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You are here: Home / Archives for topics / Managing staff
LEADERSHIP

10 tips to turn toxic management into teamwork

April 8, 2022 by

By Daryll Esposito You know how valuable your employees are. The question is, do they know you know it? The working world is changing fast, and so are the demands of leadership. Successful law offices must nurture an environment that is not only productive but also provides flexibility, opportunity, and job satisfaction. Almost two-thirds of small to midsized companies report that employee retention is a bigger problem than hiring new talent, according to recent research from Zenefits. And when good staffers leave, it creates costly disruptions that can hamper overall productivity. WHAT IS A TOXIC BOSS? Leadership is never easy. It requires big-picture thinking, tough calls, and a deft touch to nudge things in the right direction. It also requires mutual trust and respect with everyone you work with. A… . . . read more

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MANAGING STAFF

Resignations: It’s not the pay, it’s people problems

April 4, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry It’s not the money driving the Great Resignation, in which 4.3 million employees quit their jobs in January, followed by another 4.4 million in February.1, 2 A major research project completed a couple of months ago makes this clear. The MITSloan Management Review researched 600 companies that had higher quit rates than their sector benchmark and assessed vast numbers of employee resignations.3 A toxic company culture is 10.4 times more likely to predict turnover than pay.4 Here’s what researchers learned. Pay was the 16th most important factor in employee retention.5 A toxic corporate culture, which includes poor managerial treatment of workers, dishonesty and a lack of ethics, disrespect, bullying, and abusive or cut-throat behavior, was 10.4 times more important than pay as a reason employees left employers.3, 4 In addition… . . . read more

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YOUR CAREER

8 ways to make your meetings zoom by

March 28, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry If you dread meetings–attending them, hosting them–and long for meetings to become more than a necessary evil, you can make it happen. Not long ago, I hosted a two-day, 15-hour meeting that the 17 attendees said “zoomed by,” “was fun, kept me engaged the entire time,” and “made an hour seem like five minutes.” Here’s how we did it. 1. A “you” start We started with the “real,” with questions like “how is remote working for you this week?” 2. Real value Before I launched into the first topic, I asked everyone what they hoped the meeting focused on and what results they wanted from it. Everyone listens to the same radio station, WIFM, “what’s in it for me.” If your meeting attendees know from the start,… . . . read more

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MANAGING STAFF

Helping your employees help Ukraine

March 22, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry My inbox flooded when I challenged readers “are you brave?” writing about the woman who crashed Russia’s main state news broadcast to protest the Ukraine invasion, https://bit.ly/3N21Wot and then challenged employers with “what’s occurring in the Ukraine creates widespread grief. Are there ways you can channel your employees’ anger and sense of powerlessness by offering them avenues to respond in humanitarian ways that support Ukrainians fleeing the invasion?” Many employers wrote me and asked “what can we do as coworkers and employers? Here’s how I answered: Employee mental health, well-being and support are within every employer’s scope. As your company’s leaders, you can act with empathy and meaningful support to help your employees weather the emotional impact of devastation in Ukraine. Coworkers can reach out with care and concern…. . . . read more

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HARASSMENT

Russian-American workplace discrimination: It’s a thing now

March 19, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry Question: Like many other employees that need highly skilled employees and want to diversify their labor pool, ours has hired several Russian emigrants. Other than coworkers complaining that these employees’ accents make understanding them difficult, we had no problems—until Russia invaded Ukraine. At first, nothing occurred that created worry. Many of our employees knew little about Ukraine and so peppered the emigrants with questions. But as the horror of what was happening in Ukraine continued, our employees grew angrier. Several employees asked their Russian-born coworkers how they could possibly “defend” what was going on. Things got worse when one of the emigrants defended Putin, calling him a strong leader. How much trouble do we get into if we fire this one employee? While she’s technically skilled, she’s… . . . read more

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DRUGS & ALCOHOL

High at work: Anyone else smell that?

March 19, 2022 by

By Paul Edwards More often than you would think, we get calls from managers wondering what they can do about someone whom they think is impaired at work. When that happens, we immediately go into crisis control mode because, well, impairment at work is never acceptable. In this article, we are going to discuss impairment and odors from the perspective of marijuana legalization. From job candidates showing up to interviews smelling like a skunk to employees showing up to their shift distracted with bloodshot eyes, knowing how to handle an employee’s potential marijuana use has only gotten more complicated. Currently, marijuana legalization is in limbo between state versus federal government. While many states have moved to legalize or decriminalize its use, marijuana is still an illegal Schedule I drug under… . . . read more

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EMPLOYMENT LAW UPDATE

Florida’s new “Stop Woke” law impacts workplace training

March 15, 2022 by

By Mike O’Brien “Stop Woke” Act passes Florida Senate New legislation in Florida (HB 7) prohibits any teaching that could make students feel they bear “personal responsibility” for historic wrongs because of their race, color, sex, or national origin. But the legislation’s reach doesn’t end in schools. In the workplace, employment practices or training programs that cause an individual to feel similarly guilty could be considered an unlawful employment practice, giving rise to legal liability. The Florida Senate voted 24-15 along party lines to approve a measure labeled “Individual Freedom,” and was seen to be in response to Governor DeSantis’ demand for a “Stop WOKE” Act. You can see more here. New guidance from the DOL on FLSA, FMLA, and Visa programs On March 10 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)… . . . read more

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TRAINING

Law firm training: Treat the injury, not the pain

March 14, 2022 by

By Doug Striker I have a broken foot. I’m 100% positive that it’s broken but initial X-rays showed nothing. So, I am booting for a couple of weeks until I can get another X-ray, which will surely show a stress fracture that was indiscernible in the early days of the injury. So, now I’m taking pain meds to get me through to the real diagnosis. Why am I telling you this? Because it reminds me of how some law firms approach training. Namely: There’s a pain point! Let’s train it away! But they need to figure out the structural/systems problems first. Otherwise, training is like ibuprofen— it will mask the pain, but it won’t make the real issues disappear. They need systematic training for law firms. The Harvard Business Review… . . . read more

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MANAGING STAFF

Beware the Bermuda Triangle of workplace conflicts

March 9, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry We don’t always understand why we react to some people, nor they to us. Or why otherwise talented employees and supervisors get tangled in interpersonal messes that create toxic work environments. Over the years, when I’ve helped clients fix workplace conflicts, I’ve discovered some of the most challenging conflicts stem from drama triangle collisions. Like the Bermuda Triangle, that North Atlantic Ocean region where ships mysteriously vanish, the drama triangle lurks beneath the surface of many messy person-to-person interactions. The drama triangle represents a three-way match of negative energy. If you’ve not heard of matching energy, consider what happens when you meet a coworker who talks about everything that’s going wrong. Your energy vampire coworker drains your energy until you feel negative, matching her energy. In this… . . . read more

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MANAGING STAFF

7 things to require of your moonlighting employees

March 8, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry “One of our highly paid professionals works remote. We don’t want to lose his talent, but he used to work 45 to 55 hours a week and now half the time I can’t find him when I call. He always calls me back, but it’s hours later. Last year, he was the first to volunteer for special projects. He doesn’t anymore. I heard a rumor he’s working another job, and I’m wondering if we’re getting what we’re paying for.”     “I found this site, overemployed.com. It taught me how to work two or three remote jobs at the same time and attain financial freedom. It even shows me how to negotiate a severance if one of the employers finds out and gets nasty.1”             In recent weeks,… . . . read more

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