8 steps to negotiating your employee's salary

So you believe you have found the perfect candidate for the job. You're sure this person can deliver transformative results in a short amount of time. She is definitely a performer. You've decided to extend her an offer.

You crosscheck salaries on Salary.com and PayScale to make sure you deliver a package that's competitive and ready for her signature. Heck, you even feel the salary is a bit out of your comfort range, because you really want to hire this person. As far as you're concerned, the company just extended her a great offer that she couldn't possibly refuse.

And then she refuses it.

She even has the audacity to counter your offer, requesting $10,000 more in base salary. What do you do?

Tolerance Stack up and Recruitment

Let us say 100 precision engineered components when assembled together will make a fully functional car. On each of the 100 components, a maximum error margin of 0.5% (half a percent) is permitted. Let us also say that we have used the maximum allowed leeway for error on each of the 100 parts. How faulty will the finally assembled car be, when made out of these 100 parts, each of them having an error of 0.5%?

How to boost productivity as a remote employee

Telecommuting continues to climb in popularity among workers and employers, hitting 37% in 2015 according to a recent Gallup poll. Interestingly, that study also states that remote employees were just as productive as in-house teams.

While it may appear that way from the corporate perspective, any remote employee will tell you that they face some unique challenges when the watchful eye of leadership disappears.

“Losing that structure provided by a regular office job can be detrimental to success, “ warns Andrew Rosen, founder and editor of the career advice blog Jobacle.com in a conversation with Glassdoor.

Ten Career-Damaging Habits You'll Never Know You've Got

When my middle son was in tenth grade, I saw him pull a paperback book out of his backpack. “What are you reading?” I asked him. He told me. “My Language Arts teacher recommended this book,” he said, “and it’s awesome.”

“Why don’t you tell her that you took her recommendation?” I asked him. “I’ll bet she’ll be happy to hear that.”

“No,” said my soft-spoken son. “I’d better not tell her. She’ll get too excited and make a big deal out of it.”

A pang went through my heart. That’s just the kind of thing I would do, if I were a Language Arts teacher and a kid told me that he was reading a book I’d recommended. I’d get excited and make a big deal out of it. Oh no!

How do you always deal with top performers who resign

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It’s understandable that a leader feels unhappy when a top performer resigns. The employee is intentionally ending the relationship, so there is an element of personal rejection involved. In addition the leader now needs to replace that person, which could be a daunting challenge given that the person is a top performer. As a result, the employee who resigns is often treated poorly by the leader. And sometimes, after the employee has left, the leader speaks negatively about that person. What are the consequences of these types of behavior?

The Secret to Job Security

Not that long ago when somebody had a job, they kept the job for five or seven years or more. If your friend changed jobs more often than every few years, you'd say "Dude! Why do you keep changing jobs?" Now we don't ask our friends why they change jobs often, because everybody changes jobs all the time. Working people can't rely on keeping a job for years on end, even if they do a great job and even if their company is making money. There are conversations happening in far-flung conference rooms right now, in Hong Kong and Philadelphia and Dubai, that will put people reading this column out of work in a few weeks or months. 

Your personal brand is more than your job

A decade ago it was easy to manage your personal brand. Back then, a personal brand was no more complicated than “I’m an Inventory Analyst for Sears.” When LinkedIn was launched in 2003, I’d use that as my job title on the site without thinking twice about it. Nowadays, personal branding is more complicated. We have a brand that’s separate from the one our employer has designated for us—that is, different from our job title. Whether we reflect it on our LinkedIn profile or not, we’ve got a brand, a network, and, in the best case, a plan for our career that is distinct from our employer’s plan for us. (Begging the question: Does your employer have a plan for your career?)

The truth about wasting time at work

If you look at the standard organizational model, the first thing you notice is that it’s a pyramid. It is narrower at the top than at the bottom. There are a lot of worker bees at the bottom of the pyramid — that’s why the base of the pyramid is broader than the top of the pyramid is. There are fewer managers than employees, and there are a very small number of executives at the top of the organization, calling the shots. 

Bad mistakes that make good employees leave

It’s tough to hold on to good employees, but it shouldn’t be. Most of the mistakes that companies make are easily avoided. When you do make mistakes, your best employees are the first to go, because they have the most options. If you can’t keep your best employees engaged, you can’t keep your best employees. While this should be common sense, it isn’t common enough. A survey by the Corporate Executive Board found that one-third of star employees feel disengaged from their employer and are already looking for a new job.

When you lose good employees, they don’t disengage all at once. Instead, their interest in their jobs slowly dissipates. Michael Kibler, who has spent much of his career studying this phenomenon, refers to it as brownout. Like dying stars, star employees slowly lose their fire for their jobs.

The Evolution of HR

HR is undergoing a major overhaul. Advances in data mining technology and the emergence of mobile workers are creating a tectonic shift in the way companies manage their workforce in the field and the way employees get work done. Not only that, but it is also having a major impact on the way companies are meeting staffing and hiring needs.

Managing a Mobile Workforce

Mobile, on-demand workforce are on the rise and while they provide flexibility for both the employer and employee, with them come a new set of challenges, such as managing where your employees are at any give time. Questions HR managers often ask themselves pertain to productivity and whether their employees are completing the task at hand in a timely manner.