Archive for General Business

Smart Onboarding Improves Employee Retention

Concerned about employee retention?  You are not alone.  A global study by McKinsey stated retention of top talent as the number one challenge CEO’s are currently facing. In a recent article in Forbes Magazine, Heidi Lynn Kurter takes a closer look at businesses with higher retention rates and…

Using Supply Chains to Combat Sexual Harassment

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, New America’s Better Life Lab presented findings that sexual harassment was “severe, pervasive, and widespread” across all industries.  It exists equally in both low-income and high-income jobs, and in both male-dominated and female-dominated occupations.   It is, unfortunately, everywhere….

Landmark Study Finds Workplace Culture Is Strongest Predictor of Sexual Harassment

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has just concluded a major study on sexual harassment.  It offers some interesting new insights relevant to California employers and employees. According to the study, the strongest predictor of whether sexual harassment will occur (or not) in the workplace is…

What Makes a Company “Culture”?

In the current job market, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, good employees are more valuable now than perhaps ever.  Almost every one of my clients is looking to hire, and almost every one looking is complaining that that they “can’t find anyone good.”  It’s a seller’s market, and…

CA Supreme Court Delivers Bombshell Ruling — Even Harder Now for Employers to Classify Workers as Independent Contractors

Determining whether a worker should be classified as an employee or independent contractor has always been a challenging task that frustrates our clients.  There are a variety of legal “tests” that are used in different contexts in order to make that determination.  A worker can be considered an…

And the Winner for Worst Boss is…the Absentee Leader!

A recent article by Marcel Schwantes in Inc. Magazine summarizes new research on the key traits of bad bosses.  Guess what key trait makes for the worst type of boss? Absentee Leadership Absentee leadership is harder to detect and does not fall into one of the classic leadership patterns…

San Francisco Issues New Lactation Regulations for Employers

In June 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the “Lactation in the Workplace Ordinance.”  This was the nation’s first-ever law requiring employers to have a workplace lactation policy that ensures employees get lactation breaks and have access to a “lactation accommodation space.” This new ordinance, which…

How Good Leaders Get Valuable, Candid, and Critical Feedback

Today I came across a short but interesting article from Harvard Business Review about how effective leaders get honest, critical feedback from their co-workers. The article’s author, Ron Carucci, argues that you don’t need to have a formal 360 evaluation system to get valuable feedback; in fact, the…

The Toxicity of Office Politics to High Potential Employees

Despite the fact that science has given us robust tools to identify, measure, and evaluate indicators, organizations often make employee evaluation mistakes.

Governor Signs SB 396 to Protect Transgender Employees and Combat Discrimination

According to a 2016 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA, there are over 220,000 transgender adults in California.  California has just taken a major step towards protecting their employment rights. On October 15, 2017, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 396.  Known as the “Transgender Work Opportunity…