Communication

10 ways to help employees feel less overwhelmed

03/19/2012

Employees who survived the downturn have absorbed work left behind by laid-off co-workers. “Overwhelmed” is here to stay. As an HR pro, you might not be able to help employees embrace that sad fact, but you definitely can help them manage it. Here’s how:

Annual meeting inspires, while skirting business talk

02/21/2012

The 100-plus senior managers who attend the annual meeting of nationwide retirement community firm Aegis Living talk about everything except business. Instead, they listen to inspirational speakers and celebrities, whose identities are not revealed until the guests are introduced.

Communicating benefits: 3+3 strategy works best

02/03/2012

Giving employees at least three weeks to review benefit information and providing that information in at least three different formats is the key to benefits training that sticks, says new research from benefits provider Unum.

Team dysfunction: Why it happens and how to fix it

01/27/2012

Managers can bring the most intelligent, creative people to their departments, but if the employees aren’t able to work as a team, the department’s productivity will suffer. If your team isn’t firing on all cylinders, it’s important to identify the reasons why … and what you can do to overcome the dysfunction.

Step by step: Becoming a great manager, the Google way

01/25/2012

Google, the king of search engines, recently set out on a search of its own—to identify the qualities that make the highest quality managers at Google Inc., and then to replicate those qualities across the entire company. The end result: a simple, yet elegant, list of eight management practices that the best Google managers consistently do.

How to become a great manager, the Google way

01/23/2012

Nontraditional benefits set ‘best and brightest’ apart

01/23/2012

Health insurance and flextime aren’t the only perks employees consider benefits. Most of the companies that won “Best and Brightest” awards from the National Association for Business Resources earned accolades from their employees for these offerings:

How to help employees understand the value of their benefits

01/17/2012

Boosting your benefits communication during lean economic times can help your organization retain good employees and ease their worries so they can focus on work. The key: Show employees the value of their benefits.

How to manage employees who are grieving

12/29/2011

When an employee experiences the death of a family member or close friend, it’s tempting for supervisors to take a hands-off approach to the employee’s grief. However, silently waiting for the employee’s emotional recovery isn’t the best strategy. Take the following four steps to sensitively manage grieving employees and their impact on co-workers.

Manage health, retirement spending with employee education

12/19/2011

As benefits continue to become a bigger portion of labor costs, employers are responding by offering more health education and financial advice to employees. According to a new report by WorldatWork, 45% of surveyed organizations report that senior executives consider turning employees into educated consumers of benefits a “very high” priority.