Want a Better Employee Experience? Start By Simplifying Tech

Technology is intended to make things easier -- especially in the workplace. Employers are implementing more and more platforms in the hopes of simplifying everyday tasks and communication.

However, technology can inadvertently contribute to a negative employee experience, if you’re not careful. When tech suffers from clunky integration, non-intuitive interfaces and weaknesses in the configuration department, employees get frustrated by the complexity and poor design of the very thing they rely on every day to succeed at their jobs. Plus, working with too many software platforms at work can contribute to information overload.

How to be a leader, not manager

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Let's get something straight: Manager and leader are not synonymous terms.

Manage implies maintaining the status quo. It's a manager's job to ensure that things go as planned and that the team meets expectations. Leading, on the other hand, has an inherent forward progression. Leaders encourage change and take us someplace new.

Now those semantic differences don't mean that being a manager and being a leader are mutually exclusive. But finding a great manager who is also leader, that's like finding a flying unicorn. The trick to being a master of both skill sets is understanding the nuances that distinguish true leadership.

10 Workplace Trends That Will Change the Way You Manage

From the rise of the sharing economy to the flexibility of remote work new technology provides, the workplace landscape as we know it is evolving faster than it ever has before. Some changes are subtle and others are great, but all will impact the way you hire, fire and manage in the years to come.

Ten entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their predictions for what emerging trends will shape our workforce for the better in 2016.

13 Key Strategies to Attract and Retain Highly Talented People in 2016

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The way we attract and retain highly talented people has been one of the major priorities for Human Resources for a number of years. As the competition for the best talent grows; businesses must reduce the disconnect between their talent requirements and the strategies and processes which underpin them. 

Attracting Highly Talented People

It will come as no surprise to you that research shows the power has shifted from the employer to the candidate. This means attracting the best talent is not just about profiling the role and your organizational fit, it's much more about finding out what likely candidates will want from you as an employer. Your new talent strategy should include:

4 ways to engage employees

 According to an HR Magazine article, What’s In Store For HR In 2015, employee engagement and retention will be the number one “front-burner” issue this year for most HR professionals and organizations. “In today’s highly transparent job market, employee engagement and employment brand are becoming the same thing: If people are unhappy at work, they are not only under-performing and increasing the cost of turnover, they are also making it harder to hire good people. So a focus on engagement is a high priority everywhere,” the piece reports.

How To Answer "What's Your Current Salary?"

You are almost guaranteed to get the question "What's your current salary?" or "What are you earning now?" when you're looking for a new job. You have to be ready to answer the question with a smile while keeping your personal salary-history information private.

Lots of in-house recruiters and third-party recruiters take it for granted that they are entitled to know your current and past salaries, but that is a bad assumption on their part.

3 Tips To Create A Workplace Culture That Employees Love

Workplace culture has made the news a lot lately — and it’s not always pretty.

This summer, the New York Times reported on Amazon’s “little-known experiment” in pushing its white-collar workers. Between internal competition and long hours, they revealed that pressure is so high employees regularly see their office mates in tears.

Maybe this works for Amazon, but for the rest of us, neglecting company culture (and making people cry) isn’t an option. Culture impacts morale, hiring, productivity and — ultimately — your bottom line. More than that, it’s about choosing whether you want an organization that benefits just you and your shareholders — or one that’s good for the entire team.

In 1994, I fired my entire company – all 11 employees. Having made some major hiring missteps, I had an epiphany and realized that culture is everything. From that moment on, I decided that our people and our culture would come first. To reinforce that choice and make myself accountable, I even posted “It’s all about people” in the front entrance of our office, in huge vinyl letters for everyone to see. It’s still there today reminding us of that commitment.

Here are three culture building tips from my experience on the frontlines.

Tip 1: Create a high-energy workplace. 

People spend more than half their lives at work – it should be fun. At O2E Brands, we have a casual, open-office environment that enables interaction and collaboration. Our president and I don’t have private offices (no one does), and it turns out that set-ups like this are good for business: open-offices boost communication, interpersonal relations and job satisfaction while reducing conflict.

But it’s not just the floor plan that keeps our people engaged. Every morning, the sound of a ringing marine bell cuts through the office buzz, signalling the start of our seven-minute standup “huddle”. The entire company attends to hear good news, numbers and even a (surprisingly non-cheesy) cheer. The huddle fosters transparency, collaboration and an opportunity to appreciate that we are working together as a team.

Other companies have amped up the workplace in different ways. Silicon Valley’s tech titans are famous for having everything from in-house massage and yoga studios to slides and fire poles. And you’ve probably seen video games or a ping-pong table at a workplace near you. The underlying goal of these efforts is similar: Create an environment where people love to do the work they love and everyone benefits.