Should Employers Rejoice Now that the Labor Market is Suddenly Flooded?

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…

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…

When You Treat Everyone as Special, No One Feels Special

This is not an angry airline rant. I’m going somewhere important with this, so please hang with me. As a professional speaker based in Denver, business travel is a necessary evil that comes with the job. United Airlines has a large hub in Denver, and thus, I’ve been flying them almost exclusively for 30+ years…

How AI is Impacting the Emerging Workforce

For his 4th birthday, my grandson August (Auggie) was given an Echo Dot for Kids – Amazon’s Alexa for children. Even though I don’t own an Alexa or similar AI device, I thought I was somewhat familiar with what they do. Turns out, I wasn’t. I watched Auggie’s face light up when his dad finally…

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…

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…

If You’re Not Mentoring a Millennial, You’re Only Cheating Yourself

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…