Training

You invested a lot of time, energy, and money bringing on that new employee. They show up on that first day ready for your orientation doing their best to disguise their nervous anxiety. Feeling a bit anxious yourself, you want to get them up and running as quickly as possible so as to maximize your ROI. After all, you need to prove to yourself and your team that you made a great hire. As the day draws to an end, you begin to reflect on how things went on Day #1. But it's

DISCLOSURE: This isn't a commercial endorsement, although it may sound like one. Consider me a raving fan. I hold great respect for my speaker/author colleagues who are academics by trade. Those who have gone to great lengths to research current trends, have unearthed actionable methodologies and strategies, and who provide compelling statistics to make valid points about change, leadership, and business management. Larry Winget is not among them. Larry's a no nonsense, s

My daughter and her husband have a handsome 2 yr. old Boxer. Titus is 70 pounds of energy, love, and affection. And man, he is a handful! He chews, digs, barks...and when she's walking him, Titus pulls my 105-pound daughter like an eighteen wheeler with an empty load. Whitney did a lot of research to find a really experienced behavioral trainer, and she hit pay dirt with Clem, an honest-to-goodness dog whisperer who's worked with canines for almost fifty years. Clem doesn'

Ever have a job where you felt picked-on, intimidated, harassed, and micro-managed by a tyrant boss? Most of us can recall working for a real jerk at some point in our job history, most likely when we were just entering the workplace and at the bottom of the totem pole. And maybe the way you were being unfairly treated made you want to 'get even' with your boss, so you called in sick on a day when you knew you were desperately needed, or you found a quiet corner to take per

There is an epic war being fought along the front lines of every business in the world. Business owners and managers across all industries are engaged in heavy conflict with employees who aren't able to get through a shift without checking the screen on their smart phones, many of whom check it every couple of minutes. To the manager, the almost ubiquitous smart phone has become a distraction that limits performance and interferes with customer service. To a young employee

Kyle (age 21) handles the scheduling, appointments, estimates, and all payment transactions for the auto service center near my office. On a weekday morning at 8:16, I call to inquire about getting my vehicle in for shocks and an alignment. Kyle politely tells me that if I can bring it in within the next 30 minutes, he’ll have it out by 11:45, in time for me to make my lunch appointment. I agree and head out immediately. I arrive at 8:37 and notice that there are already

The phrase "Coffee is for Closers" resonates with anyone who's seen the classic film, Glengarry Glen Ross. This 1992 movie stars six Hollywood A-list leading men as salesman who work for an unethical real estate outfit. The actors portray fast-talking hucksters who lie, exaggerate, and use a series of con games to goad unwitting prospects into signing on the dotted line for overpriced real estate. (If you haven't seen the movie, and you have a high tolerance for foul languag

In this new economy, time is the commodity that is the most prized. Seldom do you run into a colleague or associate who has a wide-open schedule or is looking for a way to fill some empty or idle time in their day. Forced to do more with less, time-crunched leaders push their people to find the fast-n-easy solution when they encounter a problem such as an equipment breakdown or a customer service complaint. But the quick fix is seldom the right fix, and the Band-Aid approa

The employment landscape in America for 16- to 24-year-olds is abysmal; the worst it's been in more than 50 years. So if you've got a teen or a young adult on your holiday gift list, don't head to the mall or to your nearest big box retailer. What they need most from you cannot be found in stores. According to Opportunity Nation, 5, 527,000 young adults (or one in 7 young adults ages 16-24) are not in school or working. Unemployment rates for youth ages 16-24 are double the

In this highly entertaining infographic produced as a join effort between the University of North Carolina Business School and the Young Entrepreneurs Council (both largely comprised of the under-30 crowd) viewers are able to see the clear cut differences between older workers and millennials (a.k.a. Generation Y, Generation Why, Boomlets, Nexters, etc.). Through surveys, the respondents that represent this young cohort indicate their preferences and desires when it comes to

In 1989, 56% of the 16- to 19-year-olds in America were actively participating in the workforce. This meant that an employer hiring a young person in the late eighties and early nineties had better than a one-in-two chance that the young person they were considering understood what it meant to hold a job. In 2012, however, only 33% of those in the same age group are actively participating in the workforce. And the numbers for African-American and Hispanic teens are much lo

Any manager worth his salt knows exactly what to do when he notices an employee arriving late to the job. He'll have a line or two memorized for the first (and the second) time he observes a front liner who’s not wearing their uniform correctly (i.e. exposed tattoos, hat on sideways, etc.). He'll have HR on speed dial just in case he should ever spot one of his direct reports removing a $20 bill from the register and slipping it into her apron. It’s a manager’s responsibili

You post an entry-level sales position and sort through an avalanche of resumes to find a few that seem worthy of face time. After hours of boring interviews with candidates you know don’t have what it takes to make it in your organization, you suddenly encounter your next rock star. He makes a dazzling first impression, is quick on his feet to give all the right answers, looks you in the eyes and convinces you that he’ll work tirelessly to drum up all kinds of new business