Start passing out the straws. Whoever draws the short one gets to tell employees how much less you’ll be reimbursing them for every business mile they drive.
Tell A/P to put their helmets on – they’re in for a bumpy ride. IRS just released the standard mileage rate for 2010, and it’s not going to be popular. Turns out the Service lowered two of the three business mileage rates for 2010. And not by a penny
or two. Here’s what your company will be able to reimburse employees up to, tax-free, starting January 1:...
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For many employers, e-mail has long been the preferred method of communication about anything and everything — but certain things should never be said electronically.
Scary thought: More and more courts are accepting e-mail as evidence — and that means your company can easily end up on the hook for seemingly innocuous e-mails by managers and supervisors. To be safe, remind managers they should always avoid having the following types of conversations via e-mail:...
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Everyone’s got their verbal pet peeves, but odds are good you and your co-workers have more in common than you think when it comes to phrases that should never be spoken in the office.
After performing extensive research, scholars at Oxford University and author Jeremy Butterfield have devised a list of the ten most irritating phrases uttered by humans. This top ten list appears in Butterfield’s latest book, “Damp Squid,” which
was comprised from books, papers, magazines, journals, broadcast media and other sources:...
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Overwork benefits nobody.
Judging from all the responses I received to my recent column "Get Rid of Jackass Clients," far too many executives have customers who exhaust them and sap their productivity. Stress and inefficiency are everywhere. That's why you should implement the No BlackBerry Rule. How often do you hear colleagues and friends say
they're working like crazy? I hear it constantly, especially now, in the current difficult economy. So many executives are clawing to keep their jobs or fighting for their share of dwindling bonus pools. They complain to the world about their sleepless nights, burning the midnight oil. They wear their haggard eyes and lonely
spouses as badges of honor. [They even sleep with their BlackBerrys, so they can respond to e-mails from 12 time zones away. Do they really need to be so busy?...]
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Talent may be cheap right now, but if that new hire works out, don't expect the bargain to last.
Even in a weak labor market, salaries rise--often steeply--as employees gain experience. Inc. asked PayScale, the Seattle-based salary and compensation data provider, to calculate the annual increase in employee compensation, based on
seniority, for 20 different job descriptions, from office manager to Web developer...
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Paying is passé. Use these 10 free software programs instead. Free
is a lovely word; unfortunately, it's often followed by a disappointing product. We have found 10 great free apps that will help you run your business. Some are so good, you might even be willing to (shudder) spend money on them. -- Mark Spoonauer...
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Are you collecting your maximum tax breaks from the massive economic stimulus law passed earlier this year?
The IRS has issued a fact sheet touting the tax perks available to small business owners under the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. (IRS FS-2009-11) Here are eight key provisions:...
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A former Goldman Sachs executive shares her tips for balancing professional work with your personal life during a recession.
When I was a new manager at Goldman Sachs, an executive coach told me: "If you can't get your job done in 10 hours a day, there's something wrong with you—or there's something wrong with your job." I laughed. In my 16 years in finance, I found it hard not admire the 24/7 ethic and even harder to imagine that top results could be
produced without it. But this coach was an advisor to highly respected CEOs. And he forced me to open my eyes and see what really effective executives do to cut time—and stress—for both themselves and the teams they lead. Intrigued, I dug into the research. I learned how performance and judgement erode when we work too many
hours and that motivating people to spend ever-more hours at work is bad for the bottom line. I also talked to hundreds of men and women working in a wide range of executive roles—C-suite jobs, partners at big investment, law, and accounting firms, and middle managers in various industries—to learn how they manage the stress in
their lives. Today's downturn means everyone who still has a job has more work to do. Things have been so uncertain that we all have to work harder because we don't know what will pay off. While "balance" may be a term that makes executives nervous in bad times, it's merely good management to ensure that each hour gets invested in
the right things and that we cut all the waste we can. Here are five tips I've found that let executives produce world-class results and still get home for family dinner—most nights...
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Amid so much downsizing, it's risky and unnecessary for managers to let feelings confuse what ought to be a clean transaction.
Since January, more than a million jobs have been cut in the U.S. Although the pace of layoffs has been declining, the downsizing is by no means over. Job cutting is never easy, but it often becomes progressively harder as we go deeper into an organization. At the beginning, employers may be able to lay off only weak employees
they might have considered letting go anyway. While these weak performers are human beings worthy of dignity and respect, we can make ourselves feel okay about their terminations because they are based on merit. The deeper we get, the less likely it is that we honestly can say that a job elimination is simply a matter of letting go
those who should have been let go years ago. Now we are letting go of solid performers who would remain employed in a good economy. Every organization has solid citizens who do fine in anything but a deep recession. But we are not done yet. We are told to go even deeper.Now we must let go of good, or even stellar
performers—employees who add value and who at a different time might be considered for promotion, rather than termination. [Here are 10 things you should never say when terminating an employee:...]
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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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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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With so much competition for every job listing out there—there are more than 6.1 job seekers for every job opening, according to the latest job-opening and turnover data from the U.S. Department of Labor—wowing a recruiter during a job interview is even more crucial.
According to a new survey of nearly 500 human-resources professionals released by the Society for Human Resource Management, there are plenty of ways to derail a job interview—and some of them may surprise you. The basic don'ts: arriving late to an interview or trashing a previous employer. But some hiring managers say even
experienced professionals have made other slip-ups. Often, job candidates...
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Companies get hitched for smart reasons—except when they don’t.
Remember when companies walked the matrimonial aisle without Uncle Sam tying the knot? Lately, corporate mergers and acquisitions seem to be arranged and sealed by the federal government. Private equity deals have fallen by the wayside, and strategic unions are few and far between. With little to do, the firms that make a
living off M&A deals—like law firms, consultancies, venture capitalists and investment bankers—are readying clients for the next matrimonial season. [Our cautionary tale: the Six Deadly Sins of M&A. It’s a story of companies getting hitched for what seem like smart reasons, except for the fact that they’re not...]
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You may lose employees if you don't do it right.
I used to love this time of year: the holidays, the presents, the annual bonus. Ah, the anticipation. The renewal of hope, if not in mankind at least in my manager and the organization for which I toiled so hard all year. Not anymore. The season of bonuses has turned bleak. Outside of those Wall Street sharpies who ironically are being rewarded handsomely for taking the role of the Grinch to new heights, most of us still on the payroll will be happy with a lump of coal in our stocking--anything but the proverbial pink slip. Yet as grim as it may seem from the receiving end, those doing the giving, managers, face an equally joyless season. [The problem is that a lot of those good people, the ones working so hard to keep themselves and their organizations afloat, are seriously thinking about jumping ship when the times get better. They're thinking "it's got to be better over there…"--and there is about everywhere but here. How managers handle this bonus period may make that decision for their employees, and it will play a critical role in determining whether or not organizations still have their best talent when the good times return. So what should a manager do?...]
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When it comes to credit risk, watch closely for these red flags in companies you depend on.
The shaky credit markets make spotting a soon-to-be insolvent company increasingly difficult for credit managers. "It's hard sometimes to determine who's really about ready to go out of business, versus who is having tough times, but they'll make it," says David Beckel, president of the National Association of Credit Management. To
avoid losing future payments, companies should be on the constant lookout for red flags -- signs that a customer is having serious financial problems. The following don't necessarily indicate that a client is in contingency mode. But any of them
should trigger a warning bell for your credit department that the customer deserves close monitoring, and that perhaps their payment terms renegotiated...
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