Why Paying Your Employees $1000 Per Hour Isn’t Enough to Motivate Consistent Performance

Back in 2013 I posted a YouTube video explaining why millennials (teen and young adult workers) hated being paid by the hour.  With more than 350K views and a lot of controversial comments, it became apparent that I had struck the nerve that often separates employers and employees. But business owners wanted more – they needed…

We Will Cure Coronavirus but WHAT Will Cure Entitlement?

Susan, a friend and client of mine who owns a large plumbing/HVAC company called this morning feeling exasperated. “We’re not getting any responses to the job ads we’ve been running for techs,” she said. “Those guys know that they can make more money sitting on their couch playing X-Box than they can if they return…

3 Ways to Keep Coronavirus From Sinking Your Workplace Culture

No, the sky isn’t falling. It already fell. The stock market is in total upheaval. Schools, churches, businesses, and virtually everything deemed ‘non-essential’ is now closed – or very soon will be. The economic ripple of COVID-19 is reaching into the depths of every business and has left countless owners, leaders, and managers in a state of…

Why Training Young Workers to Upsell is Falling on Deaf Ears

Using a low price loss leader item and training front line employees to upsell customers to a higher margin product is a practice that’s been around since Moses played goalie for the Egyptian soccer team. It’s also one of many such tactics that millennial and Gen Z-aged employees despise. Unless they’re being closely monitored by…

Expedited Pay for Hourly Workers a Band-Aid Solution to a Much Bigger Problem

To keep pace with the rapidly decreasing supply of hourly workers amidst this devastating labor shortage, a growing number of fast food restaurant chains are now offering early wage paychecks and even same-day pay for part-time employees, according to this article in Bloomberg. In spite of higher salaries and the lowest unemployment in five decades,…

Stemming the Tide of Turnover After a Tragedy

Immediately following the Columbine tragedy that rocked the world twenty years ago (4-20-1999), Frank DeAngelis vowed that he would remain the school’s principal until the class of first grade students in the elementary schools that fed into the high school had graduated. His goal was to prevent a mass exodus of faculty and staff and…

The Sad Elimination of the Most Important Job in America

It’s 8:07 am in Denver and the daily newspaper “guaranteed to be delivered by 7 am” is not here. Again. And when it finally arrives, it will be thrown from the window of a hail-damaged 2006 Saturn Ion by a 30-something woman, and it will land at the edge of the curb at least 35…

Do You Have to Pay Your Employees Like Superstars to Keep Them?

Last week, 5-time NBA All-Star, Kevin Love, signed a contract to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. His new deal will pay him $120M over 4 years, approximately $30M per year. These days, it’s not uncommon to see professional athletes sign enormous contracts punctuated with a staggering number of zeros. What is uncommon about this particular story…

How Are You Filling the Non-Sexy Jobs in Your Organization?

Q. What do professional dancers, actors, musicians, and athletes have in common? A. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they’re all in the top 6 of the 15 dream jobs that our nation’s youth aspire to have one day. What jobs didn’t make the list? Roofer, custodian, auto mechanic, welder, truck driver, short order…

Stop Treating Your Employees Like Family; They Deserve Better

When I hear the word family, beyond the mental images of my own, I can’t help but think of the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Cunninghams, and the Huxtables. Growing up, I probably spent as much time hanging out with those families as I did my own. Television families of the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s…