What I learned as an employee and, years later as a business consultant, is that a salary is never enough motivation to work harder or to do your best. If it were, the members of Congress who get paid very high salaries for doing so little, and who have the very best health insurance, medical care, and retirement benefits at taxpayers’ expense, wouldn’t have to resort to taking kickbacks and bribes. People need to be motivated all year long and …
We’ve all heard stories about mothers telling their daughters that it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man and that money lasts longer than love. And then came the Feminist Movement and, for the last sixty years, women have been learning to support themselves and not depend on men to take care of their financial needs. But, now things are changing again. Whereas over the last half a century, women had been …
If anyone had asked me that question a couple of years ago, I would have said, unequivocally, yes. Now, I’m not so sure, at least with regards to the traditional type of college education. So, what made me change my mind? For one thing, today’s educators are not very educated. For another thing, instead of teaching children how to think and how to broaden their narrow world and expand their minds, they are more concerned with getting students to sign …
I may be naïve but I can’t see what the big hoopla is over Chelsea Clinton’s whopping big $600,000 salary as a special correspondent for NBC News. She is not running for public office and she is not a war correspondent. She is not even an Anchor for NBC News; she is just a special correspondent for “feel-good pieces.” In the world of big business, we all know that it’s not what you know but who you know. In Chelsea’s …
There have been numerous studies showing how beautiful people “earn more than their average-looking peers, are more likely to be given loans by banks, and are less likely to be convicted by a jury. Voters prefer better-looking candidates; students prefer better-looking professors, while teachers prefer better-looking students. Mothers, those icons of blind love, have been shown to favor their more attractive children.” Now there is even a study showing that we should choose ugly people in business because “unattractive people …
Cousin Jimmy lost his job seven months ago and his house is going to be foreclosed if he can’t pay the mortgage. He is behind in his utility bills and his credit cards. You own a successful business and family members are pressuring you to give him a job. No matter how competent Jimmy is, and how sorry you feel for him, there are so many reasons why it could be one of the worst decisions you could make to …
Yes, I know. Christmas has come and gone but I just got around to putting away the Christmas cards that I received and I came across a card with Santa’s helpers, trailing behind him, carrying the gifts for his yearly delivery. And this got me thinking. Does Santa pay minimum wage to his elves? They work so hard all year, getting ready for his yearly distribution of gifts, and I wondered if they belong to a union and, if not, …
I can’t ever remember a time when I didn’t hear stories about employers, both good and bad. The difference is that in the old days, when times were hard and employment was scarce, people did everything they could to hold onto their jobs. Today, it’s a different story. Unemployment is high. Times are hard. The economy is unstable, and pension plans are no longer guaranteed to be there when the workers retire. So, what has changed? For one thing, more …
I have been hearing a lot about people who are quitting their jobs before finding other employment and I think that’s just plain crazy. Everyone knows that it’s much more difficult to find a job when you are unemployed, yet that’s what people are doing despite knowing the odds. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “People are voluntarily quitting their jobs at the highest rate since the pre-recession era. . . ” and “2.16 million people quit their jobs …
Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing internal people with the potential to fill key business leadership positions in the company. Succession planning increases the availability of experienced and capable employees as they become available. Theoretically, it sounds like a good business plan . . . for the company. But what about the employees who are often given the task of training their replacements? At the outset of this downturn economy, I was talking with someone who had …