Business articles
Showing page 34 of 79 - There are 2359 Business articles
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Tales from the corporate frontlines: ideas for everyday training
- This article relates to the Training competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a group of team leaders who worked together to find ways to use information sharing and communication to provide valuable employee training. A Gallup poll conducted in 1998 reported that eight out of 10 employees said they would be more likely to stay with their present emplo...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Tales from the corporate frontlines: workplace ethics: reaching the highest standard
- This article relates to the Ethics in the Workplace competency, commonly evaluated in employee surveys. It gives examples of how employees and customers consider ethical behavior and sound values an integral part of your organization. This competency covers a variety of topics like customer treatment, employee professionalism, and expected/acceptable organizational behaviors. At a high level, this...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Tales from the corporate frontlines: the organizational structure of our growing business
- This article relates to the organizational structure competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It shows how structural concerns can affect the typical employee workday, as well as feelings towards your organization's management hierarchy and reporting structure. A healthy organizational structure is one that arranges the activities of the enterprise in such a way that they c...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Tales from the corporate frontlines: employee ideas achieve work life balance
- This article relates to the Work/Life Balance competency, which investigates how your staff feels with regard to the balance between work and personal life. It explores issues such as priority of family and hours on the job, also covered in this competency. Organizations that enjoy a high satisfaction level in this area will normally exhibit a low rate of absenteeism and experience higher employee...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Making a decision to outsource: driving factors
- Most executives view offshore outsourcing most of all as a source of cost reducing. The greatest savings are expected to come from lower labor cost and reduced project timelines. However offshore outsourcing also creates new challenges and expenses for the organization involved. Those may include vendor selection costs, legal costs, costs of transition and many others. That is why despite the evid...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - What cross-cultural training can do for you
- International business is more complex than ever before. Success in every sector is now seen in global terms. Yet success in working with colleagues from different cultures is no easy goal. In order to connect, we have to communicate effectively and we can only do this in an atmosphere of mutual respect, understanding and trust. Cross-cultural training helps you understand the underlying cultural ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Get it done! soft skills not hard tools are required
- If your organization has people, then interpersonal skills are needed.I work with companies that are on a path they call the lean journey. Whatever you call it, it's based on the Toyota Production System. Some manufacturers embraced it and it became known as Lean Manufacturing, expanded into the Lean Office or Lean Enterprise. During this transformation the approach became focused on tools,...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Team motivation - tough enough to care
- Sir Alex Ferguson has just celebrated his 1000 game in charge of Manchester United, probably the world's most successful soccer team.I have a great deal of respect for Sir Alex as a man manager. However, I always feel that he's misrepresented in the media. The press portrays him as this big, bad, angry guy who manages his team by aggression, bullying, shouting and throwing teacups and footb...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Motivation - you get what you reward
- There's a programme currently running on BBC Television in the UK called - "Little Angels." It's a series that offers help and advice to parents who're experiencing behaviour difficulties with their children. I'm sure there are similar programmes in other parts of the world. The children are often out of control, won't do what they're told and generally dominate the family.Part of the progr...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Finding common ground through consensus decision-making
- It's clear to me that a workplace is a better place when employees truly work in teams, but the most familiar team models we have are those that are created to win wars and games. We have a commander or a coach who gives orders, and the soldiers or the players use those instructions to defeat the opponent. Mediator Bill Ury says, "People are realizing that adversarial, win?lose attitudes in a...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The importance of business goals
- For you to get where you want to go, there are four key steps for you to take. They are not difficult, but they are vital.Commonly known as the GROW model, the four stages are as follows:-G stands for GoalsBeing clear about where you want to get to is absolutely critical. You MUST know where you are intending to get to, by identifying your goals and being very pr...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Oasis in a cash flow desert - four resources that increase small business capital streams
- For small business owners, an enthusiastic vision for smooth, steady growth can become nothing more than a mirage once company cash flow problems begin to heat up. Most will struggle with the timing of payment from clients or customers at some point, all while attempting to pay their own bills in a timely fashion. With all of the best laid plans for rapid flowing cash streams evaporating down to j...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The 6 steps to six sigma
- Step 1Get the proper level of Six Sigma expertise at the executive level of the company. If the top leaders don't understand the advanced six sigma principles, the company has no shot to attain total quality. This will probably require a hefty budget, entailing the hiring of several high-priced consultants for long periods of time. The consultants need to observe and gather data abou...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Making powerful requests that launch people into action
- Do you ever wonder why people do not simply do the things that you want them to do? Well, instead of waiting for things to happen, decide to take responsibility for making them happen. The way to do this is often as simple as making an appropriate request.Requests are the engine that drives action. To the extent that you become proficient in making requests that people understand to be in t...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Rules for running a meeting
- As an experienced manager, I can announce without a doubt that the primary reason for lack of effectiveness in the contemporary business world is that people don't follow the rules for running a meeting. Thousands meetings are conducted each day and most of the meeting chairmen have not even heard of the rules for running a meeting. Therefore, the following article includes a brief description of ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Hidden consultants within your organization
- You've all heard the old joke about a consultant being someone who uses your watch to tell you the time, and then steals your watch. There's some truth to the story: consultant recommendations are often the same things that your employees or customers have been telling you all along. But while you will listen to a consultant, you don't listen to your employees and customers. Why is that? Why do co...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - I said pareto chart? not potato chart!
- Does this sound familiar? You were hired for the new management position. You were tasked to turn the numbers around. You take some time reviewing the current situation. Now it's time to take a look at the current processes and get your staff together to analyze the data. You tell them that you want to brainstorm; work on a few mind maps, whip out a couple Ishikawa's to get started and then have t...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Choices in appointing international managers
- Globalization is requiring companies to make important choices about how to deploy international managers. The costs of making the wrong choice are heavy both economically and in the emotional and physical toll it can take on employees and the impact it can have on the overseas branch.Traditionally companies have required managers to accept foreign postings of, perhaps, several years' durat...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Instantly uncover your corporate culture
- Best Definition of "Corporate Culture"If you ask 10 people to define "organizational culture," you will get 11 different answers!Fortunately, from my consulting and writing on leadership and organizational change, I created my definition of organizational culture:"Corporate culture is how every employee knows she or he must act ? even if no one is watc...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Delegation for business leaders - how letting go works
- A leader's role is to focus on those areas of operation where he or she can deliver the greatest value and this requires huge shifts in perspective of the role. Leaders differ from managers in terms of accountability.Whilst a leader is accountable for the strategic growth of the organisation and the delivery of results, a manager is more responsible of delivery of shorter-term result...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Reprimanding marginal employees
- THE MARGINAL PERFORMER: Every manager must, from time to time, deal with a marginal performer - an employee whose work, for the most part, is satisfactory, but who regularly fails in some specific area or areas to maintain a satisfactory level of performance. The work of the marginal performer can be classified as substandard in some cases but not so poor as to warrant immediate termination....
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Make change easy - get involved!
- There are wild variances in how much involvement organisations are brave enough to offer their people in change. From those organisations where they just 'tell' (sometimes by text message even!), to the most enlightened extreme, where they enable wholesale contribution to the change process.Such organisations actually create the time and space to involve as many people as poss...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Counseling interviews for the marginal employee
- ACTIVE LISTENING: The most frequent cause of failure in therapeutic counseling interviews is the interviewer's tendency to talk too much. Numerous studies have shown that in counseling interviews the average manager will talk as much as 85 percent of the time. For a counseling interview to serve its purpose of drawing out responses from the employee, the interviewer must be an effective listener, ...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - The punitive approach to marginal performers
- MANAGING A MARGINAL PERFORMER: Often a marginal performer, even after therapeutic counseling, may not understand that his or her work is seen as substandard. The manager will have to ask the employee directly how the performance could be improved. If the manager still meets with resistance or avoidance, as a last resort he or she will have to give suggestions.THE PUNITIVE APPROACH: If the u...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - What we have here is a failure to communicate
- Today's successful organizations are the ones which carry on open and honest communications with their employees. If employees know and understand the mission, they will help communicate it to customers.Here are some employee communication methods and the pros and cons of each. As in marketing communications, a multi-media approach will be most effective when delivering honest and open comm...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Competencies for hr professionals in knowledge-based industry with reference to it, ites-bpos
- Introduction"High performing HR function affects bottom line nearly 10%"- A surveyCompetencies have become integral part of HR field. In the last 25+ years, the competency approach has emerged from being a specialized and narrow application to being a leading method for diagnosing, framing and improving most aspects of Human Resource Management. Changes to business practice...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Dealing with marginal performers: the therapeutic approach
- --PREPARATION: The purpose of the therapeutic approach is to spark an employee toward improved performance through counseling. The manager's goal is to help the employee recognize the existence of a problem, accept the need for change, and formulate his or her own program for improvement. The manager should critically assess his or her own attitudes and opinions. It is important to try to eliminat...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Big company intelligence on a small company budget
- Information is the lifeblood of the economy. That's especially true for businesses, because the ability to identify current customers and locate new prospects makes the difference between boom and bust. So how do successful companies do it? Through targeted market research, which usually means arcane computer systems, large staffs, and six-figure budgets.That situation is ripe for change, a...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Assessing managers for international competence
- How do you select staff for international assignments? It's an important question because, no matter how effective and successful your employees may be at home, they cannot be guaranteed the same performance in a different culture-unless, that is, they can demonstrate some key competencies. But beware, these may be quite different from the competencies they need to succeed in their own environment...
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- 2007-11-13 22:16:19 - Teamwork training: learning to build a successful team
- Teamwork is a process that can be experienced outdoors and well as in the workplace. A lesson learned in one environment can be applied equally well in another. Teamwork: We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Us, a book by Dr. Steven Stowell and Matt Starcevich, describes actual teams that have participated in a variety of outdoor teamwork training programs. These programs have been as long as five d...