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
Two years ago, Rod Bond, an executive at a U.S. unit of French food-services company Sodexho Alliance SA, accompanied female colleagues to a meeting of the Women’s Food Service Forum, where he was a rare man among roughly 1,500 women. “That’s a profound experience,” says Mr. Bond, 57 years old. It prompted him to wonder
Customers are moving to the Web. Traditional sales and distribution methods seem outdated. How fast can an enterprise adapt to the Internet age? At business schools, such high-stakes predicaments are ripe fodder for case studies. Amazon.com Inc.’s assault on traditional book retailing has been dissected at least 16 times in cases at Harvard Business School.
Go out and mingle with top headhunters — those gregarious talent scouts who are constantly scouring the world in search of managers to fill the top executive jobs — and these days you’ll find some most happy people.
WITH DEMAND FOR SENIOR MANAGERS ON THE RISE as the job market and economy heat up , a flurry of counteroffers are expected to rain on executives who give notice this year. “Counteroffers always go up in a climate like we’re now seeing, and my clients are now talking about candidates they’re trying to recruit
At the end of its last term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two rulings that offer insight about employer liability for sexual harassment. The decisions (Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, No. 97-282, and Burlington Industries Inc. v. Ellerth, No. 97-569) were both hailed and condemned-hailed for establishing new rules for such cases, and condemned
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.
The messages law enforcement personnel sent one another — more than 5,000 — were crude, referring to people as animals, using profane terms as labels — and, worst, containing some horrifying jokes implying violence. They were fired. That was in Camden County, N.J., where 11 white prison guards lost their jobs for racially insulting texts
Q: Two of my employees seem to have absolutely no interest in doing a good job. They arrive late, ignore deadlines, and drag out every task to avoid additional work. If I bring this up, they threaten to call in sick and stay out for several days. Because we work for a large retail chain,
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many American workers don’t really leave work. Emails, phone texts, pager alerts and phone calls pepper what once was personal time. And that’s not including on-call shifts or beeper time, which require workers to be ready and able to work at a moment’s notice. When is it time to call
Q: A few months ago, my colleagues and I got a new manager who makes our lives a living hell. “Kristen” has no management experience and nitpicks everything we do. She gets angry about small stuff and talks to us like we’re in third grade. She has also allowed the office to get disgustingly
Workers’ constitutionally protected right to free speech is generally checked at the doors of private enterprises. However, when it comes to social media discussions about inflexible schedules, ice-cold break rooms or obscenity-laden rants about mandatory overtime, employees have the right to post, share and like to their hearts content. “According to the National Labor Relations
WASHINGTON — Employers shrugged off worries about the U.S. economy downshifting, adding a whopping 271,000 non-farm jobs in October and raising worker pay in the process. The unemployment rate in October dipped slightly to 5 percent, and measures of stress in the job market continued improving, the Labor Department reported Friday in a solid monthly
The job search can be riddled with frustration. Believe it or not, some of this frustration may be tied to common job search myths. Several of these little monsters are floating around in dark clouds waiting to rain on your job search parade. Let’s shake a few of them out of the clouds, debunk them
SEATTLE — The old heritage Boeing Co. is dead, and Seattle-area employees are struggling to come to terms with the colder corporation in its place, according to candid interviews in a new book. “Emerging from Turbulence: Boeing and Stories of the American Workplace Today” explores the attitudes of Boeing veterans, for whom the merger with
LOS ANGELES — Moving to the forefront of a national campaign to boost the incomes of low-wage workers, Los Angeles lawmakers voted Wednesday to approve an ordinance hiking the citywide minimum wage to at least $15 an hour by 2020. With the Wednesday action, which requires one more procedural vote by the City Council and
Q: A supervisor who reports to me never gives more than the minimum effort. “Rick” is so lazy that his emails don’t even contain complete sentences. Despite being a salaried employee, he refuses to work more than eight hours per day. If it’s time for his shift to end, he will walk out in the
Wondering just how accurate your personality test results are? Dr. Kerry Schofield explains more about the science behind personality types. Humans like classifications and categories. It’s a feature of the way our brains function – we have limited processing capacity, so we group things together in order to simplify information. This has a lot of problems associated
MINNEAPOLIS — Senia Mae Tuominen was an engineer in her first career. “I did fantastic in school, graduated at the top of my class,” she said. “When I started to do the work, I was miserable. I hated being in a cube, I hated being in a corporation. I wound up getting sick from pressure
Money shouldn’t be the only motivator when deciding on a career, and taking a job solely because the pay is appealing can increase the likelihood that the job will not work for you in the long run. Moreover, a potential employer will most likely sense it if you’re not passionate about your role. “During
