Managing People at Work

A guide to navigating service animals at work

March 30, 2023
According to a recent EEOC ADA lawsuit, disabled workers who need their service animals at work are entitled to have those animals available during their workday as a reasonable accommodation or to help disabled workers overcome barriers to employment like getting to work with a service animal’s assistance.

4 reasons managers should conduct stay interviews

March 30, 2023
Want to improve your employee retention rates by 20% or more? Then you need to make a habit out of conducting stay interviews with your employees on a regular basis.

5 phrases smart managers avoid saying

March 30, 2023
We’ve all heard the evergreen advice “think before you speak.” Words have consequences, and managers who hastily toss out statements run the risk of killing morale, damaging relationships and genuinely hurting feelings. Even if you later feel remorseful, taking things back once said proves difficult. A better solution is to try ridding your vocabulary of certain phrases.

Management library: Dare to Lead

March 24, 2023
If you’re not familiar with bestselling author Brené Brown, she is a researcher at the University of Houston whose work focuses on self-empowerment, and she has been immensely influential in the discourse of self-love and courage in the business world. Dare to Lead is a must-read that takes readers on a journey to get honest with ourselves and really ask what each of us needs to show up and do the work.

Drive desirable employee behavior with positive reinforcement

March 24, 2023
Utilizing positive reinforcement for your employees will boost their self-esteem, make them more productive and efficient, and significantly increase morale.

4 effective steps to handle employee complaints

March 24, 2023
From minor beefs to major dilemmas, employees present a variety of complaints to their managers. Here’s how leaders can address what they hear.

Identifying and handling issues with your difficult employees

March 17, 2023
Every team has them and every manager needs to handle the challenges that come along with those difficult employees. The worst thing you can do is ignore the behavior—otherwise, you will lose your valuable, easy-to-work-with staff. Here are the problem personalities you may encounter, and how to work with those individuals to correct the behavior and strengthen the team.

Handling the move from “one of the gang” to manager

March 17, 2023
Has an internal promotion created a scenario in which you now manage former colleagues? Such a power shift requires some adjustments from all involved. Here’s how to navigate this potentially tricky road.

10 crucial questions to ask your employees

March 17, 2023
As a manager, it’s your responsibility to understand your employee’s strengths, weaknesses, natural talents, goals, aspirations and personal preferences. That’s quite a tall task if you manage large teams consisting of 10 or more people. Yet getting to know your employees becomes much easier if you know the right questions to ask.

Keep it Legal: Tread carefully when monitoring employees

March 10, 2023
With rapid advances in technology, monitoring the workplace has become easier and cheaper. It’s no longer just cameras in common areas. Now it’s possible to examine productivity measures like keystrokes taken during a shift and out-of-office activity through vehicle location or company-issued cell phones and laptops. But there are definite areas managers should be aware of—and legal implications to keep in mind.