MgmtWatchSM Helping you manage If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. Volume 8, Issue 8      In This Issue:   Best of the worst: Applicants learn new ways to self-destruct   Checklist: Top reference-checking questions   9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict   Keep Gen Y'ers with pay for performance and lots of options   17 questions to determine if workers are fully engaged   America's growing managerial pay gap   Recognition @ work: Why 40 percent of employees leave   Three steps to calming angry customers   The high cost of cutting training budgets   Work-life balance becoming a key tool for retention   Employers feel workers' gas pains   How to shorten your work week Best of the worst: Applicants learn new ways to self-destruct Normal people try to put their best foot forward during job interviews. Others not so much. Like the applicant who showed up drunk. Or the guy who picked his nose. A new survey reveals some of the strangest, rudest behavior applicants display during job interviews... Read the article.  Back to top Checklist: Top reference-checking questions Having a list of references won’t do you any good if you can’t get them to open up to you about a job applicant. Download our list of the nine best questions to get references talking... Read the article.  Back to top 9 steps to negotiating any workplace conflict Conflict happens in all corners of the workplace. But if issues aren't settled, bad things can happen: Good people quit, morale can plummet and, sometimes, violence can erupt. But you don't need to become a certified mediator to settle disputes. You just need to understand some basics about human behavior, practice the fine art of paying attention and offer yourself as a neutral party who wants to resolve the problem. Whether you're a manager or not, you're forced into the situation of having to negotiate conflicts between co-workers, customers and even friends and family. Here are nine insights and tricks of the trade... Read the article.  Back to top Keep Gen Y'ers with pay for performance and lots of options Your youngest employees have parents who raised them in a culture of rewards: They got money, gifts or privileges for doing their chores and earning good grades. Here are some strategies for attracting, motivating and keeping your Generation Y employees ... Read the article.  Back to top 17 questions to determine if workers are fully engaged Don’t think you can pick out disengaged workers from a lineup. Employees usually check out mentally long before you spot any obvious performance drop-off. Find out whether your employees are fully engaged in their work by asking them these 17 questions. Plus, read seven tips for keeping your staff passionate about their jobs... Read the article.  Back to top America's growing managerial pay gap More evidence has emerged to suggest that throwing money at workers may not be the best way to get the most out of them. Which is just as well – as the pay gap between managers and employees in the U.S widened sharply last year. Research by consultancy Hay has concluded that employers on this year's Fortune's Most Admired Companies list paid an average of five per cent less in salaries than their peers. At the same time, a separate study by the consultancy has suggested that the pay gap between managers and workers in the U.S is growing at the third fastest rate of any country in the world. Overall, Hay's analysis of the Fortune list found the highest performing organisations, despite paying lower salaries, rewarded staff more effectively and were better at retaining staff, so saving on recruitment costs. The best-performing firms used higher levels of bonuses and incentives, especially for more senior jobs, and in many cases were found to be twice as effective at rewarding top performers than their rivals. Companies that made the Most Admired list had not just stumbled on the formula for making employee reward programmes work more effectively, stressed Hay Group associate director, Colin Evans. "The key differentiator between higher and lesser performing companies is the implementation of... Read the article.  Back to top Recognition @ work: Why 40 percent of employees leave Christi L. Gibson is the executive director of Recognition Professionals International, formerly known as National Association for Employee Recognition(NAER). She has been with RPI since 2001, and has been published in newspapers and periodicals, and interviewed on both ABC and FOX News. She can be reached via e-mail at Christi@recognition.org. If your turnover ratios are through the roof, then it is time to review your appreciation policies. Recognizing your employees is imperative in order to retain your top performers to help lead and grow a strong organization. It will ultimately increase your bottom line. A recent survey of 10,000 employees from Fortune 1000 organizations found 40 percent identified lack of recognition as a major reason in leaving a job. And since 65 percent of Americans said they received no recognition in the workplace (according to Gallup), clearly, organizations are not listening to their employees. Further, data on exit surveys continuously reinforces that employees don't leave companies, they leave managers. Side by side, these findings scream trouble. Solvable trouble that can be a force in profitability.To be sure your employees will share their "it came to me in the middle of the night" bright-light idea, and not hand-carry it to your competitor... Read the article.  Back to top Three steps to calming angry customers Niceness is now arriving at major airports. At John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, 500 employees are being taught to be, well, pleasant. It's easier said than done when faced with frustrated passengers hurling abuse two inches from your face. Frustration continues to grow as airlines offer fewer flights, higher fares, and new fees (BusinessWeek.com, 5/28/08) such as United Airlines and American Airlines $15 charge for the first checked bag (BusinessWeek.com, 6/12/08). Keeping your cool is one thing, but how do you calm down an angry customer while building the customer's loyalty to the airline? Tom Murphy, director of the Human Resiliency Institute at Fordham University, has created a three-step process with this challenge in mind. We recently talked about how his approach works in almost any industry. Just substitute the name of your company or industry for "airline" or "airport." Here are Murphy's three steps:... Read the article.  Back to top The high cost of cutting training budgets Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace, a former Fortune 500 HR executive, and the author of Happy About Online Networking: the Virtual-ly Simple Way to Build Professional Relationships. Liz speaks to audiences around the world about work, life and networking, and works with employers on attracting and retaining world-class talent. A customer-service rep is poorly trained, but no one will answer the questions he still has. It's a good way to lose clients—and employees. My friend Nathan took a new job recently, and he's been giving me the play-by-play. It's fascinating to have a ringside seat as he gets up to speed on his new responsibilities, but I'm sorry to say that things aren't going very well. The boss has made it clear that he doesn't like to be bothered with Nathan's questions. "I've asked each of my co-workers three or four questions apiece," Nathan told me. "I'm actually keeping track of whom I've approached for help, so I don't keep bugging the same people. There are plenty of times when the whole department is on the phone or in a meeting, and then I have no choice but to ask my boss, Jules, for help. I can hardly stand to dial his number and hear his long exhalation as he picks up the phone. 'What is it NOW, Nathan?' is his standard greeting." "I don't understand," I said to Nathan. "Didn't they train you?" "Sure they did," said Nate... Read the article.  Back to top Work-life balance becoming a key tool for retention Demographics paint a picture of a workforce in search of flexibility. A Merrill Lynch survey indicated 16 percent of the baby boomer workforce is looking for part-time work, and 42 percent will only take jobs that will allow them periods off for leisure. Retaining the best and brightest employees has been called a crisis, a talent war, a shortage and a talent drain. Whatever the definition, it’s not going away anytime soon. Attracting and retaining talent continues to top the priority list of organizations of all sizes and industries. It’s the difference between success and failure, reaching quarterly targets—or not. High attrition cripples innovation, and customer service goes AWOL. Recruiting the best and brightest is only half the game; retention is the other half. Competitors face the same issues. Gaining a competitive advantage is the key. Inflexible work arrangements are a primary reason top talent leaves an organization. "It used to be that an employee’s relationship with their manager was the No. 1 reason for employees voluntarily leaving an organization," says Kate Martiné, senior vice president, human resources and corporate communications for the Trustmark Cos. in Lake Forest, Illinois. "Now it’s a... Read the article.  Back to top Employers feel workers' gas pains As gas prices skyrocket, some workers are changing jobs to be closer to home, while others won't even apply to ones that require a long commute. Experts say employers must develop strategies to deal with these threats -- and many companies are already taking action. With prices at the pump surging past $4 a gallon, employers need to wake up and smell the gas fumes, experts warn. New surveys are showing that for many workers, commuting has become so expensive that they're considering switching jobs¿while others are turning down jobs that are too far away. But the surveys have also found that a growing number of employers are responding to the challenge with measures such as four-day workweeks, increased telecommuting, employee carpools and subsidized public transportation. "Many employees are beginning to wonder whether the commute downtown or across town is really worth it to them," says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based global outplacement consultancy. A survey of HR executives at 100 companies, conducted by the firm in May, found 34 percent reporting that job candidates had turned down offers because of the cost of long commutes. And high gas prices could be the trigger for many people who have already been thinking about changing jobs, says Challenger. "Every time they get gas, it hits them," he says. "It's a recurring reminder." A real threat to employers is... Read the article.  Back to top How to shorten your work week It's summer time, and outsourcing certain onerous tasks is just one way to shorten your work week and enjoy the extra hours of sunshine. Timothy Ferriss' best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek lays out 11 nuggets of advice to up your productivity and spend less time cooped up in the office... 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