Human Resources Articles

Business » Human Resources | By Peter Murphy @ Sunday, 5th February 2006 @ 5:58 AM

In the workplace, it can be very difficult to obtain staff motivation. There are many factors that play against staff motivation. It really is the manager's responsibility to motivate the employees. This can be very challenging at times. There are six guidelines that a person can follow to achieve staff motivation. 1. A friendly working environment is extremely important to a positive attitude in the workplace. Socializing should be acceptable in most cases. People can ... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Todd Taylor @ Sunday, 5th February 2006 @ 5:40 AM

It is always easy to blame one person or several people for the failure of a sales process or the failure for the whole sales team within a company. Sometimes those people are just symptoms of a different problem. Perhaps a greater problem. Though it easy to find fault, it requires honesty to determine the true causes of sales process failure. There are only five causes to a sales process problem. There are only five distinct areas that cause the underperformance. 1. Organizational... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @ Saturday, 4th February 2006 @ 9:52 PM

How many times has this happened: The promising new employee makes a good first impression, is enthusiastic but just doesn't get the job done? To maximise our chances of getting this right we need to rely on some basic research which tells us that most people will continue to repeat past behaviours. Some say as much as 88% of the time. If this is the case then we need to define what we want them to do and find out if they have done it before - in a consistent way. While this ... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @ Saturday, 28th January 2006 @ 6:56 AM

"They know what I want. We don't need to write it down." is often the response when the issue of the dreaded job description comes up. Most of the time, when asked, the poor employee is left guessing as to what the boss wants. A survey showed that the response to the question "Do you know what is expected of you in your job?" 3% didn't know, 12% were unsure, 44% were fairly sure and only 41% knew exactly. This means 59% didn't know exactly what the boss want... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Stephen Steckly @ Saturday, 28th January 2006 @ 3:14 AM

You always have the staff you deserve! If you went, “Ouch!” when you read that, then good for you. You already realize you need a better team and the desire for something better is the always the first step on the road to success. Teambuilding is one of your most critical entrepreneurial activities. In business, every day is a game day and to win you must be able to field a winning team. Winning teams are made up of great employees yet many employers fail to put enough effort into thei... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Bill Sterzenbach @ Friday, 27th January 2006 @ 3:00 AM

The nursing profession has witnessed tremendous changes in the last five decades. In this continually changing environment, it is important to study the trends in nursing jobs in order to determine a successful career path. Today the demand for Registered Nurses or RNs has increased considerably, because of two factors. Firstly, relatively less fresh enrolment down the years since the turn of the century along with retirements of extant RNs has led to a shortage of trained nurses. Secondly, t... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Debra Thorsen @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 12:20 PM

Culture: n 1. natural phenomenon that is created whenever a group of people come together to collaborate; 2. foundation for all decisions and actions within an organization; 3. the way things are around here. Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture is created. This group of people could be a family, neighborhood, project team, or company. Culture is automatically created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of the people in the group. I o... more...

Business » Human Resources | By James Hunt @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 7:50 AM

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA has two purposes. The first, “portability,” allows an employee to keep their current health insurance even if they should happen to leave their current place of employment. This is easily done thanks to plans such as COBRA. The second part, “accountability,” means that the government can now regulate healthcare providers, health plans, payers, clearinghouses, and anyone else that might coordinate health data, for complete privacy a... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @ Wednesday, 25th January 2006 @ 4:58 AM

Our client had to terminate a senior manager, a process he found expensive and embarrassing. Soon after this, we were asked to develop what we call corporate "core competencies" and specific behaviors required by the organization. We discussed our findings with the client. His comment: "If we had done this in the first place, we wouldn't have recruited the first fellow and I would have saved myself a lot of money, time and heartache…" Just one small examp... more...

Business » Human Resources | By David Arnold Livingston @

In this era of technology and the World Wide Web, everything can be done over the Internet, from virtual shopping to chatting with people across a thousand miles. One of the activities that has already become a standard is online job application. This has become all the rage so much so, that some companies even prefer online applications compared to face-to-face applications. Now, there is no need for you to send your application by mail or even go to the company and personally hand in ... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Stephen Steckly @

Let’s assume you’ve completed your hiring process, your new employee is on the job, and training is underway. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a tool you could use that would let you know for certain whether each new employee was a hiring mistake or a hiring success? Well, there is such a tool and I’m going to share it with you right now. It’s called the Success Predictor Tool and it consists of a checklist that you will review at 45 days and 85 days of employment. T... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @

The commonly held view that the customer comes first is worth a close look. Think about the last time you received less than satisfactory customer service. What caused it? Probably an employee! Either directly, bad manners and a "don't care" attitude, or by not addressing your needs - "sorry, I can't handle that order, you'll have to call another number". While most of our focus is rightly on customer needs, it may be useful to first stand back and look at t... more...

Business » Human Resources | By James Hunt @

Companies of all sizes need to ensure that their employees keep track of their time worked, especially if they are working on numerous projects. This type of time management is essential to keep track of what employees are working on as well as for keeping a record of the billing process to outside employees. Employers use a time management system so that they can keep track of the time and attendance of their employees. There are several different types of software on the market that can log... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Robert Cameron @

The challenge and cost of employee turnover is one of the most discussed, most frustrating and most misunderstood problems businesses face. CEO’s have identified employee retention as one of their key challenges in 2005. Yet organizations continue to struggle with this costly issue. The science of psychological assessments has recently advanced, allowing the development of much more predictive assessment tools. If you do not know what your employee turnover cost is, many experts agree th... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Partha Mitra @

Anxiety or stress is state of uneasiness and apprehension. Life transitions, such as moving, job change, marriage, or the birth of a child, often account for much of the psychological pressure and consequently, anxiety. Usually known as "anxiety disorders" – the essential characteristic of ‘Anxiety disorder’ and stress is excessive uncontrollable worry about everyday things. This constant worry affects daily functioning and can cause physical symptoms and stress. Most of the peopl... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @

Mary had "attitude". Her manner was rude and uncooperative and her colleagues complained, but she was efficient. Her supervisor believed he was stuck with a problem that couldn't be solved. He reasoned that in any office there was always someone that didn't get on with the rest of the staff, and as long as Mary was doing her job, he couldn't do much about it. Wrong. Behavioral problems in the workplace can and should be addressed quickly and effectively for the s... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @

The Accounts Clerk had resigned and the Administration Manager leapt into action and placed an advertisement in the local paper for a replacement. Two weeks of frenzied résumé reading and interviews followed and a suitable replacement was found. The Administration Manager was feeling very pleased with himself until the General Manager decided she was not getting the information she required and said they really needed an accountant. She was very surprised they had recruited another bookk... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Robert Cameron @

Robert Cameron examines the question “Do you want to select top candidates or top employees?” The answer would seem obvious but a surprising number of manager’s perform very poorly in this critical task. Peter Drucker, one of America’s leading management gurus has examined this and says, "Executives spend more time on managing people and people decisions than on anything else, and they should. No other decisions are so long-lasting in their consequences or so difficult to unmake and... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Paul Phillips @

As the competition for talented people picks up, forward thinking managers need to assess how they are positioned to keep their good people and attract some more. Get the basics right People who have choices, and good people normally do, look for certain features in their employer. It continues to amaze us as we visit different businesses how little attention is paid to some of the basics in the work place. Why would someone put up with poor pay, disinterested management, run d... more...

Business » Human Resources | By Robert Cameron @

In business there are two very necessary and very different forces which must be balanced so that business will perform perfectly - people and processes. But far too often they are not in balance. CEO’s are ranking people issues as one of their major concerns in 2005 as they struggle with productivity, profits, and labor shortages. Robert A. Cameron & Associates takes a new approach to quantifying and solving this growing business issue. This is a critical issue as people have a ... more...