Distracted workers are to employers what distracted drivers are to other motorists — a constant and growing threat. There isn’t a manager on the face of this planet who is willing to share the focused attention of her employees with the screen of a cellular phone. The reality is that employers are being forced to…
In this highly entertaining infographic produced as a join effort between the University of North Carolina Business School and the Young Entrepreneurs Council (both largely comprised of the under-30 crowd) viewers are able to see the clear cut differences between older workers and millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y, Generation Why, Boomlets, Nexters, etc.). Through surveys, the…
In 1989, 56% of the 16- to 19-year-olds in America were actively participating in the workforce. This meant that an employer hiring a young person in the late eighties and early nineties had better than a one-in-two chance that the young person they were considering understood what it meant to hold a job. In 2012,…
Dylan and Charles have been on summer break for three days and have quite a little enterprise brewing. They’re working hard and making money. This morning, I noticed them at the end of my street with a table and chairs set up. Dylan was pouring liquid refreshment and making change. Charles was busy waving down…
Are your seasonal employees going to have a blast this summer? Not away from work; but rather, at work? If not, they’re likely to vaporize before Labor Day. Job seekers are attracted to opportunities where ‘fun’ is included in the job description, so employers use the heck out of it. (Good thing for them the…
Fans of The Beverly Hillbillies will remember the running joke that Jethro (the most educated of the entire Clampett family) had “made it all the way through the 6th grade.” Yee-Haw! When this series originally aired in the sixties, no one celebrated such a modest accomplishment. Of course you made it through the 6th grade,…
I’m shopping for a refrigerator to replace a custom built-in model that is in my home. Always looking for a bargain, I went online and found a great deal on one through a major retailer. This particular fridge had been marked down because of a scratch on one side, and the way my kitchen is…
Any manager worth his salt knows exactly what to do when he notices an employee arriving late to the job. He’ll have a line or two memorized for the first (and the second) time he observes a front liner who’s not wearing their uniform correctly (i.e. exposed tattoos, hat on sideways, etc.). He’ll have HR…
“Success comes from good judgment. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” I can’t verify the correct source of that quote, but I’ve heard many a version of this little axiom over the years. Makes me wonder how old I’ll be before my experience will pay off and I’ll stop doing so…
Quid pro quo (from the Latin meaning “this for that”) is a commonly used term in business negotiations. It’s also the foundation of every employer/employee relationship. To illustrate, let’s say the quid represents the compensation an employer is willing to part with in exchange for labor they need to operate their business. The quo, then,…