In September of 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released updated employee tenure stats. I think we all predicted what they would reveal: the median number of years that the average employee stays with a company is 4.2, which is down from 4.6 years when last published in 2014. Employees in professional occupations and management roles have the highest median tenure of 5.1 years. On the other side of the coin, workers in service occupations have the lowest median tenure

Thousands of employees are promoted into a supervisory role annually. Sadly, most are not provided with any management training, whatsoever. The result? An astonishing number of them fail in their new role. Here’s why: transforming from an individual staff member responsible for one’s own performance, into a supervisor responsible for leading and motivating a team of employees, is a big change that requires completely different skill sets. And there are many potential s

For most business owners, labor represents our most significant expense, yet are we really paying attention to how it’s being used? Far too often we see some employees being overburdened whereas others are underutilized. Workload management is maintaining proper workload distribution among your workforce. Workload management is not giving more work to employees who are the most positive, dependable, and cooperative; while avoiding employees who ask the most questions, comp

I wish I could say that this week’s blog is dedicated to someone very dear to me, but actually this week’s blog was inspired by many people who are dear to me, and the sad truth of how that’s even possible makes sense once you understand the statistics. Today is National Wear Red Day®. The American Heart Association (AHA) is encouraging everyone to wear red to raise awareness for the fight against heart disease and stroke, the #1 & #5 killers of Americans. In fact, more t

Being in Human Resources, we do a fair amount of placement. One of the standard questions we pose during a first interview is, “Can you describe your dream manager?” Here, we’re looking for the management style that brings out the best in the prospective employee, in an effort to determine if we have a match. By far, the most common response we hear describes not what qualities the candidate wants in a manager, but what he/she doesn’t want: “I don’t want to work for a micr

At 12 noon today, the 45th President of the United States of America was inaugurated. Regardless of what your thoughts are on the subject, we might all agree that as we look toward the future, our attention can’t help but be drawn to the next generation and what we can to do help clear their path. As business executives and owners, we are in a unique position to take action that helps the next generation as they prepare to enter the workforce. There has been a highly publi

Today marks the end of the second week of January. Statistically speaking, about 70% of us are still going strong with our New Year’s resolution. Within another two weeks, that will drop to 60% - but still more than half of us are proactively working toward self-improvement. Here’s the question: are half of us proactively working toward improving our business? Asked a different way: how many of us have established a New Year’s resolution for our business? If you have

It’s the holiday season, which means employees in many companies may be receiving a holiday bonus! So, what are the tax implications? Per Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines, all bonuses issued via check/direct deposit or in the form of gift card (cash equivalent) are considered supplemental taxable wages. Additionally, holiday bonuses are considered discretionary, and therefore do not need to be included in overtime pay calculations for non-exempt employees. For bo