During the recession many companies faced extraordinary organizational and productivity disruption as they devolved in a matter of months, sometimes even weeks, from a heavily staffed, money-making machine to a very lean organization where every staff position had to contribute directly to revenue production. Today...

Alongside rapid globalization comes the need to enhance the effectiveness of individuals on multicultural leadership assignments. Key to working cross-culturally is taking the time to strategically approach intercultural relationships and acknowledging that there’s an inherent extra layer of complexity...

Learning and development professionals have never been at the top of the corporate salary scale. Whether placed in the human resources function or elsewhere, training professionals are rarely seen as the most essential, powerful or highly regarded employees, not even when viewed from within their own...

It has been said that good people don’t leave good companies – they leave poor managers. No one wants to lose their best people, but in the midst of time pressures to produce better results, managers often cut corners – one of which is acknowledging the importance of managing according...

A trainer and coach offers four basic rules to help HR executives successfully navigate through emotionally charged confrontations. And the first rule? Maintain a sense of calm and open-mindedness. In my work as a negotiation coach and trainer, I come across HR professionals all the time who don’t...

Culturally naive business managers are allowing their organizations to lose millions of dollars in lost opportunities due to cultural misunderstandings, which are leading to the mismanagement of employees. Miscommunication and a lack of cross-cultural understanding are two main barriers organizations...

Companies around the world have realized that implementing a tuition program has various organizational benefits, and serve many diverse functions.  In fact, approximately 85% of companies have some form of tuition assistance program, according to a 2008 Bersin & Associations Tuition Assistance...

Ignore Human Resources at your peril! This department is the foundation of a happy and healthy business and is often thoroughly misunderstood. Read how you can change your own HR department into a thriving, helpful group supporting your company’s prosperity. At a recent offsite with a group of...

The official state motto of the state of Nebraska is “Equality before the law,” but according to Mike McCrory, Nebraska’s state personnel director of administrative services, talent management for the state’s 18,000 employees varies greatly from department to department by statute. “We’ve...

For many managers, communicating about compensation is an uncomfortable part of the job, and today’s austere budgets aren’t making the task any easier. Debra Besch, a Principal in Mercer’s Workforce Communication and Change consulting business, discusses difficulties inherent in...