Why Your Employees are Quitting (And What You Can do About it)

Why Your Employees are Quitting (And What You Can do About it) You’ve got yourself a talented team of people that are skilled in their jobs â€" of course, you don’t want to lose them. Employees are the most valuable asset to your business and a high turnover of them can cripple your business. Job vacancies have been at their highest in the UK which means that candidates have had more choice and therefore employers have struggled to fill positions. The power seems to lie more in the hands of the candidate and employee rather than the employer. Employees leaving their job cost the company more money that it does the employee. Recruitment costs, time spent on recruiting and interviews all cost the business money. Not to mention the time that it takes the successful candidate to become fully skilled within their role. Keeping employee retention at a low and maintaining the happiness of employees is in the best interest of the employer and employee. How can you encourage employees to stay? It’s important to remember that 77% of staff turnover is preventable but you’ll never be able to stop from leaving your business completely. Career Development A common reason for people leaving their job is because they’re not getting the career development they want. It’s worth ensuring you’re taking the time to assess your employee’s development. This can be done by creating personal development plans, 1 to 1’s and talking to your employees about where and how they’d like to progress, as well as identifying weaknesses to work on. Work-life Balance Many employees are not happy with strict 9-5 working hours and their commuting time can also lead to them feeling dissatisfied. To combat this, you can offer trusted employees the opportunity to work from home, ensure their duties can all be done within the working day and by also introducing flexitime. Bad Management The saying ‘you don’t leave a bad job, you leave a bad manager’ has been around for quite some time. Although not always true, bad management is a large percentage of the reason to people leaving their jobs. The business should be providing managers with appropriate training courses and ensuring managers have the tools and time to effectively manage their employees. Wellbeing Mental health and wellbeing of employees are critically important as it not only affects their performance but also how happy they are at work. To help overall wellbeing, many employers offer wellbeing packages such as yoga classes, massages, and other therapeutic sessions. If an employee is going through a particularly bad time, it’s often best to be accommodating to their circumstances and ensure you check in on them without being pushy. Salary and Benefits 35 % of employees look for a new job if they don’t get a rise in 12 months.   Employees need to be rewarded for their increase in skills and ability to do their job. There should be yearly salary reviews and employers and employees should be aware of a clear plan of progression and the reward at hand when goals are met. Unpaid sick leave is also a common reason people may leave their job. When an employee has an unexpected illness, the last thing they want is to worry about how they’re going to pay their bills because they’ve not been paid. Maximillion created the following infographic that looks at the most common reasons that employees leave their job in depth with some shocking statistics. There are also further tips that can be taken to ensure your valuable employees want to stay at your company. About the author:  Becca Armstrong is a freelance writer for Maximillion, specialists in event management, team building, and communications.

How To Use A Resume Writing College For Job Hunting

How To Use A Resume Writing College For Job HuntingFor some people, the ideal way to learn about resume writing through a resume writing college. The good news is that such institutions exist in every city across the country.If you want to learn how to write a resume, the best place to do so is through a resume writing college. Such schools will teach you how to use a resume and write a winning one for your job search. The most important thing that these programs will teach you is how to make your resume stand out from the competition.While you are at the resume writing college, you will be given the opportunity to take practice tests, which will let you know your writing skills. Since there is such a demand for skilled professionals, more companies are hiring professionals to write their resumes.In order to understand the value of this type of education, you should first understand the basics of resumes. They can range from a relatively short document to a multi-page document that i ncludes detailed information about the individual. In this article, we will look at how the resume writing school can help you learn how to write a great resume for your future employer.The resume is perhaps the single most important document that you will ever submit to a company. And since it is an important document, it should be written well. In order to do that, you need to understand the basics of resume writing.Resume writing schools will teach you how to write a resume that will get your resume noticed by the prospective employer. In addition, it will tell you how to write a resume that will attract employers' attention without making you sound like a robotic resume writer. This is an extremely important skill, as employers will be looking for a resume that gives them a sense of who you are as a professional and will tell them what your experience is.In today's society, there is no room for what some consider to be outdated resume formats. Instead, you will learn how to use templates in order to be able to focus on your skills and professional experience instead of your experiences.Resume writing college will help you take your writing skills and make them a powerful tool in your professional career. You will learn how to stand out from the competition by using resume templates, which will give you a strong chance at landing the perfect job.

Personal Branding Interview Alan Webber - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Alan Webber - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke with Alan Webber, who is the co-founder of Fast Company Magazine and the author of Rules of Thumb. In this interview, Alan tells us what inspired him to start Fast Company and write his new book, how he sees the media landscape changing, how to succeed in a time of economic struggles and much more. What inspired you to start Fast Company Magazine and to write your new book? In 1989 I was managing editor of the Harvard Business Review when the Japan Society of New York awarded me a fellowship that enabled me to go to Japan for 3 months. It was at the height of the Japanese expansion; in the United States the great worry was that Japan was going to surpass America economically. Ezra Vogel had written a best-seller, Japan As #1. And with the permission of HBS, I found myself in Japan with a license to interview the next generation of leaders in business, government, journalism, the bureaucracyyou name it! The timing was perfect; I got to see the future as it emerged from companies, laboratories, and offices. I saw four transforming trends: Technology: the future was going to personal, portable, and digital;. Globalization: the future was going to be global, with borders and boundaries between nations, markets, industries, companies all disappearing or becoming less important. Generational: a new generation was coming into power in business and government, a generation less concerned about putting food on the table and more determined to make a difference in the world. Gender: the dominance of the white male business and political culture was about to give way to a world where women were much more important, more powerful, and more present in key positions of power. When I got back to HBR after my 3 months in Japan, I tried to introduce these themes into HBR, but it really wasnt the right vehicle for talking about change. In 1993 I left HBR and with my business and editorial partner, Bill Taylor, set out to create a magazine that could embody these themes, both editorially and graphically. That became Fast Company. The book also grew out of a story. A little over a year ago, I was invited to give a speech on leadership and change to the CEO and top executives of a large American company. At the end of my talk, the CEO asked his executive team a question: Given what Mr. Webber has just told us about change and leadership, who in America would you say has moral authority today? In other words, who in America really stood for values and principles worthy of respect? There was a long silence. For 5 minutes, the room was dead silent. No one could think of a name. You could see them searching their mental rolodexes: business leadernope; religious leaderno; political leadernot even close. When I got home, I came to the conclusion that we were experiencing more change than ever, and needed guidance more than everand had fewer sources of guidance than ever. My conclusion was, we were going to have to write our own rules, be our own best teachers and learners, and create our own moral authorities from each other. Rules of Thumb is my best effort to stimulate that conversation and invite friends, readers, and leaders into the act of becoming our own moral authority figures. Which rule of thumb is your favorite and why? Thats like asking a parent which one of his kids is his favorite! I love them all, for different reasons. But theres a reason I ended the book with: Rule #52: Stay alert! There are teachers everywhere. I think well all be more alive, more aware, better listeners, better leaders if we take the position of life-time learners. That means treating every encounter, every conversation, every situation as a chance to listen in to whats being said. The more we pay attention, the more we learn; the more we learn, the more we have to contribute. Its a virtuous circle, which is what we need to get through this time of turbulence and unpredictable change, and come out smarter than we went in. In a time of economic struggle, how can people thrive and survive, without losing everything theyve already worked hard for? Well, I dont think anyone can guarantee that any of us wont lose what we worked hard to create or earn; those kinds of guarantees never existed and dont exist now. I think the best way for all of us to deal with this period of great uncertainty is to focus on what really matters. Several of my Rules of Thumb are designed to help people do that. Rule #23: Keep two lists. What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you up at night? In other words, pay attention to what excites you the most about your work and life, and pay equal attention to what you feel passionate about changing in the world around you. Rule #3: Ask the last question first. The last question is, whats the point of the exercise? Why do you do what you do? Whats your definition of victory? Rule #4: Dont implement solutions. Prevent problems. The point here is, the least expensive, most effective way to get results is to prevent a problem from happening, rather than waiting and then having to clean it up. In some way, this current economic mess is an invitation for all of us to think freshly about how we want to work and live, how we want to do business and pursue our own path. Rules of Thumb is a reminder, in some cases, of things we all know but may have forgotten. Its a set of core principles that can guide leaders, entrepreneurs, kids just starting in business, or old-timers trying to make sense out of so much change. You have a lot of experience in the media world. How do you see media changing and what do you believe can save the print publication industry? I love media, first of all. I am not only an alum of the world of newspapers and magazines, Im also a huge consumer of print, TV, radio, the Web. Im an information junkie, and proud of it. That said, as a junkie, I know a couple of things. First, news and information are a commodity. If youre in the information business, you dont have a distinctive product or service; youre just another source of information. To the extent that print publications have gotten used to being information providers, they are an endangered species on several counts: their business model is broken, their audience is leaving them, the dont have a distinctive position or offering, and they are out of synch with the times. Thats a lot of problems to overcome simultaneously. So rather than focusing on the noun print, lets focus on the verbs that consumers want. We want to read great stories. We want entertaining story-telling. We want stories that help us make sense out of a confusing world. We want stories that help us connect with other people, that show us what it means to be a community. We want stories that unveil the very best and the very worst in the human experience. We want stories that help us make up our own minds about what we think, what we choose, how we should vote, how we should act. These verbs are verbs that weve wanted as humans for a long, long time. Think about Homerand I dont mean Simpson! So while the noun print may not work as it has in the past, the verbs that we associate with story-telling, with journalism at its best, those verbs will always be with us. How have you built your personal brand over your career and what are your top three lessons learned? Rule #51: Take your work seriously. Yourself, not so much. Rule #43: Dont confuse credentials with talent. Rule #47: Everyone is at the center of their map of the world. The world is a fascinating place, and only becoming more so. Go out and meet as many amazing people as you can in your life, and learn from all of them. It may not make for a career or even a brandbut itll make for one wonderful life! Alan   Webber is an award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author, and columnist. He is the author of Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self.   In 1995, he launched Fast Company Magazine, a fresh, dynamic entry in the business magazine category. Headquartered in Boston, MA, the magazine became the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history. Fast Company won 2 national magazine awardsâ€"one for general excellence, one for designâ€"and Webber was named Adweek’s Editor of the Year in 1999, along with co-founding editor William Taylor.   In 2000 Fast Company magazine was sold to Gruner + Jahr for the second largest amount of any magazine in U.S. history. Last year Webber stepped down from his full-time editorial responsibilities, but has retained his title and contributing role as founding editor. Prior to founding Fast Company, Webber was for 5 years the managing editor and editorial director of the Harvard Business Review.

Book Giveaway for the Investing Career Girl (Which Should Be All of Us!!)

Book Giveaway for the Investing Career Girl (Which Should Be All of Us!!) Chris Camillo is not a stockbroker, financial analyst, or hedge fund manager. He is an ordinary person with a knack for identifying trends and discovering great investments hidden in everyday life. In early 2007, he invested $20,000 in the stock market, and in three years it grew to just over $2 million. In the book Laughing at Wall Street, you’ll see: How Facebook friends helped a young parent invest in the wildly successful children’s show, Chuggingtonâ€"and saw her stock values climb 50% How an everyday trip to 7-Eleven alerted a teenager to short Snapple stockâ€"and tripled his money in seven days How $1000 invested consecutively in Uggs, True Religion jeans, and Crocs over five years grew to $750,000 How Michelle Obama caused J. Crew’s stock to soar 186%, and Wall Street only caught up four months later! Engaging, narratively-driven, and without complicated financial analysis, Camillo’s stock picking methodology proves that you do not need large sums of money or fancy market data to become a successful investor. There are three reasons that I love this book: We all need to manage our finances and we cannot rely on anyone else to do it.  I know at times it is hard to think of that amount that you put towards your 401K and what fun you could have spending it today.  It is hard to take time out of your busy schedule to figure out what investments and funds you want to put your 401K into.  But, we all need to be actively managing, learning and growing that fund as much as possible NOW.  Trust me, you will thank me later. If  you don’t start early you’ll miss out on a huge head start that will be incredibly difficult to make up later on. You dont have to be a financial planner to understand this book.  It is written in terms that the average Jane can understand and you dont have to understand finance or economics. Many people think that to invest they have to spend a lot of time studying charts, graphs and historical trends.  Many of the investing tips you will learn in this book are looking for investments by what is woven into things you do already.  Examples include reading magazines, checking Facebook, shopping or talking with your friends.  No excuses ladies! Ready to learn more about investing?  Enter to win a copy of the book today! To enter: ?Leave a comment below with your email address. This giveaway is open to all residents in the US or Canada. It begins NOW and ends on  Dec 13th, 2011 at 9pm PST. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.   You have 24 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. Good luck! Disclosure: I was provided me with a copy of the book to review but this did not  change what  I wrote about the book.

Technical Skills to Put on Resume - Is It Necessary?

Technical Skills to Put on Resume - Is It Necessary?In today's world, it is important for a candidate to have the skills and technical skills to put on resume. The skill is a crucial part of the job search as people can never know where they will be going if they do not have the skill to operate all kinds of machines and equipments. However, there are a lot of applicants who are unable to provide their resumes with necessary skills so they leave without even knowing where to go. They end up with poor resumes and lack of jobs.Resume should have the proper technical skills to be put on resume. People can never know what work is coming their way. Therefore, they should consider applying for jobs that require the technical skills to put on resume. There are a lot of openings in different sectors that the technical skills to put on resume. People have to be flexible so they can apply for a variety of technical skills that are required in various fields.Companies keep adding the skills on resume because they believe that there are plenty of people who are interested in acquiring the skills to put on resume. So it is important for a person to realize that it is necessary to be flexible in order to be competitive with the job seekers. There are a lot of people who are apprehensive about applying for a job because they think that they might be rejected. This is true to some extent but it is always possible to get a job even if you have a bad resume.It is necessary to learn about the technical skills to put on resume and understand how to make the resume to be an effective tool in the job search. It is not possible for a candidate to know everything. Therefore, he has to find out the skills that he is capable of and use them to his advantage.The technical skills to put on resume include computer skills, operating the latest software and gadgets, operating various devices, building the needed hardware and also learning about the latest technology. These things are the thi ngs that employers look for when hiring candidates. If a person is able to utilize these skills, he can certainly land up a job. On the other hand, people can apply for jobs that don't require the technical skills to put on resume. You have to be aware of what the employers are looking for in their job positions and get what they are looking for.People can learn a lot about the technical skills to put on resume by interacting with job seekers. You have to be able to relate well with the applicants. When you are able to relate well with applicants, you are able to land up a job position in a position that does not require the technical skills to put on resume. People can easily find out these things by just talking to them.It is necessary to have the technical skills to put on resume so that you can be successful in your job search. If you have some bad skills, you can always learn from them so that you can be competitive in the job search. You will find that learning a new skill is easier than taking time off to recover from some injuries.People should not be worried about the technical skills to put on resume because these skills are not essential in every job position. You have to use them strategically so that you can land up a good job. You have to learn a lot about the skill so that you can land up a job that does not require the technical skills to put on resume.

What To Include On Your Startup Experience Resume

What To Include On Your Startup Experience ResumeWriting a good resume for the job market has become extremely important as many companies are offering better salaries and other perks for applicants with startup experience. If you have a startup company of your own, there are things you should remember when writing a good resume. Once you have learned these basics, you can use them to your advantage when applying for a job.Start writing good resumes by considering the job that you are applying for. The position and the company can play a role in how well you will fare in the job. This is a big step that many people do not consider. If you are sure of what type of position you want to apply for, then you can begin with the rest of the information to write.It can be helpful to spend some time learning about the company before you even think about getting a new employee. Some companies have a reputation for needing only hard working people to get their businesses up and running. Other c ompanies, however, require more than that. They may ask applicants to look through the company's financials to ensure that they will be able to continue the business after the applicant begins working there.Finding out as much as you can about the company you are applying for, especially before you are offered the job, can help you when it comes time to write your resume. The more information you can gather about the company, the better prepared you will be to write a good resume. Any college students who are thinking about applying for jobs will find this information helpful as well.The other thing to keep in mind when you are writing a good resume for a startup company is to remember that you do not have to mention your startup experience at all. Most companies require only that you have a minimum of six months of employment experience. The truth is that you will only have about a year to prove yourself if you want to secure the job. If you can demonstrate your ability to work wel l under pressure, then you should not worry about your resume being rejected because of your startup experience.Even if you do not mention your startup experience on your resume, make sure that you know as much as possible about your company. It is not uncommon for companies to ask job applicants to help run their marketing efforts. This is a way to show the company that you have initiative. If you choose to work with this, then it is a good idea to spend some time getting educated about the company and its products before you even start.Company information is usually posted online. Before you get started with the job application process, make sure that you have done your research and that you know everything that you need to know about the company and its products. That includes what types of jobs they hire for, whether the job is temporary or permanent, and what sort of compensation you can expect to receive. Many companies that have 'open positions' allow current employees to app ly.One of the biggest mistakes that people make when writing a good resume for a startup company is overstating their knowledge about the company. If you really know everything there is to know about the company, then that is exactly what you should put on your resume. There is no reason to exaggerate your startup experience in order to get hired, but there is a huge need for you to put in your time learning as much as you can about the company before you begin work.

Free books - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Free books - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog A lot of people talk content. Baen are delivering, and have been for a couple of years. And oh yeah successfully! Most of their books are available on paper or as ebooks, and in many cases you can read the first few chapters for free. In the Baen Free Library you can find free books by some of their authors, to read on your PC or Palm. Be sure to read the opening rant by Eric Flint, its informative and funny. Many of the books you can get for free are still being sold in the stores. Here are a few that I enjoyed: Lois McMaster Bujold: The mountains of mourning David Weber: The honour of the queen, On Basilisk station Holly Lisle: Fire in the mist Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Is It Still Proper To Send Thank Yous After A Job Interview

Is It Still Proper To Send Thank Yous After A Job Interview With the advent of the internet, emails, texting and online applications, some consider the thank you note after an interview to be over. Those of you who know me, or are used to my ranting about this, know how I feel. Not by a long shot its not. It is never and will never be proper etiquette to ignore a simple thank you. By not showing proper etiquette and respect for the employer who is interviewing you, it is telling that person that you really just arent concerned with trivialities. This sends the wrong message to a prospective employer, who may very well put your resume to the side simply because you didnt seem to be that interested if you couldnt even send a thank you. In todays world, it is proper to send a thank you email. You dont have to mail it and you certainly dont want to text it. Texting can cause way too many spelling errors. It is also proper to send that email very soon after the interview, while it is still fresh in your mind. Some things to include in the email is the thank you, followed by what you found interesting about the company and how your particular skills would be an asset to that company. You do not want to speak in a laid back fashion as if you are talking to someone on Facebook. That is totally unprofessional. We may be living in a new technological world but old world manners are still more important even in the employment field. Manners and simple respect toward another will return to you in the same fashion. Think about if you were the hiring manager and you didnt say thank you for the interview, you just might be a little put off by that. As your mother probably used to say to you, mind your manners, and send those thank you emails so that you will be one step ahead toward landing that job.