In our last posting, we talked about some of the conditions at your workplace that influence how contented your employees are in their jobs. Several of those are particularly powerful and should be singled out for a little more scrutiny. To learn what they are, please read below. A friend of mine used to
12 Critical Questions
Awhile ago, we talked about Marcus Buckingham, a senior researcher at the Gallup Organization, and discussed his findings in his excellent book, “Now Discover Your Strengths.” He has more to offer us. Buckingham says a workforce can be divided into three categories: people who are loyal and productive, or “engaged,” those who are just
Best Hiring Practices 101d
This is the final installment of a series on Best Hiring Practices. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather an examination of the most impactful things you can do to improve your hiring process. In the previous postings, we’ve talked about the need to hire well . . . and the high
Best Hiring Practices 101c
In our last posting on “Best Hiring Practices,” we talked about the need to write a comprehensive job description detailing not only the skills an applicant must have, but also the behaviors. Now the next step is to prepare written interview questions. Why written? For that answer, and for a lot more on preparing for
Best Hiring Practices 101b
This is the first installment of a series on “best hiring practices,” and as such, it probably makes sense to start at the beginning. The real beginning is making the decision that you need to hire someone, but for this purpose, we’ll assume you’ve already done that and that you now need to take the
Best Hiring Practices 101a
Although unemployment is still high and small business owners are reluctant to undo some of the painful staffing cuts they’ve had to make, some owners are creeping back into the job market to fill some needed vacancies. So it seems an appropriate time to talk about a hiring “process.” While there’s no hiring process that
Tip – A great management tool!
No quote this week. I want to offer a tip you will find useful, but I didn’t have a quote that would complement it. One of my favorite management tools is a trailing 12-month average. If you’re familiar with this tool, stop here. You already know what I want to tell you. But if not,
Time to audit your products/services?
Last time, we talked about the importance of knowing profitability by customer, but what about the products and/or services you sell? Do you know which lines of business are the most profitable and which are the least? You may think you know where your profits are coming from, but do you really? Are you sure?
Time to audit your customers?
Do you know which of your customers are profitable for you and which are not? Yeah, if you look for them, you’ll probably find a few (hopefully only a few) that really aren’t contributing anything to your bottom line. So how do you identify them? And once you identify them, what can you do about
“Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
Walking away from a sale is something that is tough for most business people to do . . . particularly in a tight economy when selling opportunities may be few and far between . . . but sometimes it’s the right move. A business is set up to effectively and efficiently serve a certain market
