Blog Articles

On my first day as a CEO, I felt both exhilarated and overwhelmed. However, through the years, I gained skills that gave me the confidence that I could do a good job. In this next set of articles, I’ll discuss leadership skills that can help you manage time and priorities, direct reports, decisions, quality outcomes,…

Even with top notch hiring processes, terminations are unavoidable. Any good manager hates terminating employees. They realize they aren’t just an employee; they are a person who depends on the income and often has others depending on it as well. Although terminations can occur from downsizing, most occur when there is a problem. When it’s…

Once we’ve hired a candidate, it’s now time to turn them into a top performer. Like everything else we’ve discussed, on-boarding is time intensive and requires commitment. Once we’ve hired a candidate, it’s now time to turn them into top performers. Onboarding is time intensive and requires commitment from leadership and staff members. Although your…

Interviewing and selecting the right candidate can be nerve racking. However, if you use this approach, you will increase your odds of success.   In my prior article, I talked about screening candidates. If you’ve screened well, you should know by now if the candidate is qualified. So next is interviewing with the goal to…

Recruiting employees is time-consuming, but there are approaches you can take to reduce the work. One time-consuming step is screening candidates. Let me suggest three approaches to save time. Hire recruiters that screen candidates for you. Access cloud services that help screen for you. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can help you screen candidates. If you…

Begin by defining what you need in an employee. As we’ve learned, there are no perfect job descriptions. As soon as we hire someone the job responsibilities change. I suggest the 80% rule – define the 80% you know. A good job description will be multi-dimensional and include: List of responsibilities Relational skills needed (internal…

When we make snap hiring decisions, we invite a host of problems: under-skilled workers, personality conflicts, poor work ethics and unhappy employees. To lessen these risks, I use a process that has greatly improved hiring practices for myself and my clients. Set-up an applicant grading system based on the position you want to fill. I…

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) studies show that the cost of employee turnover is estimated at 33% of that employee’s compensation. I’m sure your first reaction is that number seems high, so let me clarify.   The study divides these expenses into two categories: hard (33%) and soft costs (67%). The hard costs come…

Managing a business without a financial plan is like driving a car while running on empty. Running out of gas can be unfortunate, but running out of cash is a painful way for a business to fail. The best financial plan is a financial forecast. Forecasts are popular in Fortune 500 companies, but also easy…

For most of us, being a Visionary means we create a Vision Statement that is our business plan overview. I usually suggest you set your Vision for three years. Ask yourself, what are the top two or three achievements you envision accomplishing in the next three years? Here is a link to a sample 1…