An Online Publication by Generational Equity
If you research the cost of training a new employee, you’ll discover a variety of answers. But there’s one similarity throughout them all – it’s not cheap. Whether it’s hiring an employee for a brand new position or replacing a departed staff member, every business owner and manager wants his or her new employee training to be effective.
Here are two things that an effective employee training program can’t be without.
Dry. Boring. Out of date. Those are often words used to describe company handbooks. When presented like that, no one even wants to touch a policy book, much less read one—understandably so.
While an out-of-date employee handbook doesn’t do much good, a fresh, information-packed guide can make a company’s employee handbook a go-to resource. To prevent the books from gathering dust in the bottom of a filing cabinet, business owners need to ensure that they give the guides formal review every six months.
Handbooks are mostly thought of as a formality for legal purposes, but they can actually be very helpful. Why else would they exist in the first place? Here are a several reasons why handbooks are important. Don’t skip No. 2 – it’s a real gem.
Your company’s growing rapidly. You need to find someone to help out ASAP, so you conduct a quick round of interviews. You’re not in love with any of the candidates but you feel pressure to hire someone now to take the load off of your staff. What ends up happening? You hire one of those candidates you don’t love. You settle. And it could cost you more than you bargained for.
Career Builder recently surveyed 2,696 hiring managers and human resource professionals to find out more about bad hires – why companies hire subpar employees, how much it actually costs a business and characteristics of less-than-desirable workers.
At The Private Business Owner, we’re all about sharing information that helps companies become buyer ready. Because business owners want to get the greatest return on their investment, we’ve compiled five simple new year resolutions that will prep your company for the day you decide to exit.
According to Skooba Design founder and CEO Michael Hess, employees want these four things for the holidays: money, time off, gifts, and parties (listed in order of most importance). I would say he’s right on.
If there’s no extra money to go around because of the economy and no possible way to give employees one day or an afternoon off during this hectic time, then you’re left with two options: gifts and parties.
Parties can be fun and enjoyable for employees and their families, but, as Michael points out, corporate holiday parties run the risk of being events that employees feel forced to attend. There’s also the chance of inappropriate party behavior and the issue of drinking to address.
Because of these issues, we’re going to focus on the gifts route today. Times are tough but there are still plenty of gift options for small business owners. First, we’ll start with tips to help you stay under budget. Then, we’ll offer gift ideas.
After working hard and putting in countless hours to find and develop superstar employees, the last thing you want to do is lose them.
Sometimes the circumstances are beyond your control (and theirs). That’s life. But there are things that you can control—for example, how you treat your employees and what kind of work environment you create.
The Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness (CMOE) compiled five reasons why top talent decide to leave their jobs based on various studies from Florida State University, Randstad, and Accenture/ICR.
Not surprising, the studies’ results had one commonality: People often leave their bosses or companies, not their jobs.
Maybe you’ve heard the tales of the infamous honey badger—the world’s most fearless creature—who surfaced on the Internet earlier this year. Its conquests have become so popular that they’ve landed the weasel-looking animal in a commercial for pistachios and LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu has adopted the nickname “Honey Badger.”
For those unfamiliar with the African creature, it is capable of attacking and eating snakes, fighting jackals, and invading beehives to eat the larvae. To see the honey badger in action, watch the clip below.
Many of you operate highly successful, growing companies—places where the work environment is energized and your teams work hard, have fun, and enjoy their jobs. Unfortunately, this type of workplace is too often in the minority.
In survey after survey, many Americans report that they simply do not like their jobs. In fact, according to the Conference Board’s latest survey, only 45% reported that they were satisfied with their jobs, a big decline from the 61% who were satisfied 20 years earlier. This is sad because if you are going to spend the majority of your life doing something, you should enjoy it.
So I got to thinking about the places where I enjoyed my job the most. As I considered them, I realized that the jobs I have enjoyed were ones where the environment was positive and the workplace was collaborative. In general, these were places where employees actually enjoyed working together to achieve common goals.
How do successful leaders create environments where collaboration is the norm and encouraged? Is that even possible in today’s workplace given the pace of work, quantity of the work, and productivity demands placed on today’s workers?
I would say yes it is possible and, in fact, probably what our businesses need now more than ever before. Chances are good if you can create a collaborative work environment for your company, you will see a dramatic increase in productivity and, in turn, job satisfaction (which we all know leads to employees staying with you longer).
As private business owners or managers, there is a laundry list of things that employees do that frustrate you and seem counterproductive. But what about the things you do that irritate workers? I’ve listed three common frustrating things managers do that decrease productivity in the office.
