Ten years ago, I visited a college campus in Denver, stood in a high traffic area, and held up a sign saying, DO YOU DESERVE A JOB AFTER YOU GRADUATE? WHAT SALARY ARE YOU ENTITLED TO? At that time, employee entitlement was the biggest challenge among the business owners, leaders, and managers with…
Ask most people under 40 to define the America Dream and you’ll likely hear them mention owning their own business and/or being their own boss. If you dig deeper and ask why so many young people want to pursue entrepreneurship, surprisingly, the first response won’t always be about making more money; in fact, it seldom…
The global health pandemic has completely upended the world of work. With social distancing restrictions and other health measures in place, many companies have either shifted to hybrid workplaces or completely transitioned to remote working models. Covid has forever changed the workplace culture, pushed digital skills to the forefront, and paved a clear path for…
What we call “labor” today bears little resemblance to its meaning of yesteryear. In fact, during the late 1800’s, one of our nation’s darkest labor periods at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the average American worked 12-hour days and often 7 days per week in order to eke out a basic living. Few other…
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…
The irony of the subtitle of my new book FULLY STAFFED: The Definitive Guide to Finding and Keeping Great Employees in the Worst Labor Market Ever (releasing Monday, April 20th) is obvious. After all, if the COVID-19 pandemic has force millions to file for unemployment, could this STILL be considered ‘the worst labor market ever?’ The answer is a…
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…
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…
On the days Josh Drean is not in class listening to a lecture in his graduate program at Harvard, he’s in a school gymnasium giving one to hundreds of teenagers. Only to his youthful audience, it doesn’t sound like a lecture. That’s because Josh is a hip, cool, relevant youth speaker who breakdances and beatboxes as he…
Growing up, I saw a lot of ads on TV and in magazines for products that were compared to Brand X. Of course, there was no such thing as Brand X, so advertisers had the freedom to disparage it as if it were the competitor’s product, and then point out how theirs was clearly superior. Mature adults…