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 Out of date.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While an out-of-date employee handbook doesn’t do much good, a fresh, information-packed guide can make a company’s employee handbook a go-to resource.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.
As we start 2012, we thought it would be good to gather a few perspectives on what the upcoming year has in store for private business owners. From major corporations to small startups, CEOs expect to see better opportunities in 2012.
As I struggle to stay motivated this holiday season, I stumbled upon just the article I needed to read: 14 Easy Ways to Get Insanely Motivated from Geoffrey James. Now, I’m not sure that the strategies he suggests will get me insanely motivated, but some of them served as reminders of what I should be doing to get my work done.
Here are three gems that I pulled out of his suggestions. Hopefully they provide you with a much-needed boost in this time that challenges our ability to stay motivated at work.
It’s not news that the United States Postal Service is losing money. At a recent press conference, a USPS spokesperson claimed the organization loses were approximately $23 million per day. As a result, the USPS just announced it will be closing 252 of its 461 mail processing centers beginning early next year. This is a basic network cost optimization maneuver and nothing more.
However, the result is that the USPS logistical network will be permanently changed and it will force the delay of first-class mail. Regardless of how you feel about USPS and its approaches to dealing with their revenue shortfall, its changes are reality, and they will impact your business. In this post, I’ll evaluate the problem and provide some alternatives.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I had an owner of a small business call me about a project he wanted done. Though an immediate response was provided to them, the real follow-up didn’t take place until the Monday after Thanksgiving. The business owner’s thought Monday was, “It’s been six days since I contacted you!”
Let’s start from there to talk about the reality of getting things done during the holiday season.
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.
“I’ll do that later.”
Those words might be harmless. Or they might indicate a huge problem—procrastination.
Last week Derick offered a framework for you, the private business owner, about how to get things done. Today we’re going to discuss one reason why your employees don’t get things done.
I’ll walk you through why people procrastinate, signs of procrastination in the workplace, its impact, and what to do about it.
