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 9, Issue 2      In This Issue:   Show 'Em the money: Compensation trends 2009   10 ridiculously cheap ways to raise morale   Will you pass the two-word test for ultimate presentations?   An [interview] question to make a monkey of you   [5 Steps] to rally workers for tough 2009   Job fears make offices all ears   It isn't always a job behind a posting   New [recruit], same old bad habits?   How to avoid death by a thousand cuts   Fear brings loathing, not harder work   Set smaller goals, get bigger results   Be prepared: Annual reviews will matter in '09   Customer service in a shrinking economy   Free BlackBerry downloads: Five (more) essential apps   Buying wine on a dime Show 'Em the money: Compensation trends 2009 Employers and employees can't have a conversation these days without the uncertainly of the global economy entering the discussion. Employees are keeping track of inflation rates and hoping with fingers crossed that their paychecks keep up. For talent managers, the relevant question is, is it an employer's responsibility to award pay raises based on inflation or based on merit?... Read the article.  Back to top 10 ridiculously cheap ways to raise morale Sam Glenn, "The Authority on Attitude," is a highly sought-after motivational speaker, author and workplace consultant, and the founder of Attitude Digest magazine, the quarterly print publication and online community aimed at inspiring those in the workplace and beyond through humor, readers' stories, cash contests, celebrity interviews, practical tips/resource, and more. Just because the economy stinks, doesn't mean your workplace should. It's a really good time for making excuses. Each week seems to bring new highs, but not the kind that cause us to jump with glee. Instead, we hear about the high unemployment numbers, the high rate of foreclosures, the high price of gas, the high number of people who want to strip down and jump into the frigid ocean in the middle of winter (Okay, so I know that is a bit off subject, but did you know that a group of semi-crazy but oh-so-lovable New Yorkers do this every January for charity?). The point is, there are plenty of reasons to argue that it's not exactly prime time to be ramping up incentive tactics, when we are really just paranoid about survival…Or is it? I see it all differently. As someone who lost a successful company overnight in a fire, survived and eventually thrived solely on the changes I was able to make to my attitude (and some delicious lasagna from my mother), I say that hard times are just the time to worry about motivating your employees. More than ever, you need their morale to keep your company afloat. You need their ideas, their energy, their creativity and their loyalty…And you will only get those traits by keeping them as happy as you possibly can. So, without breaking the bank with European vacations or fancy bling, here are some incentive tips that won't cost you much. In some cases, they might even save you a few dollars:... Read the article.  Back to top Smart presentations: Will you pass the two-word test for ultimate presentations?    Obama's Nonverbal Message John Windsor, an online columnist for Sales & Marketing Management, is President of Creating Thunder, a Boulder, Colo.-based communications training and consulting company. As author of the popular YouBlog, John offers a unique mix of innovation, communications, sales and marketing ideas. An award-winning marketer, John has held vice president positions in marketing, sales, and business development and has worked with companies like American Express, Reuters, Staples, and Knight-Ridder. Create a two-word manifesto to create impact and a lasting impression that will drive sales. Could you describe in only two words what your product, service or company is about? That's right, only two words to describe your offerings or company's reason for being. It sounds simple, but this is not an easy exercise. The payoff, however, can be tremendous. I was introduced to this challenge at business school, by a professor straight out of Hogwarts. It was a fringe class that very few people took, but this guy taught us things about marketing and strategy that I had never encountered before or since. And the absolute best thing he made us do was create two-word descriptions for various companies, products and services. But we didn’t just throw things out like "big flavor" or "faster fesults." No, there was a very specific structure we had to follow:... Read the article.  Back to top An [interview] question to make a monkey of you Worldwide Panel LLC, a small market-research firm, is getting flooded with résumés for four vacancies in sales and information technology. However, officials expect to reject numerous applicants after asking them: "What is your greatest weakness?" Candidates often respond "with something that is not a weakness," say Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif., concern. "It is a deal breaker." The weakness question represents the most common and most stressful one posed during interviews. Yet in today's weak job market, the wrong answer weakens your [prospective employees] chances of winning employment... Read the article.  Back to top [5 Steps] to rally workers for tough 2009 It's been a brutal year. Many workers are burned out, anxious and exhausted. 2009 doesn't look any better. So how can managers rally employees for the hard slog ahead? We checked in with Tom Rath, a workplace consultant at Gallup and co-author of the upcoming book "Strengths Based Leadership." He says it's critical that managers pay attention to morale now. "There's more fear and insecurity in workplaces today than I've ever seen," he says. "If managers can do a good job of helping employees to feel secure and see light at the end of the tunnel, they might actually boost per-person productivity." Many managers can't reward workers financially, he adds, so "emotional and psychological" kudos are "even more important." He gave us five steps managers can take to motivate employees... Read the article.  Back to top Job fears make offices all ears Robert Palmer was sitting in his cubicle at a software firm when he overheard a sensitive conversation going on in the adjoining cube. The head developer was speaking to another colleague about calling off a big project. Canceling the project would result in another round of job cuts. Mr. Palmer, 38 years old, tuned in more intently to the conversation going on next to him. While workplace eavesdropping has been going on for ages, fears about layoffs and corporate restructuring have left employees more attentive to what's going on around them. And as employees resort to eavesdropping, human-resources professionals say they are encountering cases of rumor-spreading in the workplace more frequently. After mass layoff announcements this fall, Society for Human Resource Management found that 23% of human-resource professionals surveyed have encountered significantly more cases of... Read the article.  Back to top It isn't always a job behind a posting Employment Ads on the Web Can Lead You to Marketing Pitches, or Worse; Ways to See Which Ones Are Sincere. In October, Tom Greene was invited by email to interview for a vice president position he had applied for through CareerBuilder.com. Before accepting, the sales and marketing executive called the search firm that posted the ad to ensure it was indeed a job opportunity. Mr. Greene didn't want a repeat of two years ago, when he agreed to an interview in the same circumstances only to find there was no position available. Instead, he had received a pitch from a career-marketing service costing up to $10,000, starting with a $6,000 upfront fee. Mr. Greene didn't want a repeat of two years ago, when he agreed to an interview in the same circumstances only to find there was no position available. Instead, he had received a pitch from a career-marketing service costing up to $10,000, starting with a $6,000 upfront fee. This time, the 53-year-old was assured by phone that the job was real and he wouldn't be asked to dig into his wallet. But after driving a half-hour from his home in Colonia, N.J., to meet the firm's recruiters... Read the article.  Back to top New [recruit], same old bad habits? A new job is supposed to be a fresh start, but the baggage many workers bring from their previous jobs in terms of bad habits or ways of working can often drag down their performance, as well as potentially the performance of those around them. A new job is supposed to be a fresh start, but the baggage many workers bring from their previous jobs in terms of bad habits or ways of working can often drag down their performance, as well as potentially the performance of those around them. A study by academics at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business has suggested that workers who keep old habits and ways of doing things when they move to a new job can potentially hurt their performance in their new role... Read the article.  Back to top How to avoid death by a thousand cuts Managers staring desperately at their wages bill and beginning to think the unthinkable should be careful what they wish for. Because cutting staff carelessly or callously can lead to a much greater exodus than you intended and a collapse in morale and performance. Latest research from U.S think-tank the Center for Creative Leadership has added to a raft of recent evidence suggesting that laying off workers - particularly if done haphazardly - can lead to a sharp slump in productivity and the loss of valued, experienced workers just when you need them most. Its poll of 1,700 workers carried out between March and December 2008 found much higher levels of motivation and commitment in companies with high levels of trust between colleagues. Workers were also more likely to say they believed their company was doing well financially if they enjoyed high levels of trust in the workplace. What's more, those who trusted their colleagues and managers were more likely to say they believed their company was socially responsible. The findings chime with recent comments by... Read the article.  Back to top Fear brings loathing, not harder work With thousands of jobs being cut daily, it's only natural most of us are probably feeling a bit insecure about our employment right now. Yet, while it's understandable that the focus has to be on cutting costs and staying afloat, managers also need to make sure talent management and career development do not drop down the priority list. A study by UK consultancy Personnel Decisions International has identified a dramatic, and in the long term potentially worrying, shift in the top priorities of business leaders. Financial pressures and the need to cut costs are now cited as the number one business priority, along with the rapid decline in their markets. Talent management, which back in 2006 was one of the top priorities, had now dropped to the bottom of the list. In fact, the poll of leaders in 500 organisations carried out between December and January found just five per cent recognising "loss of leaders in key areas or insufficient talent to quickly adapt to change" as a current business challenge. "Organisations should be asking... Read the article.  Back to top Set smaller goals, get bigger results What do you dread at work? Maybe it's filling out expense reports. Making a cold call to a sales lead. Giving a long-delayed performance review to T.J. (aka "the Crier"). You dread it, you avoid it, you procrastinate. You check out Google News instead. There's a way out of this cycle, and it comes from self-help books. (We read them so you don't have to.) Start by thinking about housecleaning, the most unpleasant part of our everyday existence, other than forwarded kitten emails. Here's a surefire way to fight chore inertia. It's called the 5-Minute Room Rescue, and it was proposed by the FlyLady, a "home executive" turned organization guru. You set a kitchen timer to five minutes. Then you rush to the dirtiest room in your house -- the one you'd never let a guest see -- and, as the timer ticks down, you start clearing a path. When the timer finally buzzes, you can stop with a clear conscience. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? The trick, of course, is that... Read the article.  Back to top Be prepared: Annual reviews will matter in '09 The downsizing may have just begun, so employees are well advised to take a few steps toward ensuring a stellar performance review. Every year, I write an article about performance-review preparation. Based on the e-mails I get, I think maybe two out of 1,000 readers knuckle down and invest time preparing for the big day. I can't say that I blame the rest. When things are humming along and a decent annual review seems to be in the bag, why waste time preparing for what's bound to be a cakewalk? But in 2009, performance reviews will matter—a lot. There's no sign that the rash of corporate downsizings is slowing. As employers get smarter about forecasting their '09 business prospects and their head-count needs, they're going to get smarter about talent management too. I'm talking about the kind of talent management that's less concerned with ... Read the article.  Back to top Customer service in a shrinking economy How companies are struggling to maintain customer service amid sinking sales and declining employee morale. Hertz (HTZ) couldn't ask for a better customer than Richard M. Garber. The Cleveland-based business development manager typically rents cars from the chain 20 to 40 times a year when traveling on business for materials manufacturer FLEXcon. But now Garber is rethinking that loyalty. In the past month he has returned Hertz cars to the Boston and Minneapolis airports only to find nobody waiting with a handheld check-in device. In Minneapolis, Garber had to drag his bags to the counter to return his car; in Boston, he finally tracked down an employee who came out and explained that some colleagues had just been laid off. "When you're rushing for an airplane, every minute counts," says Garber. "The less convenient they are, the more likely I am to try someone else." As the economy plunges deeper into recession, many companies are confronting the same brutal choices Hertz faced when it announced layoffs of some 4,000 people on Jan. 16. While businesses may feel forced to trim costs, cutting too deeply can drive away customers... Read the article.  Back to top Free BlackBerry downloads: Five (more) essential apps There's no shortage of free BlackBerry downloads for your RIM smartphone. The real challenge is not simply locating freebies, it's finding quality free BlackBerry software. That's why we put our thumbs to the keyboard and came up with five of the best free BlackBerry downloads on the Web. If you're anything like me, you spend entirely too much time poring through Web pages and online search engines seeking the latest and greatest free BlackBerry downloads for your Research In Motion (RIM) smartphone. But today's your lucky day. Today, the search stops right here... Read the article.  Back to top Buying wine on a dime A year ago, Rick Jelovsek regularly paid $20 or more for a bottle of wine at retailers near his Johnson City, Tenn., home. But after stock-market declines shaved 20% off the value of his retirement accounts, he began choosing bottles in the $12 range. "I'm making sure I'm going down in price, and I'm double-checking that it's either [rated] a good wine or I've gotten a recommendation," says the 64-year-old retired physician, who recently enjoyed a bottle of Spanish wine, Borsao Tres Picos Garnacha, for less than $12. In Denver, customers "are drinking a little bit less, a little less quality, a little less expensive," says Clif Louis, owner of the Vineyard Wine Shop, which mostly sells boutique wines. His sales have been down about 9% in the past seven months. As recession grips the country, drinkers are discovering fine wines on a beer budget. [The prices mark a trend toward less-expensive varietals, such as...] Read the article.  Back to top Forward to a Friend: Do you have a friend that would like to receive MgmtWatchsm? Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did! 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