Secrets to Creating an Exciting Employee Experience!

Employers who want to get higher levels of discretionary effort from their employees and all the awesome side effects that come along with it, such as higher morale, loyalty, productivity and innovation, need to face reality. Achieving higher employee effort…

Performance Management Myths Debunked

Wharton’s Peter Cappelli and Martin Conyon took a deep dive into performance management data from a large U.S. corporation between 2001 and 2007.[i] They looked at performance scores and associated employment outcomes over these years. They found that several myths…

Breaking Through the Employee Engagement Ceiling

Gallup’s insightful State of the Global Workforce reports have galvanized interest among executives about the value of employee engagement. Ever since Gallup began to measure employee engagement in 2000, however, the needle hasn’t moved much. Starting with Gallup’s first report,…

Recent Acquisitions Signal the New Era for Recruiting!

The announcement last week that Monster Worldwide will be acquired (pending approval) by Netherlands based Randstad Holdings heralds the new age of recruiting. “Post and prey” is out. What's in is direct recruiting, creating communities of interest, specialized job boards,…

Women in the Workforce: What Decade is This?

It has been an extraordinary week for news about women in the workforce, with events that make me wonder if this is the 1970s, or closer to 2020. On Monday, I was aghast to hear comments from Republican Presidential candidate…

What Does 80% of the U.S. Workforce Want?

A pay raise? A compliment from the boss? The answer may surprise you - 80 to 90% of the workforce wants to be telecommuters.[i] And why not? As telecommuters, workers are typically more productive, have higher morale, save commuting costs,…

CEOs Can Have It All: Great Financial Performance and Innovation!

Innovation remains a continuing concern for CEOs. Highly innovative companies, such as Tesla, Salesforce.com, and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, garner the admiration of others. Many executives, however, tell me that their CEOs resist taking steps to improve innovation for fear that their…

It’s Mid-Year. Are Your Talent Management Strategies Leading to Improved Business Results?

Organizations that have comprehensive talent management strategies benefit from exciting work environments, higher performing, innovative employees, and top-tier financial success. So, halfway through the year, how are your talent management strategies working out?  Are they accelerating the profitable growth of…

Employers Need to Brace For a Tight Labor Force and Higher Wages!

Buried in the news of robust U.S. job growth in June (287,000 jobs added) is that pay has risen at the fastest annual rate since 2009 (2.6%). Also, the labor market has tightened. The shoe has shifted to the other…

Old Fashion Collaboration Still Powers Innovation at 3M!

I recently had the opportunity to mix with dozens of 3Mers at The Conference Board’s 4th Annual Master Class on Innovation, held at the 3M Innovation Center in Maplewood, MN. 3M has a long, glorious history of innovation and is…