Page 44 of 73

People in the business community love their clichés. “There’s no ‘I’ in team,” “work smarter, not harder,” and my personal favorite, “think outside the box”. Ugh.

When it comes to describing a workplace culture, clichés are abundant here as well. With our open-door policies and expectations of giving 150% (how is this even possible?). These general statements don’t provide the employee with a lot of useful insights into what it really means to work, and fit in, at the company in question.

Now, I don’t mean to offend those in charge of setting the company culture. For some reason, workplace culture, despite the fact that we all work in it every day, is actually pretty hard to define. But just as water is critical to a fish’s survival, a well-oiled company culture helps keep your business afloat. And many companies sink or swim (sorry, couldn’t resist) based on their workplace culture and how clearly it’s defined.

While Super Bowl XLVII and its hype have come and gone about as quickly as the lights went out in the stadium, it still provided some intriguing lasting

Oftentimes cruel and unfair managers are the ones that get talked about, portrayed in the media and in Hollywood and so on.  But let’s say you, as the manager, do care what people think about you. So, on the flip… Continue Reading →

Life is just plain stressful. Whether it’s your workload, conflicts among direct reports, problems at home, stress can feel like it’s all around. When one is stressed out, they can get overwhelmed in crisis situations and fail to identify the… Continue Reading →

Ah, the star employee. The one that goes above and beyond for every project, is a team player, and just seems to do everything right.

Just as that employee can give your company some of its best days, it all comes crashing down the minute he or she gives you their two weeks’ notice.

While it’s easy to assume the employee left your business because they wanted more money, several workplace studies show that actually isn’t the driving force.

One highly cited study comes from the Gallup Organization that surveyed more than 1 million employed U.S. workers from a broad range of companies, industries and countries. They asked what talented employees needed from their workplace. You would think the answer would be more financial compensation, but actually their findings revealed this: how long an employee stays and how productive they will be all depends on their relationship with their manager.

There are more than 34 million Americans working at home, at least occasionally, according to the research firm, Forrester. By 2016, that number is expected to hit 63 million, which estimates virtual workers will consist of 43% of the workforce. That’s a lot of people working in their pajamas.
Working from home used to be viewed as a necessity in a limited amount of cases: bad weather, employee suffering from sickness, kids home from school, etc. Some leaders in the past only saw the “home” part and not the “work” and did not believe employees had the capability to actually do their job from home.