09/10/2010
As part of a team-building activity, an Italian company hired a motivational trainer who specializes in firewalking. The goal: help employees see beyond their limits. The problem: The motivational guru brought the wrong kind of wood and artificial charcoal that day. Nine of the company’s employees were sent to the hospital with burns to their feet.
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08/24/2010
One of the country’s fastest-growing companies, Kirkland, Wash.-based LTC Financial Partners is looking for 300 new sales agents—and when those jobs are filled, more will open. Because the organization is constantly hiring, it’s also constantly trying to get new employees up to speed. So it created the LTC Insurance Training Institute to get recruits ready to work within five days.
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08/17/2010
September brings with it a “back to school” feeling that can be sated only with a seminar or course. And there’s no easier, more affordable source for online learning than iTunes. Find out about this new, free training resource that just might work in your organization.
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07/13/2010
Courts have long said that employers are supposed to be proactive about preventing and stopping sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers know or should know that simply having a sexual harassment policy in place isn’t enough—they have to aggressively enforce that policy. What employers may not fully realize is that no one within the organization is exempt from education, training and discipline.
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07/09/2010
Q. Our company recently hired some employees who do not speak English as their first language. What are our obligations in training these employees?
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07/06/2010
When it comes to employment law, it’s always best for managers to learn from others’ mistakes rather than their own. Share these recent court cases—and the lessons learned—with your organization’s supervisors:
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06/23/2010
Many government safety regulations require employers to give employees safety or health training. In May, OSHA issued an enforcement memo to its inspectors, directing them to verify that employers are giving such training, “using both a language and a vocabulary that the employee can understand.”
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06/18/2010
Here’s an easy way to prevent a discrimination claim: Offer everyone holding the same position the same opportunity for training. Otherwise, supervisors may play favorites, and that can end in litigation if the better-trained employees end up getting the promotions.
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06/02/2010
Employees who complain about alleged discrimination are protected from retaliation for doing so. In order for the employee to win a lawsuit, the retaliatory act must be adverse—that is, it must be an act that affects the employee in more than an inconsequential way. In a recent case, an employee claimed that by merely ignoring her complaint, her employer was retaliating. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals nixed that idea.
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06/01/2010
Whether it’s a speedy way to create a bar chart or a trick for switching from one window to the next, keyboard shortcuts can help even power users knock out work faster. Here are a few of our readers’ faves.
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05/28/2010
Remind bosses that everyone who is qualified for training should have access to development opportunities, and that hand-selecting subordinates to attend training can be discrimination. Note: Be sure they understand that older employees are also entitled to training—even if it seems reasonable that they may quit or retire soon.
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05/26/2010
If you want your organization’s employees to work more productively, pay more attention to them. During the economic crisis of 2009, the most effective business strategy turned out to be increased supervision and management of employees. Research by RainmakerThinking shows that organizations that combined three effective strategies during the recession had better financial results than others:
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05/18/2010
How's that new hire fitting in? To find out, have managers meet with their new employees within the first 60 days. The goal: Discover what new hires like and dislike about the job and environment, see if the job meets their expectations and nip potential problems in the bud. These 15 questions can steer the conversation.
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05/11/2010
Your best employees are probably eager for promotions. But when only one slot is open, promotions often leave several well-qualified candidates disappointed. To keep disappointment from leading to lawsuits, consider offering career coaching for those employees who didn’t make the cut.
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04/27/2010
Different employees crave different things from their managers. Here’s practical advice you can give the bosses in your organization. You’ll help them focus on the managerial qualities that matter most to employees—and forget about the window dressing workers don’t care about.
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