Your IT person, Carla, wanders into your office with a sheepish look on her face. She’s just been working on your Production Manager’s computer that’s been running slower and slower the last several weeks. “So what’s the story?” You ask. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” comes the reply. “I fixed Dwayne’s machine.”…
The most important part of any email is the subject line. This is the part of the email that will almost surely be read, often many times. It, more than anything else, determines what the receivers will do with your email. Interesting subject lines get opened. Vague or ridiculous subject lines may get trashed or…
Accountability. It sounds bad, doesn’t it? It reminds me of exams, report cards and getting called to the carpet. Terrible! But getting an award, promotion or testimonial are also forms of accountability. Those aren’t bad! Accountability is the measurement of your skills and outcomes against an objective standard with actionable next steps for improvement. The…
As the marketplace starts to improve, business owners are feeling more confident. They look to their teams to start jumping on all the new opportunities out there, but their teams aren’t so quick to respond. Why? While business owners are starting to let go of some of their fear, employees are still faced with a…
There’s a saying about fish and house guests – both start to smell after a while. Employees can have the same tendency. It’s not every employee; some stay fresh by working hard every day, improving their skills and contributing. Others start out strong, but in time they grow stale. The magic is gone – but…
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that, for the first time in 15 months, more workers quit than were fired or laid off. Over the last year and a half, the economic uncertainty has held most employees in their existing jobs. They didn’t feel confident to make a move no matter what the situation, creating…
When I was a corporate drone, I hated budgeting. It seemed like a charade, a game where we all had to guess what answers the big boss wanted. We inevitably failed, and the big boss would send back a budget that had nothing to do with what we had just spent hours slaving over and,…
Many small-business owners take pride in saying that “we’re like family” when talking about their business. When they say this, they are referring to the fact that people who work for their company care for one another, are willing to pitch in and help with whatever needs doing, and feel like they belong or have…
By Jeannie Walters, President of Vox, Inc. Whenever I tell people that Vox is focused on the customer experience, I hear about someone’s last bad experience as a customer. I would say about 80% of the time, it’s related to an employee at the company. (The other 20% is reserved for inexplicably complicated – or…
How much is a great employee worth to you? Likewise, how much is a bad employee costing your business? Compensation can be one of the trickiest parts of running a business. That’s because pay is so subjective; sure, there are industry guidelines and things like minimum wage requirements for entry-level positions, but ultimately it’s up…