoped for. This is how Andrew Garza began an essay in his application to Haverford College. It was a 1,200-word piece that established him as an intellectually curious young man. It was crafted to appeal specifically to the admissions officers at the small liberal arts school. And it was the idea of his high-priced college admissions coach, Michele A. Hernandez. Garza attended a private school in Switzerland, and that worried Hernandez: She thought he might appear to be a privileged teenager without much substance. So she advised him to write about why he had left his public high school in suburban New Jersey. "We had to make it seem like he didn't want to be around so many rich kids. We spun a whole story about him taking the initiative to leave in order to broaden his experience," Hernandez says. "It was his initiative. But he wouldn't have written about it."Today Andrew is a senior at Haverford, studying sociology and economics. His father, John, paid Hernandez $18,000 for 18 months' worth of advice. "It is a lot of money," says Garza, a manager at Abitibi-Consolidated (ABY ) in New York. "But if you look at it as an investment, it's not a bad one."Hernandez may well be the most expensive college coach in America, charging as much as $40,000 to get a student into an elite college. As one of this fast-growing industry's most visible practitioners, she uses methods that are publicly scorned by rivals but are nonetheless becoming part of the profession's standard operating procedures. She is a divisive figure in an already controversial field, regularly drawing condemnation from admissions officers who say she is selling advantage to people who least need it. What makes her own story so compelling is that Hernandez is an insider-turned-outcast. [A former admissions officer at Dartmouth College, she dared to reveal secrets of the opaque selection process in her book, A Is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting Into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges, and then to build a thriving business that helps people game the system. As she says to parents: "You don't want to pay $180,000 for some piddling school when, by spending a little extra, your kid could get into Yale."]... Read the article.  Back to top 10 tips for networkers Predatory networkers have given the art of making connections a bad name. Here are some ways to handle predatory networkers—and avoid being one yourself. If you want to impress your friends with a fancy new word you've learned, here's a good one: retronym. Dictionary.com defines it as "a term, as acoustic guitar, coined in modification of the original referent that was used alone, as guitar, to distinguish it from a later contrastive development, as electric guitar." I bring this up in a workplace-advice column only because I've got a new retronym to add to our vocabulary, and it's this: "non-disgusting networking." Yes, back in the old days we could talk about plain old networking, referring to business events after hours and industry galas where businesspeople would mingle. We could use the word networking to refer to our LinkedIn activities and other kinds of outreach that happened among professional types online. Those days are pretty much gone. Now, if we don't want to alarm people when we talk about our networking endeavors, we have to be quick to note that we're talking about... Read the article.  Back to top How do you manage an off-site team? Allison is angry, Penny is provoked. Problem is, they both work off-site, creating a dilemma for Craig,their manager. Having employees in alternative workplaces, usually their homes, is a growing trend in management. Companies are closely monitoring the results from their own pilot projects as well as those of other firms. In this case study, acrimonious e-mails have revealed a serious rift between two at-home workers as well as larger flaws in the way the off-site program is managed. Craig, manager at the hypothetical Impressions Corporation, has two work-at-home employees at each other's virtual throats. His off-site program grew gradually, and while he's proud of the increased volume, he bemoans his lack of connection with his people. [...] If anything, the new virtual organization calls for more thoughtful planning and attentive management than traditional workplaces do... Read the article.  Back to top Netflix: Recruiting and retaining the best talent Surrounded by fierce rivals, founder Reed Hastings keeps the troops motivated with hefty compensation and luxe perks, including lots of time off. I had the great fortune of doing a mediocre job at my first company," says Netflix Inc. (NFLX ) founder Reed Hastings. He's talking about his 1990s startup Pure Software, a wildly successful maker of debugging programs that, through a series of mergers, became part of IBM (IBM ). Hastings says Pure, like many other outfits, went from being a heat-filled, everybody-wants-to-be-here place to a dronish, when-does-the-day-end sausage factory. "We got more bureaucratic as we grew," says Hastings. After Pure, the Stanford-trained engineer spent two years thinking about how to ensure his next endeavor wouldn't suffer the same big-company creep. The resulting sequel is Netflix, where Hastings is trying to revolutionize not only the way people rent movies but also how his managers work. Hastings pays his people lavishly, gives them unlimited vacations, and lets them structure their own compensation packages. In return, he expects ultra-high performance. His 400 salaried employees are expected to do the jobs of three or four people. Netflix is no frat party with beer bashes and foosball tables. Nor does the company want to play cruise director to its employees. Rather, Netflix is a tough, fulfilling, "fully formed adult" culture, says marketing manager Heather McIlhany. "There's no place to hide at Netflix." Hastings calls his approach "freedom and responsibility." And as one might expect, employees get all cinematic when describing the vibe... Read the article.  Back to top 7 Lessons from a bad manager Many people work for bosses who are horrible at what they do. It is an enviable situation that is fairly common. When circumstances such as these arise, most dwell negatively on the situation while complaining about how terrible their plight is. Naturally, this does not yield productive results. Nonetheless, the individual seems to take solace in the whining. A much better approach when confronted with this scenario is to attempt to learn all you can from the situation. The changing of jobs is so common in this era that 5 years is considered long term tenure. People facing this dilemma often only need to deal with it for a short period of time. Typically, either the manager or the employee move on within a reasonable time frame. If an individual tries to gain all the knowledge possible from that person, he/she skills will grow. I encountered a working relationship similar to what others experience... Read the article.  Back to top 10 ways project management skills can help your career I know that I can always count on her to get the job done." In today's digital world, what employers are looking for may surprise you. They assume you're going to be technologically literate and that you have the skills that are specific to your industry. Once you have the basics, they want to know that you can perform, achieve results and play well with others. According to the "National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2007" survey, employers rated communication skills, and honesty and integrity equally at the top of their list of what they look for in potential employees. Following closely behind communication, and honesty and integrity were: interpersonal skills, motivation/initiative, strong work ethic and teamwork skills. What struck me as I read those skills was that all of them are inherent in Project Management, and it emphasized what I've believed for years: Project Management is a career accelerator. Here's how you can use Project Management to put your career in high gear... Read the article.  Back to top Public speaking panic Public speaking ability isn't a talent reserved for politicians and telemarketers—corporate trainers find it useful, too. Here, seven steps to steady your shaking voice and spice up your monotone delivery. Just because you love education, and the intersection between learning and corporate profit, doesn’t mean people are lining up to hear you speak. As acute as your understanding of the human brain is—what with your psychology and higher education degrees—getting your own fears of public speaking under control can be daunting. Some tips:... Read the article.  Back to top Americans don't use their vacation time, studies show One expert offers advice on how to change their ways. According to surveys conducted by CareerBuilder.com and Hudson, a leading provider of permanent recruitment, contract professionals and talent management, more than a third of Americans don't use their allotted time off. While the average number of vacation days is a paltry 12 (compared to Europe with four weeks or more), employees are taking fewer days than ever. To help Americans use those vacation days, Hyatt Resorts has teamed up with Julie Morgenstern, organization and time management expert and New York Times best-selling author, who has developed tips to help people become more balanced—and take time off... Read the article.  Back to top Developing a conflict-competent organization When we ask participants in our leadership programs to describe conflict, most use terms such as "stress," "frustration" and "anger." When asked how they generally deal with conflict, they admit that they try to avoid it. So, it is not surprising most organizations wind up getting the worst out of conflict without ever experiencing the benefits it can bring. To change this situation, leaders need to make conscious efforts to develop their organizations' conflict competence. With all the other imperatives they face, why should leaders focus on improving their organizations' capacity to manage conflict? Two key reasons emerge... Read the article.  Back to top Toxic success: Managing the cult of productivity You might know it when you see it in others, but it eludes simple description. "It" is toxic success — success that has crossed some kind of invisible boundary between normal and dysfunctional. Toxic success is a dysfunctional level of productivity and accomplishment that was once satisfying and energizing, and has become all-consuming, energy-depleting and dissatisfying. Physical and emotional health, interpersonal relationships and organizational performance all might be severely compromised because of the effects of toxic success. Just about everyone who achieves a high level of accomplishment is at one time or another at risk of toxic success. Why? Because success is seductive, flattering, self-reinforcing — and often lucrative. At some point, however, the costs of excessive productivity can begin to outweigh the rewards, and success can become engulfing. The slippery slope of toxic success often results from... Read the article.  Back to top What is your employment brand? Every organization has an employment brand. It is made up of how people feel about working there, how potential job candidates view the company and even how the company is perceived by the market it serves. A distinctive employment brand is essential to lure and retain the best talent, which is the key competitive advantage for those organizations winning in today's marketplace. Leading-edge companies openly articulate their employment brand and market it to talent as aggressively as they do their product or service brands to consumers or business customers. Not surprisingly, HR is a logical steward in defining and communicating a compelling brand with senior leadership's validation. The Five Pillars of a Strong Employment Brand "Employment branding is the hottest strategy in employment," said Dr. John Sullivan, human resource management professor at the College of Business at San Francisco State University. "It is one of the few long-term solutions to the 'shortage of talent' problem. Whereas most employment strategies are short-term and 'reactive' to job openings, building an employment brand is a longer-term solution designed to provide a steady flow of applicants." A solid employment brand is... Read the article.  Back to top Beyond day one Top of the Line The editors of Human Resource Executive® announce their selections for the top HR and training products of 2007. We feel confident these 13 products deliver what they promise. Electronic onboarding can cut costs and the time needed for new employees to master their jobs. But its real value may be even more strategic. The MGM Mirage Co., owner of 10 casinos on the Las Vegas Strip is hiring -- and hiring. "We don't have high turnover, but we have 50,000 employees on the [Vegas] Strip, and we have to hire 10,000 a year," says Richard Vosburgh, a senior vice president of HR at Mirage Resorts, a division of gaming conglomerate MGM Mirage. The workload of Vosburgh and his team is about to get even heavier: In 2009, MGM Mirage will open Project CityCenter,a $7.4 billion development currently under construction in Las Vegas that will include hotels, shopping centers and condos and which will require the hiring of 12,000 new employees. Their job, however, will be made easier by electronic onboarding, a process that's designed to reduce paperwork, reduce the time it takes for new employees to become productive and, ideally, help them feel like more than mere cogs in a vast machine... Read the article.  Back to top Secrets of the self-made 2007 They're rich-- really rich--and in the mood to share. Their secrets, that is. We played 20 questions with 21 self-made members of the Forbes 400. Result: an exclusive, introspective and often playful peek into their best days, worst qualities, guiltiest pleasures and hardest lessons (among other things)... Read the article.  Back to top How to be a workaholic... without killing yourself So You Married A Workaholic Quiz: Are You Getting Enough Sleep? Everything you need to know to keep your sanity while burning the midnight oil. Robert Berman works 60 to 70 hours a week. When the 59-year-old communications consultant from Toronto is on one of his frequent business trips, he often “fails to acknowledge that it’s Friday” and works through the weekends for weeks at a time. He’s missed birthdays with his kids and anniversaries with his wife of 38 years. He even missed his daughter’s high school graduation. “According to most people I know, I was born a workaholic,” Berman says. “I enjoy doing what I do. I prefer to do business 24 hours a day if I can.” Workaholics are common. These people are often compelled, and even excited, to be at work more than social situations, whether they enjoy what they do or not. United States workers put in an average of 1,804 hours of work in 2006. That's a lot less than some countries--Korea topped the list with 2,305 hours--but it's still almost 300 more hours than the average Frenchman works. Yet, those long hours don’t have to wreak havoc on your life, and there are ways to make your time more enjoyable (and more efficient), both in the office and out... Read the article.  Back to top Best fitness benchmarks In Pictures: Best Fitness Benchmarks   If you've ever tried to set a fitness goal, you know it can be tricky business. Set the bar too low and you may find you're lacking motivation. Aim too high--think a four-minute mile--and you're bound for disappointment. So how do you set goals that are right for you? One way to go, fitness experts say, is to assess and record your baseline fitness scores for such yardsticks as your... Read the article.  Back to top Las Vegas' finest buffets In Pictures: Las Vegas' Finest Buffets When Wolfgang von Wieser first visited Las Vegas as a 21-year-old budding chef, he looked down his nose--and the sneeze guard--at the city's iconic buffets. "I saw those chunks of ham and roast beef and it was all such bad quality, I thought 'I could never work as a chef in Las Vegas,'" recalls von Wieser. Now 49, von Wieser is the executive chef at the Bellagio, where he oversees all the hotel and casino's culinary operations, including its legendary buffet, which feeds 4,000 people a day. The Austrian native doesn't know which is more surprising: That he is very much a Las Vegas chef, or that those oft-maligned buffets are finally getting some respect--and deservedly so... 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