Layoffs are coming…layoffs are coming. We all know that it’s true, but few firms really want to confront the layoff issue until it’s too late. When they do start, most firms don’t really know how to do them right or when to begin layoff planning. I’m secretly a layoff strategist …

Whether as a result of a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or just rapid growth, companies quite often need to ramp up their hiring efforts quickly. But high-volume and high-growth hiring requires an entirely different set of tools and strategies than traditional recruiting. It’s actually a lot more similar to a …

It might seem insensitive, given the recent tragic deaths in New York and Washington, but it’s not. If you take a step back and think about it, in a time of war we all need to act like “Rosie the Riveter” and get back to work in order to rebuild …

Although recent terrorist events may have occurred thousands of miles away from you, there are many potential people-related problems that may still occur at your location. Strategic HR people need to react quickly to business problems and managers need to realize that uncertainty and inaction can actually increase anxiety, so …

If you ask average employees what percentage of their time they spend “doing what they do best,” most answer a disheartening 30%. If this was baseball, and you had your pitcher playing first base two-thirds of the time, everyone would think you were crazy. Well in business, it’s no different. …

It’s ironic that, at the same exact time that CFOs are instituting hiring freezes and demanding that we add “no new headcount,” there happens to be an abundance of top talent available in the marketplace. Smart managers take advantage of this feast and famine situation by utilizing a strategy that …

One of the crucial elements in building an employment brand is to develop a “theme” that sends a clear brand message to potential candidates. That theme must clearly communicate what working at your firm is all about. One of the best ways to communicate what you are all about is …

In Part One of this series, we outlined some important concepts that managers should consider implementing in order to create a top notch employee orientation program. Following up on these concepts, below is one of the most important tools of all: the employee orientation questionnaire. This questionnaire is the backbone of a …

The first week on the job can play a crucial role in motivating and retaining new employees. We often spend lots of time and money recruiting and wooing new employees and as soon as they start we turn around and treat them like barely welcome strangers. We need to begin …

As the economy winds down, many organizations have severely curtailed their recruiting. However other organizations are still fighting the war for talent, in spite of the economic downturn. Hospitals and healthcare facilities, for example, face a continuing struggle to find nurses. Some have approached the nursing shortage with advanced strategies …