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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Every twirl of your hair, crossed leg or micro-expression gives off a message. Learn how to take control over how people view you.
Say please and thank you. Don't raise your voice. Sit up straight with your legs together and hands on your lap. Don't draw attention to yourself. And never ever brag. These are the lessons many parents teach their daughters. And while these attributes--politeness, deference, humility--and the way they are projected through
our gestures, gait and self-presentation can certainly help in the classroom and certain social settings, they could be holding many of us back professionally...
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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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HR professionals are often in the position of having to say "no" to employees. Don't make that negative perception worse with the nonverbal cues you may be inadvertently giving off.
Experts say that's a particular problem with women in business. But these are the habits that can hold you back professionally regardless of gender. All it takes is a single nonverbal tic to send a negative message, no matter how brilliant your ideas or rigorous your work ethic. “Many of us have no idea that our nonverbal cues are
making an impact,” says Carey O’Donnell, president of Carey O’Donnell Public Relations Group. “There are thousands of microexpressions, and people are reading these, even if they are only subconsciously translating these cues.” You have just four minutes to make a first impression, and, according to a widely cited study by
UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian, body language accounts for 55% of that impression (38% comes from tone of voice; the remaining 7% from our actual words). Five other negative microexpressions common to women:...
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Paul Falcone, Time Warner’s VP of employee relations and author of 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees, chooses his words carefully when he has to counsel employees—and he wants you to do the same.
Falcone urges managers and HR pros to tackle tough workplace conversations head-on—but he doesn’t want you to enter the battle unarmed. That’s why he developed a series of “scripts” to use when speaking off the top of your head just won’t do.
Covering an array of topics—from bad breath to time card fraud—Falcone’s language emphasizes treating employees with respect, politeness and firmness...
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Employee lawsuits tend to increase during recessions and this one is no exception.
Job discrimination claims filed by U.S. employees and applicants are running at record-high levels in the past two years. Managers and supervisors are at the front lines of making decisions that often trigger those lawsuits—promotions, pay raises, terminations and job assignments. But the most legally dangerous of all those
situations is interviewing job candidates. One misguided question could cause an applicant to think he or she was rejected due to one of the federally protected categories (race, gender, disability, age (40 or older), national origin, religion or pregnancy status). Even your most well-intentioned questions (“So how did you get
that broken arm?”) could be interpreted in a discriminatory way. Managers usually land in trouble when they ask for information that’s irrelevant to a candidate’s ability to perform the job. That’s why managers should make sure every question relates to this central theme:...
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Goal setting can be a tightrope act for supervisors.
Set the bar too low and you end up with an unmotivated, unproductive employee. Set it too high and you’ll create frustration and the possibility the person will do something unethical to achieve the goal. To make sure you’re setting goals correctly for employees, ask yourself these eight questions derived by the Harvard Business School:...
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Bosses hear some wacky one-liners when perfectly healthy workers try to justify taking sick days.
Here are some real examples from a recent CareerBuilder survey of employers: I got sunburned at a nude...
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The call to come in means you're close, but you don't have that offer yet. Bolster your chances by avoiding these job-interview pitfalls.
Landing a job interview means you actually have a decent chance of getting the job: You've been selected from probably hundreds of applicants to be one of the half-dozen serious contenders for the position. It's surprising how often hiring managers have a hard time finding a keeper among the six. One told me recently, "I
find myself thinking, 'Please God, let one of these people hit the mark.'" Way too many job seekers fall victim to easily avoided situations like the 10 job-interview killers listed below. Any of these sound familiar?...
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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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For his new book, communications coach Carmine Gallo watched hours of Jobs' keynotes. Here he identifies the five elements of every presentation by the Apple CEO.
The Apple music event of Sept. 9, 2009, marked the return of the world's greatest corporate storyteller. For more than three decades, Apple (AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has raised product launches to an art form. In my new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any
Audience, I reveal the techniques that Jobs uses to create and deliver mind-blowing keynote presentations. Steve Jobs does not sell computers; he sells...
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Most of us have had colleagues over the years who turned annoying into an art form.
Well, now it's a classifiable art form. Career experts Christine Lambden and Casey Connor, authors of the new book, "Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants," have compiled a list of "The 13 Most Annoying People to Work With." How many of these does your company still have on its payroll?...
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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:...
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With the national unemployment rate at 9.4 percent, and in the double digits in more than 100 U.S. metropolitan areas, it's important not to make a job-search or interview mistake, according to OI Partners, a global career transition and coaching firm. You might want to pass along that advice to employees you've let go.
"Employers are being inundated with resumes and applicants, and competition for jobs is fierce. You only get one chance to make a good first impression in a normal job market. But in today's economy, you need to be certain you are doing everything perfectly—from the beginning of your job search to the interview and through to
following up," says Tim Schoonover, chairman of OI Partners. OI Partners cautions job-seekers to beware of committing any of the following Top 10 Job Search and Interview Mistakes:...
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