Map Out a Detailed Yet Simple Telecommuting Policy
Before offering telecommuting as a work option, establish clear guidelines for employees so you don’t end up on the defensive or involved in a legal battle.
Improving the Hiring Process One Word at a Time
Job postings often miss the mark because employers pay too little attention to the way they’re written. When that happens, high-quality candidates may not respond.
Metrics that matter
Staffing metrics have evolved from rough estimates on absenteeism to complex studies that evaluate every aspect of human-capital measurement. Along the way, the issue of what to measure has become as important as the old issue of how to measure.
Culture clash leads to age discrimination claim
One problem for foreign-based companies in the U. S. is that managers from the home country may not realize that comments completely acceptable abroad are evidence of discrimination here. The most recent company to learn that lesson was Mitsubishi Electronics America.
Various questions and answers about the work (Part 2)
What are the Laws of Independent Contracting? I’ve worked for a Fortune 500 company with thousands of employees for 6 years. They furnished the equipment, told me what hours to work and not to work so basically I was an employee without the benefits(medical, retirement vesting after 5 years, sick leave, vacation, etc.). Do I
Various questions and answers about the work (Part 1)
Can they force managers to take a pay cut? My husband is a meat manager in a meat packing plant in Ohio. His employer has asked him to take a $3000.00/yr. pay cut. There have been layoffs throught the plant for the hourly workers, and now they are asking the managers to take a
Why We Won’t Scold Other People’s Kids
Sara Roberts may be the most mortified teenager in America. Against her will, her mother and stepfather placed a bumper sticker on her car. It asks, “How’s My Teen Driving?” and has a toll-free number for motorists to call.
Career Entrepreneurs Know When It’s Time to Move On
The concept of career entrepreneurship is that each of us is responsible for our own careers. Midlife career transition is the time to become an entrepreneur, to “own” your career, creating it with vision and imagination and managing it by using your talents and skills to their greatest advantage. That might mean taking on a
Common Mistakes Made by Job Seekers
After 10 years as a state unemployment counselor, it’s clear to me that job seekers are wont to follow their same old routine every day, yet they expect it to yield different results. In doing so, they set themselves up for rejection. Most of us are allergic to rejection. The adverse reaction causes our thinking
Some Senior Executives Play by Different Rules
There’s a different set of rules and behaviors at the top of corporations. I call it the golf culture. It’s an abrupt and invisible change from the meritocracy that dominates all lower corporate levels. Admission to the senior-executive ranks typically depends on a combination of power and politics. Membership is predominantly male and the conventions
The Unemployment Cure For Migraine Headaches
I received an offer for free nylons in the mail today. I threw it on the edge of the dining-room table along with the daily assault of credit-card offers. I had to chuckle to myself a bit. It’s been five months since I lost my job. I was rolled over by a rudderless, Internet-bound rocket
Homeland-Security Staffing Raises Delicate Questions
The summer-long debate over the appropriate powers of the president of the United States to hire and fire employees of the new Department of Homeland Security has highlighted a more fundamental question about the nature of the federal civil service. Can federal workers be managed like civilians, or must they be ordered about like soldiers?
Rethink How You Work With Recruiting Firms
When you blast off your resume to thousands of search firms, where do you think it goes? Not to the partners it’s typically addressed to. Instead, your documents are routed to the firm’s research department where they may be coded and filed in an electronic database according to such attributes as industry, function, location and
Why Families Fail to See A Jobless Member’s Pain
Unemployment causes havoc in the family and tests its bonds more than almost any other crisis. When you’re jobless, other members of the family may unknowingly make you feel unwanted and on the outside looking in. They may give you silent stares, causing you to feel you’ve lost control and that the “pecking order” has
Why You Should Ignore Negative Job-Market News
When did you last read such headlines as “340 People Newly Hired This Month!” “15,000 New Jobs Filled Last Quarter” or anything remotely resembling them in your local newspaper? Wouldn’t it be refreshing if you read an article mentioning how your state government was planning to hire 20,000 people next month?
Workplace Diversity: Leveraging the Power of Difference for Competitive Advantage
“Diversity represents a company’s fundamental attitude that it not only respects and values the individuality of its employees but also understands how to tap the potentially significant contributions inherent in diversity.”1 Alexandra Groess Allianz Group’s International Diversity Project
Diversity: The Next Challenge — Holding People Accountable
How do you make diversity goals stick in your organization long after the diversity training is over and the certificates have been handed out? Many human resource managers are asking this question after having little to show for years of diversity programs. And employers are looking for ways to make diversity an integral part of
How To Get Your Career Change In Motion
Changing careers can be like taking a train trip. You plan it, start at one location and go to your ultimate destination, with stops in between. (Sorry, there are no non-stop career trains.) The basics for getting started are scheduling your departure time and showing up at the station. Here’s how to get yourself moving.
Career Transition Touchstones
Transitions are not comfortable. Wouldn’t it be nice if career changes were mapped out for us in neat little how-to packages with “start here and go to there” instructions (complete with arrows and signposts to keep us on track)? Sorry, it’s not that easy.
Laid Off: How to Make Losing Your Job a Winning Venture
The turbulent winds of a stormy job market are here, and if the winds should blow in your direction, there is a way to handle things. Nobody likes drastic change when it comes to careers. Americans, on average, spend 70% of their waking hours, Monday through Friday, on work-related activities. That being said, to change