I first saw the power of delegating when my mom published her housecleaning plan on our refrigerator. Each family member had to clean a room by a given date. Except for my mom. She cleaned the house without lifting a sponge.
Last fall, Richard Grasso, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, was forced to resign following disclosure that he had accepted a $187.5 million compensation package. The chairman didn’t set his own salary, however. The board of directors set it. What was their rationale for approving a package of that magnitude? Was he being
Confusion about how recruiters operate has put many a career at a disadvantage. Executives in transition can’t afford to let faulty assumptions foul up their prospects. Knowing how the search industry operates will make you a better, more successful candidate. To help you get the facts straight, here’s a guide to working with recruiters based
It’s no secret that many performance-management systems aren’t working. This goes from the top to the bottom of organizations, from boards who adjust executives’ performance goals so they can receive pay that appears to have no relationship to company results, to levels lower down, where large numbers of employees are indifferent or unmotivated by the
It’s said that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same results. This is too true for job hunters. How many times have you applied for a job through a career site and didn’t get it? Now ask yourself, “How many others applied for that same position?” It isn’t a small
During the blackout of 2003, the electricity went out along much of the East Coast, but the light bulb over my head clicked on. I had been unhappy for most of that summer. I was frustrated by a lack of progress in my reporting job at the Wall Street Journal Online, wanted to be nearer
Feeling growled at, bullied and preyed upon? Readers won’t come away from Richard Conniff’s “The Ape in the Corner Office”with a simple guide to surviving a beastly boss. But they’re likely to learn how their boss’s moves, not to mention their own, grow from mankind’s evolutionary roots in the animal kingdom.
We enlisted a team of volunteers to “mystery shop” the job pages of some of America’s largest corporations. What have they learned? That applying for a job online isn’t always as easy as it looks, and the results are often less than satisfying. Based on their experience, we offer an online job hunter’s bill of rights:
Activist shareholders are trying new tactics to rein in executive pay at U.S. companies, with proposals they hope will appeal to a broader group of investors. The new strategies include simpler, less prescriptive holder resolutions that don’t dictate executives’ pay packages. Instead, the new proposals seek to more closely align executive pay with corporate performance,
For years, companies have created employee-resource groups for women and racial and ethnic minorities, aimed at boosting recruitment and retention. Now, employers increasingly are creating similar groups for gay and lesbian employees. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Morgan Stanley and Intuit Inc., among others, created groups for gay employees in the past year. The Human Rights Campaign,
When calls to the reservation line at Choice Hotels International Inc. surged after an ad campaign earlier this year, Don Brockway, Choice’s vice president of world-wide reservations, found his call centers short-staffed. So he quickly arranged to add as many as 20 agents per shift.
The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case testing how managers may react after an employee complains about harassment or discrimination. But legal specialists say employers can take steps to minimize retaliation complaints through beefed-up training, investigations and follow-up efforts. The touchy issue confronts many companies. Complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that
When should an executive retire? The question is gaining urgency in Europe where, for years, companies and governments have pushed people to retire earlier than their American counterparts. The mindset in Europe was that this cleared room for younger executives and brought in fresh ideas. Now, in a shift, some European companies are pushing to
It is a hot business idea of the moment, a growth formula embraced by General Electric Co., American Express Co., Progressive Corp. and many others. But a growing chorus of skeptics question the value of the “net promoter” concept advocated by consulting firm Bain & Co., market researcher Satmetrix Systems Inc. and author Fred Reichheld.
Managers like to say employees leave companies because of bad bosses or lack of career growth. A new report suggests a more straightforward reason: money. In a survey of about 1,100 U.S. employees, 71% of top performers listed pay among the top three reasons they would consider leaving their employer. Yet in a sister survey
Psychology professor Richard Griffith is on a mission to stop “fakers.” To Dr. Griffith, of the Florida Institute of Technology, fakers are people who misrepresent themselves on personality tests increasingly used to screen applicants for entry-level jobs at call centers, retail stores and other customer-service positions. The tests typically ask candidates to agree or disagree
Give back that bonus! That angry cry has been heard for years from governance consultants and shareholders seething at the way some chief executives grow rich as investors suffer. Usually, such shouting is futile. Bosses defend their pay or simply ignore criticism. Either way, they keep the cash, perhaps agreeing to take leaner pay packages
In 2000, Les Kollegian resigned from his chief creative officer post at an advertising agency to start his own shop in San Diego with a goal of increasing his earnings. The 36-year-old says the experience was challenging and stressful, but his take-home pay is now approximately $300,000 before taxes — triple his previous annual income.
What’s in a name? Plenty. Just ask people who have to compete against their own names. These entrepreneurs can face uncertain, confused customers, as well as harsh competition from businesses they no longer own that still bear their monikers. Consider what happened to executive recruiter Russell S. Reynolds Jr. at a recent cocktail party in
Recently the Supreme Court issued two decisions that attracted a great deal of attention. These decisions will make it easier for employees to sue and will provide them with an incentive to do so. However, they also give employers insight into ways to avoid harassment or end it before it becomes an actionable offense.
