Most Popular

Employee Review Near FMLA Leave Time: A Slippery Slope

When you must defend your decision to fire an individual based solely on his poor performance, no one likes the idea of having to scale a circumstantial Mount Everest in a court of law. But a cohesive paper trail of evidence is critical when you are asked to establish legal footing and justify your adverse […]

Don’t Forget to Find Some Quiet Time This Year

You don’t spend nearly enough time simply thinking. Before you take offense to that statement, consider how much time you spend talking, responding to e-mail, even reading—my guess is that you spend more time doing any one of them than you do thinking.

Hot List: Bestselling “Organizational Behavior” Books on Amazon.com

Amazon.com updates its list of the bestselling books every hour. Here is a snapshot of what is hot right now, March 28, in the “Organizational Behavior” section of the “Business and Investing” category. 1. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The authors of Made to Stick: […]

Performance Appraisal Ratings—Training Required!

Because poor performance is often advanced as the reason for a termination, the performance appraisal system is often the crux of the defense against a wrongful termination suit. Here’s how to train your managers and supervisors to make sure your appraisals hold up. Direct Legal Problems in Appraisals One common claim is from an employee […]

How to Use Humor to Boost Human Effectiveness

As an engineer, I am obsessed with efficiency. Even my name is efficient: My full name is Andrew, but I go by Drew because it’s only one syllable. But through my work with organizations around the globe, I’ve learned that you can’t be efficient with humans because they have “emotions” and “feelings” and get “sick” […]

Turnover Armageddon? Could Be Heading Your Way

If your organization is like most, workers have been patient about compensation for several years of low or no raises. They understood that their organizations were squeezed by economic pressures, and they were also held back by general insecurity about changing jobs in tricky times. But patience is wearing thin, and indications are that as […]

What makes a good employee: education, experience, or something more?

It doesn’t seem to make sense: Employers complain of a lack of suitable applicants despite being inundated with a glut of highly educated jobseekers. Applicants are confused, too. A recent study from McKinsey & Company’s Center for Government found that 44 percent of young U.S. jobseekers included in a survey weren’t sure that their postsecondary […]