Whether you’re an official mentor or not, the way you treat your employees can play a large part in shaping their careers. Are you building their confidence and helping them learn from their mistakes? Or are you doing the opposite? While this is probably most pertinent to your youngest workers, the way you respond to all employees can affect their future success or lack … [Read more...]
The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Weekend
As a new manager, do you find it hard to stop thinking about work, even when you go to bed? Do you struggle to fall asleep because you worry about how your team will handle work the next day, how you will deal with a poor performer or what you must do to retain your top staff members? You aren't alone. Many new managers lose sleep over the stress of the job, especially managers … [Read more...]
Combatting Back-to-School Stress in the Workplace
Many kids have already started back to school. Others will be heading back in the coming weeks. From all the online videos and memes, you'd think parents are feeling nothing but joy. That's not always the case, though. Many employees with children experience stress during the back-to-school season. For some, there's the financial stress of it all, especially for those employees … [Read more...]
Are You Spending Too Much Time in the Conference Room?
Meetings can be a complete waste of time (and drain the life from your employees). But even when meetings are useful and necessary, spending hours in the same conference room week after week can make you and your staff a little stir-crazy. Consider these alternatives to shake things up: Chat with employees. You can discover a lot by simply talking with your team members in … [Read more...]
Train Employees to Do More Than Just Offer Ideas
I love hearing people’s ideas. I love outside-of-the-box thinking, and I regularly—my teammates might think too regularly—ask for people’s input. So just to be clear, I want people to offer ideas. That said, I’m less than excited when people send ideas—and nothing more. They don’t offer any insight into how an idea will be executed. They don’t consider obstacles. In some … [Read more...]
To Terminate or Not to Terminate That Employee?
I don’t think firing employees comes naturally to anyone. Many new leaders avoid making this tough call. But keeping a poor performer on staff is detrimental to your bottom line as well as your team’s productivity and morale. Your staff knows when a teammate isn’t pulling his or her own weight, and that can lead to laziness (“If she can get away with that, why am I working … [Read more...]
Stop Sending These Emails
Spring is here, and as the weather heats up and skimpier clothing options abound, I’m reminded of one of my least favorite kinds of email: the “This is just a reminder” email. Many organizations like to send messages like this: This is just a reminder that we have a dress code. Please review it in your handbook. Men, you should be wearing a shirt and tie or a polo in a school … [Read more...]
What Questions Do You Ask Yourself?
Normally I answer YOUR questions in this video series, but today, I'm flipping it around and I'm asking YOU a question that will help you be a better leader. https://youtu.be/Do4VPgZtcKQ?rel=0&showinfo=0 Tweet it out: Be aware of the questions you ask yourself, for they determine the answers you get and the decisions you reach. @KevinEikenberry Send us YOUR … [Read more...]
Make Retention a Top Priority in 2018
According to a Hays survey, 81 percent of employees said they would consider leaving their current role for the right offer (and the right offer isn't all about money). People want more than just a few extra dollars on their paycheck, and are increasingly looking at the whole picture, specifically company culture, when they decide whether to join a company or leave one for a … [Read more...]
Are You the Reason for Low Employee Engagement?
We talk about motivation and engagement a great deal here on the Bud to Boss blog because it is critically important. Employee disengagement leads to low productivity and poor performance, and can seriously hurt the bottom line. As this Quill infographic shows, disengaged employees cost the U.S. $450-550 billion dollars annually, according to Gallup. Take a look at the data, … [Read more...]