I manage a group of employees at a company where English is our official business language. There are a few people that speak only English, while another group speaks English and Spanish. The bilingual group often communicates in Spanish, which makes the English speakers uncomfortable. I asked the
Employment law is complicated and can have big repercussions for your company if employees fail to adhere to it—either out of ignorance or neglect. A talent contractor for Comcast was just forced to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit over unpaid overtime—a violation of employment law. While you can’t
One of my employees, Katie, recently approached me with complaints about her manager, Holly. Katie told me Holly is abrasive, curses at employees in public and has gone through five administrative staff members in the past seven months because she’s intimidating and disrespectful to her team. Holly is
It’s not hard to understand why an increasing number of companies are choosing to do away with annual performance reviews: according to one study, over 94 percent of employees would prefer their manager address feedback in real time rather then wait until the end of the year. But annual performance reviews
Stress at work isn’t limited to aggressive deadlines or closing important deals. In fact, work stress can start even before employees show up on the first day, during the relocation process. According to one report, two of the most stress-inducing life events are moving and starting a new job. When
There are some employees who are uncomfortable with the political chatter in the office. It seems to pop up everywhere—in Slack conversations, jokes at meetings and even people asking direct questions about how the company will react to whatever political event is occurring. How should HR handle this?
A newly-hired manager is telling salaried employees that they have to work 45 hours a week, take designated lunch breaks and set daily hours. If employees miss time, they have to make it up. Does this make all employees non-exempt? In the past, being salaried/exempt meant employees had
Do you pay your employees fairly? Of course! You did your research when making salary offers, you award regular cost of living raises and you pay for their overtime work. Still, according to a recent study by Robert Half, 46 percent of employees feel that they are underpaid. This, of
Recently, my colleague and I carefully documented and reported acts of long-term bullying by two of our coworkers. Soon afterward, HR summoned the entire department for a mandatory meeting where our boss’s manager and the top HR manager yelled and reprimanded us. We were told our complaints were
Steve Jobs was notorious for his autocratic leadership style. Instead of empowering his employees to make their own decisions, he would set the strategy, goals and method—and expect them to follow suit. While Apple was incredibly successful under his leadership, some of the downsides of this style are
