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Inexpensive Holiday Gifts Employees Will Love

November 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

inexpensive-holiday-gifts-and-christmas-presents-for-employeesAccording 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.

5 Reasons Why Top Talent Leave Their Jobs [Infographic]

November 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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.

The Honey Badger’s Guide To Being a Fearless Leader

November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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.

Collaboration – Key to Workplace Success

October 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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).

What Employees Do When They’re Wasting Time At Work [INFOGRAPHIC]

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We’ve explored many facets of productivity lately—tips for middle-market business owners, ways to boost productivity in the home office, what bosses do to bring down productivity, how a work-life balance increases it—but we haven’t explored what employees actually do when they are being unproductive.

I ran across an infographic packed with interesting statistics about just that—what employees do when they’re wasting company time. For instance, the infographic says 40 percent of estimated productivity loss is from nonwork-related Internet surfing, and 31.2 percent of workers feel that it is appropriate to surf nonwork-related sites at the office.

3 Frustrating Things Bosses Do That Impact Productivity

September 29, 2011 By 1 Comment

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.

Help Employees Achieve A Work-life Balance

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Balance is one of those things in life that always seems to be out of reach. Just when you think you have everything under control, something happens and throws your life out of whack again.

Two competing forces that always seem to be present are work and our personal lives. With the rise of mobile devices, high-speed Internet, and home offices, finding the right work-life balance is even harder.

As a private business owner or a manager in a middle-market company, you should take some responsibility for helping your workers achieve and sustain their balance between work and home life. Why? Productivity and efficiency will improve because employees will be healthier and happier.

The Secret Behind Developing Superstar Employees

September 13, 2011 By 1 Comment

Every company has them. They are the employees that literally carry your company. Many of them are simply born with traits that make them great employees: dedication, work ethic, drive, determination, and true grit as they used to say. But that alone doesn’t make them superstars. They’ve developed skills that make them efficient and effective. Unfortunately, not all employees have skill sets that are as mature. The rest have to develop them.

That is where the secret behind developing superstar employees comes in: good coaching. Unfortunately, all too often, managers sit down with their employees only once a year during the official annual review to discuss performance. These annual reviews are usually rushed, don’t provide good feedback or goals, and, most of the time, are based solely on the “recency effect” (i.e. only the recent performance of the employee is reviewed).

Coaching employees is much different than reviewing employees. Coaching allows you to actually interact with your team, giving them the opportunity to grow, develop, stretch, and achieve greater performance. It requires more work than reviewing; however, the results can pay for your additional efforts multiple times over.

Empowerment: A Simple Act That Leads To More Ethical Behavior In The Workplace

August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Empower is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to give official authority or legal power; to enable.” The word has such a powerful impact when implemented in the workplace.

Empowered employees are crucial to running a successful business. They have the authority to make decisions, are able to take responsibility for their work, and are generally happier and more productive; they feel like a critical member of the team.

There’s one important reason why managers should strive to empower employees: it leads to more ethical decision-making.

How to Find & Retain People for Jobs No One Wants

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Let’s all be honest here. Every company has them, jobs that are so “miserable” that it is almost impossible to find anyone to do them. And if you are lucky enough to hire someone for that miserable job, you then have to work really hard to retain them.

I use the word “miserable” here as a term to describe those jobs that you probably wouldn’t want to do yourself but usually are critical and vital for the your daily operations to run smoothly. The sad reality is that these jobs are usually some of the most important you could fill because the role is critical in keeping your business functioning.

So how do you do it?

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