Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A couple of weeks ago, President Barack Obama held a gathering at the White House that has become known as the “beer summit.” In attendance at this meeting with the President were prominent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, who is black, and police sergeant James Crowley, who is white, along with Vice President Joe Biden. […]
I just spent a week in Cooperstown, NY, the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. No, I did not achieve my childhood dream of being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame — I was there to watch my 12 year old play baseball at the Cooperstown Dreams Park. Cooperstown Dreams Park provides […]
All right, I’m officially over the recession. I’m tired of reading, writing, thinking, and talking about it. Most of all I’m tired of having to deal with it every day in our business. I long for the good ol’ days. For our industry — publishing — that was the go-go ’90s. But at this point […]
Is anyone else concerned about the decisions being made by companies during the current economic crisis? Let me rephrase that. Is anyone else concerned about the decisions being made by the PEOPLE inside some companies during the economic crisis? Let’s face it, people make decisions. The decisions may be made on behalf of an organization, […]
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about strategic planning lately. I guess when all hell is breaking loose, as it has been for many businesses of late, it becomes real easy to question the strategic direction of the company. When sales are falling or profits are eroding, when new ventures are struggling to gain […]
On June 23, the Business Roundtable released its Second Quarter 2009 CEO Economic Outlook Survey and there is reason for some optimism. While it’s not all blue skies and sunshine, it does appear that the storm clouds may be clearing. Good news is rare these days so I thought the survey was worthy of some […]
There has always been a lot of focus on quarterly earning reports, but given the current economic environment, this corporate ritual has come under even greater scrutiny. Everyone is trying to read the crystal ball and figure out what every little detail means. Sales are down 30% when compared to the same quarter but are […]
For the last decade, big companies and the people who run them have been some of the most despised and least trusted in America. In the 80s and 90s, “greed was good” as everyone benefited from a skyrocketing stock market. No one much cared what was going on in those big companies as long as the […]
Yesterday I received an e-mail from an employee in our company that really got me thinking. Her e-mail was about one of the less talked about effects of tough economic times. Her note contemplated how layoffs, or even the hint of layoffs, can cause a company to lose the employees it most desperately wants to […]
I grew up playing sports and have often looked back at those experiences to gain perspective on how a group of individuals might work together for a common goal. As I reflect on what caused certain teams to excel while others failed, I repeatedly come back to the subject of leadership. I believe the difference […]