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How to recover after a corporate scandal

Indiana Lee Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Recovering from a scandal is not an easy process. It’s also the case that even in the years after the core problem, details of your ethical issues will be just a quick search away. Any scandal has the potential to leave your online reputation in tatters if handled without due care. How should you approach your recovery from a corporate scandal? What strategies and tools can you implement to improve both your reputation and toxic company culture? Let’s take a closer look at some key areas of focus.

Survey: Skills shortage forces 31% of organizations to prioritize investment…

Terri Williams Business Management, Services & Risk Management

The pandemic has forced many organizations to reconsider their projects for the rest of the year — and beyond. While a lot of plans have been put on hold, some companies have elevated IT training to a priority project. According to the 2020 Netwrix IT Trends Report, 38% of CIOs and IT directors now plan to invest in the education of IT staff, compared to 20% who had it on their top five list before the pandemic. We asked Ilia Sotnikov, VP of product management at Netwrix, to discuss this and some of the other IT trends revealed in the report.

The gold standard in policies

Robert C. Harris Association Management

Policies are the wisdom of prior boards, adopted as motions and recorded in the minutes, to guide actions and decisions of the current and future boards. They frequently interpret broad sections of the bylaws, which purposely lack detail. For example, the bylaws may require a periodic financial audit. A policy will specify frequency, type of audit, and the hiring of a CPA. It is easier to adopt, amend or repeal a policy than the bylaws, which usually require as approval process by the membership. Associations rely on 25 to 50 policies.

Clear as muck: When the only thing that’s certain is more uncertainty

Linda Popky Business Management, Services & Risk Management

As we get to the end of what’s been a long and challenging year for most of the world, we can all look forward to … who knows? We are just under a month away from a presidential election that may or may not have a clear winner on election night. We’re expecting an effective vaccine to protect us from the virus in the next month or two — or maybe the next year, or maybe not at all. Virtually none of this is clear. Yet, we need to continue to move forward, run our businesses, support our customers, take care of our families. How do you maintain a sense of balance when nothing is certain? Here are a few suggestions.

US payrolls add 661,000 jobs; unemployment rate falls to 7.9%

Seth Sandronsky Business Management, Services & Risk Management

American employers created 661,000 nonfarm jobs in September after hiring 1.4 million workers in August, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. September’s jobless rate dropped to 7.9% from 8.4% in August. The jobs numbers reflect in part the easing of social restrictions and reopening of businesses to stem the spread of COVID-19. However, government employment, mainly in public education at the state and local levels, dropped in September from August.

Tips for interrupting unconscious bias

Michelle Silverthorn Business Management, Services & Risk Management

"Why do you brush your teeth?" When I ask that in my unconscious bias trainings, people give me a very strange look. Because you want healthy teeth and fresh breath, obviously. Except, for millennia, humans were perfectly happy without either. So what changed? Advertising. Marketing. Pepsodent, especially. They made you want to brush your teeth. They made you desire that clean feeling. They made it into a habit. A habit is changed behavior. And making people want to do something is how we always think habits should form.

Why there’s no such thing as instant coffee

Hank Boyer Business Management, Services & Risk Management

You and I have been born into an accelerating world. Travel that took a week by horseback two centuries ago is now competed in a few hours in the air-conditioned comfort of your car. A little more than 10 years ago, the two-hour meeting you had in the next time zone that required flights and overnights is now completed in two hours, plus 2 minutes for the set up and tear down of a video call. We've become so used to speed that we actually believe there is something called instant coffee.

Avoiding the cardinal sin of communication

Linda Popky Marketing

We all have opinions about the communications we receive from businesses and associations. In some cases, we get too much material too often; in others, not enough. Some pieces are too generic; some too detailed. But there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to turn off your customers and prospects: being too boring. How do you avoid turning off your target audience with your communications? Here are a few suggestions.

Bring love to your leadership style

Jill Ratliff Business Management, Services & Risk Management

While "love" and "leadership" might sound like incompatible concepts, leaders who are unafraid to add love to their leadership style will find it motivates and engenders loyalty in their teams like nothing else can. Obviously, I’m not talking about hearts-and-flowers love or even familial love; those types of love are usually best left out of the workplace (family businesses aside). The kind of love I’m talking about is broader, more encompassing.

How to power up the consent agenda

Robert C. Harris Association Management

"We’ve been in this meeting for an hour and done nothing but listen to reports," said the board member. The standard board agenda includes a dozen reports and updates. Reading and listening to reports are not good use of board time. Meetings should concentrate on advancing the mission and strategic goals.

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