The State of the American Manager Is…Weak
Brandon Roghi, Risk Management Monitor: “Gallup’s State of the American Manager report is one of those inputs that should compel organizations to look inward. Gallup lays out startling data on the woeful state of American managers: most are disengaged, compelling their employees to perform at much lower levels. Prevailing promotion and hiring practices are big culprits, as a small minority of people given management roles actually have the skills to succeed with leadership responsibilities. A lot needs to change to recover all of the lost productivity.
According to Gallup, about 82% of managers lack the appropriate skills for their positions. Poor hiring practices beget low engagement with the job and organization: 65% of managers say they are either not engaged, or actively disengaged.
More from Gallup: Only One in 10 People Possess the Talent to Manage
Related: Study Shows Half Of Managers Don’t Set Effective Employee Goals – Victor Lipman looks at a recent Towers Watson study, Effective Managers: Your Critical Link To Successful Strategy Execution.
Some Companies Fight Pay Gap By Eliminating Salary Negotiations
Yuki Noguchi, NPR: “Some of my clients are now making all of their salaries transparent, up to the executive level,” she says.
That includes Elevations Credit Union, based in Boulder, Colo. The company sets salary level based on title, which it publishes online. So effectively, there is no salary negotiation during hiring or promotion.
Annette Matthies heads human resources and says Elevations did this after hearing complaints from employees. She says it also has helped with recruitment and retention.
“And that loyalty then increases profits for our company,” she says. “The company’s more profitable, they can then give back more to their employees, and so it’s a symbiotic relationship.”
This Is the Silver Bullet to Reducing Workplace Stress
Martha C. White, TIME: “New research finds that a half-hour walk at lunchtime promotes increased relaxation and reduced stress among office workers. “Walking… seems to have both energizing and relaxing properties in the workplace,” writes lead author Cecilie Thøgersen-Ntoumani, an associate professor in the Psychology and Speech Pathology School at Curtin University in Australia.
In an experiment with 75 university administrative staff members that asked participants for frequent, real-time feedback over the 10-week course of the study, subjects reported being more relaxed, more enthusiastic and less nervous on afternoons following the lunchtime walks they took three times a week.”
The Case For Being A Generous Leader
Tim Stevens, Fast Company: “My experience with selfish people is that they are often stressed, tense, bitter, angry, critical, argumentative, and bullying. Generous people, on the other hand, are genuinely happy. They aren’t constantly determining their self-worth by how far they are above others. They have a great day when they’ve had the chance to add value to others.”
Protect Workers From The Number One Cause of Workplace Deaths – Distracted Driving
Valerie Butera, National Law Review: “Distracted driving is the number one cause of workplace deaths in the United States. OSHA has partnered with the National Safety Council to call employers’ attention to this issue and urge the adoption of safe driving policies. Failure to adopt and enforce such policies in the workplace leads to tragic results and OSHA has made it perfectly clear that employers who do not take this issue seriously should expect OSHA citations. On its distracted driving webpage, the agency has stated that employers “have a responsibility and legal obligation to have a clear, unequivocal, and enforced policy against texting while driving.”
But to truly protect your employees from the hazards of distracted driving, your policy should cover more than just texting.”
Handbook on Leave and Workplace Flexibilities for Childbirth, Adoption, and Foster Care (PDF)
U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s newly released handbook for federal employees “Our handbook on Leave and Workplace Flexibilities for Childbirth, Adoption and Foster Care provides scenarios and tips to give employees realistic and specific examples about how these policies can and should be applied. It was developed with the help of representatives from more than 40 federal agencies, and it is an important milestone in achieving the president’s vision for federal working families.”
See Director of OPM Katherine Archuleta’s remarks on Workplace Flexibility Guides for Working Families in Huffington Post.
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