GlobalWorkPlaceAnalytics.com recently published research that shows more than 80% of the US workforce would like to be able to work remotely at least part of the time. The remote workforce is growing. In recent blogs we asked the question “Can Remote Workers Benefit Your Business?” and helped provide some guidance on “Finding Rockstar Remote Employees”. In today’s blog, we will talk about managing remote workers and the responsibility a company has to those workers. Being an

It is hard to turn on the news and not feel concerned. It is an unfortunate fact of life that disasters and tragedies happen. Sometimes we have warning, like the recent hurricanes that have hit much of the country. Even though we knew they were coming, we still can’t always prepare ourselves for the aftermath of these natural disasters. Sometimes tragedy strikes when we least expect it and in places where we feel it shouldn’t. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things are hurt

If you’re a small business owner, you know your largest expense is your workforce. But behind that number are the individuals that make up your workforce. And to get the best bang for your buck, you not only need to attract super-star talent...you need to retain them. It’s hard to pin down a figure on how much of a financial hit your company takes when you lose a valued employee. SHRM (The Society for Human Resource Management) estimates you are losing between 6-9 months of t

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

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

The truth is that your front-line supervisors will likely know about potential Human Resources and labor relations issues long before upper management - issues like favoritism, workplace safety, workplace harassment, discrimination, and bullying. If those same front-line supervisors are not trained to recognize these and other issues, you are exposing your company to an uneducated and potentially mishandled response, or perhaps even no response whatsoever. Such workplace is