For those of a certain vintage, being an employee in a mid-to-large workplace came with the obvious trappings - nosy colleagues, demanding work schedules, bad cafeteria food (or worse, bad snack machine edibles), and the dreaded year-end “performance review”. You...
From time to time my staff approach me with flyers that promote particular public training workshops and ask me if they can attend. These courses range from 'Advanced PowerPoint' to 'How to Deal with Difficult People'. It’s hard to know...
I supervise a number of employees, and always try to help them develop skills relevant to their current work and their career. One employee requested training on project management, and we agreed on a course. She asked to take it...
My organization's policy on performance evaluation is to do it every six months for all employees. It's coming up to that time and, as a supervisor, I find myself dreading the event. Having to give performance feedback to people whose...
The term 'time management' is somewhat of an anomaly because we can’t actually manage time! Telling delegates this at the beginning of a time management course can produce some frowning faces. We quickly move on to suggest that what we...
In an earlier column you suggested that organizations devote more resources to marginal employees than they do to talent. I'm trying to understand how this is a problem. Aren't supervisors supposed to help struggling employees turn their performances around? Why...
Our staff have expressed interest in receiving more training in areas that are core skills for their jobs. However, when we've sent people to workshops or courses in the past, they usually haven't come back and implemented any of their...
We spent a lot of time and resources trying to find just the right person to fill a senior position within our organization, and now it's become clear that it's not going to work out. What do we do? Even...
Many managers consider progressive discipline as a necessary evil - an experience where the manager must document ongoing performance issues or violations and engage in a negative confrontation with the employee to deal with it "or else". The or else...
Performance appraisal - do these two little words give you shivers or smiles? Many managers dread performance appraisals and will go to great lengths to avoid them. Yet in reality it can be one of the most positive and valuable...
