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Are you sabotaging your workers’ productivity in ways you never realized?

Lisa Mulcahy Business Management, Services & Risk Management

As a manager, you might think you're doing a great job at creating a work environment that helps your employees thrive. But are you making unintended mistakes that could be zapping your staff's physical and emotional strength? If you have been, here's some good news. Researchers have been looking extensively at ways workers' performances can be affected in unexpected ways. The result: they've come up with some great solutions for how you can recognize where you can easily improve your workers' productivity.

The easiest ways to give negative feedback

Catherine Iste Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Social media may empower us to tell that restaurant what we thought about the poor service or show the shoe store how mad we are about their return policy. However, it does not help us tell our staff that they are dropping the ball. While providing negative feedback is not the best part of being a leader, it is a necessary part. Here some are easy steps to get started now.

Unraveling the mystery of miscommunication

Candice Gottlieb-Clark Business Management, Services & Risk Management

Communication always comes with a level of messiness and ambiguity. Even with the best of intentions and clearest of communication we can portray mixed messages, leading to misunderstandings or conflict. Add to that the array of communication platforms we deal with: meetings, email, Google chat, passing remarks in the hall, phone calls. The opportunities for miscommunications are introduced at almost all hours of the workday. These miscommunications are at the root of distrust, misled beliefs, and conflict, especially in a corporate culture.

How to leave your job

Patrick Gleeson Business Management, Services & Risk Management

For any number of reasons, it's time to move on. How should you do that? If you’ve had problems at work that led to your decision — a toxic boss or the promised terms of your employment weren't delivered — you may be tempted to make a dramatic exit (don't, of course). If you're leaving because you have a wonderful new job opportunity and everyone, including your current boss, thinks you ought to take it, making your exit becomes easier. But there are still right and wrong ways of doing it.

Advice from an association’s past presidents

Robert C. Harris Association Management

We invited a half-dozen past presidents of AIA San Francisco to lunch, asking them to share governance tips with the new board members. The first advice was, "please don’t call me past president. It sounds like I am deceased," one said. Their insights were eagerly accepted by directors. Another tip they offered was to take a break after completing the association presidency, "but don’t abandon the association." You will need a rest after the role of chief elected officer, but your skills and value remain essential in the association.

Workplace romance: Happy ever after or a lawsuit waiting to happen?

Terri Williams Business Management, Services & Risk Management

The average person in the workforce spends eight hours a day at work. This time represents more waking hours than are spent doing anything else. Co-workers often become friends for life: as close as, if not closer, than family members. So, it’s no surprise that people would also find romance at work. In a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey conducted before the #MeToo movement gained steam, 24 percent of employees reported that they either had been or were currently involved in a workplace romance. But is this a bad idea?

Should you care if your employees love you?

Roberta Matuson Business Management, Services & Risk Management

For years, I thought it was important that my employees loved me. Boy, was I wrong. You see, love is one of those things that can dissipate at a moment's notice. Here's what I mean. Remember when you were in junior high and you were so in love with one of your classmates? You were giddy as could be when you found out they felt the same way about you. Then, boom — you wake up one day to find out they've moved on. They've got a new love, while your world has fallen apart. I see the same thing happen in business.

Auto industry expected to experience significant decrease in demand —…

Terri Williams Transportation Technology & Automotive

A recent report by Bain & Company reveals that, by 2025, U.S. vehicle demand will drop to 11.5 million — and perhaps even lower if the rate of immigrants entering the country declines. Demand was at 16 million in 2009, and 13.5 million in 2018. What's causing the decline in demand, and how can U.S. auto manufacturers weather this disruption? According to Rodney P. Parker, Associate Professor of Operations Management in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, there's a consistent opinion that auto sales in the U.S. will shrink. There's not one specific reason for the slowdown in U.S. car sales. Rather, there's a perfect storm brewing.

Survey: Federal workers downbeat as second shutdown looms

Seth Sandronsky Civil & Government

Uncertainty reigns among federal workers over their financial health and buying power in the face of a potential second partial government shutdown on Feb. 15, according to a survey from Clever Real Estate. The 35-day closure in December and January over a failed U.S.-Mexico border wall deal has left a lasting scar, survey results show. The eight-day survey, featuring a random sampling of 500 federal employees, indicates much angst as Congress and President Trump careen toward an unclear outcome of negotiations for a border wall, according to Thomas O'Shaughnessy, a research analyst at Clever Real Estate.

Pollyanna was right: Why you should always be grateful

Anne Rose Business Management, Services & Risk Management

People who have only vaguely heard about Pollyanna often wrongly describe her as a naïve goody-two-shoes who was blindly optimistic, regardless of reality. Actually, her personality was to simply focus on the good in a situation and to be grateful no matter what your circumstances. There's nothing wrong with being grateful for your life. Gratitude is not reserved exclusively for the fourth Thursday in November; it should be a perpetual state of mind.

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