Take a deep breath In a typical day there are a variety of potential triggers that might get my blood boiling… My daughter texts me as I’m trying to get out of the house in the morning about a ride she needs that night. I get an email from my team member about their (now…
When starting your small business, you should be aware of the impact Human Resources can have on everything your company does. HR is responsible for supporting the business by handling hiring, firing, and classifying employees, as well as investigations. Some of the most common HR problems for all businesses but especially new businesses, include: Recruitment…
You’ve probably heard a lot lately about this idea of employee engagement. There are some scary statistics being thrown around; two-thirds of workers are less than fully engaged in their jobs (Aon Hewitt, 2013) with 18% “actively disengaged” (Gallup, 2013). I know when I read those stats I think, “Well, big businesses are like that….
When I first became a manager I was lucky. A lot of new managers are handed a team hired or chosen by someone else. I had the opportunity to choose my own team. I picked 2 of the smartest engineers in the company, then I went out and hired 3 more really brilliant team members…
Hiring season (fall) is just around the corner, and so now is a good time to start preparing to find and bring on board all those who are the “best fit” for your business. I know, scary, right? The race for talent is on! It’s not an employer market anymore. Employers are now at the…
I’ve been chatting with friends about my recent employee dress code post. They were all pretty surprised when I casually mentioned talking with my boss, Brad, about it. Apparently my friends don’t — and wouldn’t dare to — have an open discussion with their own bosses about what they should or shouldn’t wear to the office, how they feel…
As I write this, it’s the first day of summer in Chicago, and I’m thinking about taking some time off. But not the whole summer! There’s still work to be done, even though some of my clients, partners and prospects may be away or moving at a slower pace right now. The summer months always give…
Business can become very complicated, especially as your business grows. But there’s a need to maintain simplicity amid all of the chaos. At this year’s Chick-fil-A Leadercast, author Andy Stanley talked about simplifying one of the most important tools we have in business — the job description. Usually job descriptions are a page or several pages…
There’s an old joke about entrepreneurship: one benefit of starting your own business is you can set your own hours. Pick any 100 hours of the week you want, and work them. While that may be true when you are starting a business, you should be able to get away once you’ve built your team, right?…
Terence has been a solid team member the last 4 years, and in the last 18 months has really become an essential part of the team. When you hired him right out of school you got a real steal — the economy was down, you could tell he was smart — so you hired him…