Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
One of our most popular articles here at MRH discusses a basic strategy that we’ve used to justify an increase in staff. And it’s no surprise: based on our research, 50% of managers say the biggest challenge they face is the size of their staff. We’ve said it many times, but will mention it again. Between salaries, benefits, insurance and other
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A little while back we posted an article about writing a reply to an RFP (Request for Proposal), which provided a basic outline for responding to potential clients. Since then, we have received a lot of questions from the MRH community asking for details on formats to use as well as what sort of sections and content to include. So, we wanted
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Isn’t the Customer Always Right? Actually, no, they aren’t! In the B2B space, we often find ourselves working with clients and customers to develop and sell our products and services. And yet, sometimes, things do not always go as planned. I recently paid a visit to one customer who has started to change the rules as they go. Despite the contractual commitments
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3 Resource Planning Methods to Help Predict Staffing Needs Most businesses and organizations go through an annual headcount planning process for the upcoming year. We all know that such activities are important to running a productive organization. And yet, while resource management is critical, doing it well and doing it right is easier said than done. There are a number of methods
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Working Hard or Hardly Working? It’s a question we all ask ourselves. Telecommuting is no longer a “new” thing. For many companies, large and small, more and more employees work from home, either occasionally, or on a regular basis. All you need is an internet connection. But supervising these remote employees presents challenges to you as a manager because, well,
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5 Things You Need to Do to Create Your Own Skills Matrix Imagine: a critical assignment comes in, and you need to figure out who to give it to in order to get it done. You only have one shot to get it right in order to secure that new contract. Who do you give it to? Who is the most capable?
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10 Real Quotes from Bad Bosses As managers, if it seems like our employees are watching our every move and closely listening to our every word, it’s because they are. In particular, the words that managers and business leaders say are very important. It’s not about being politically correct or about being nice, but it is about how a manager’s words and statements are interpreted by their
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The Difference Between Internal and External Customers Several years ago, I was asked a very simple question: “Who is your customer?” Perhaps I was naïve, or maybe just ignorant, but I replied to the simple question with an equally simple answer: “The people who pay our company money for our products and services.” He clearly expected my response, because the
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15 Ways I Manage My Time As a Boss It’s just about that time of year when things are at their busiest. With the end of the year closing in, the pressure is on to meet our numbers. We’re busy planning our projects and budgets for next year. People are starting to use up their vacation, making their availability limited.
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15 REAL Tips for Working in China Having returned from a trip to China earlier this week, I wanted to take a few minutes to share some learnings about how to conduct meetings and work with your customer in the People’s Republic. Despite some concerns and disagreements before our arrival, my team was made up of several veterans when
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When I became a project manager, the first thing I did was print out a bunch of documents, the Statement of Work, some spreadsheets with basic financial information and put it all in a well-organized 3-ring binder. Beyond that, I didn’t know what I was doing. So I just got down to work. That was 20 years ago and since that time, I’ve learned a
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29 Fantastic Ways to Mentor and Develop Your Employees If there is one thing that sets apart the great managers from the rest of the crowd, it would be their ability to continuously develop employees and to grow the capability of their teams. Unlike managers who simply focus on results, the leaders who place deliberate emphasis on employee development build morale and
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Evaluating A Job Candidate’s Interview Performance Whether you’re on a hiring spree for your startup or trying to fill a key role in your organization, interviewing job applicants reveals a lot about your candidates. We recently filled a critical role within our company, and while all three final candidates were internal to our business and knew the organization well,
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Horrible Bosses … in Real Life If you’ve ever seen the movie Horrible Bosses, you probably reacted the way most of us did: some of the amazingly inappropriate behavior in the film registered a little close to home. We’ve all had some sort of run in with a really bad boss in our career, and while the movie makes a
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Make Staff Meetings More Engaging and Valuable Using These 8 Easy Steps Every one of us has attended a staff meeting – either as a participant or as the host. Some managers treat them as afterthoughts and hold them out of obligation, while others treat them as sacred and essential team huddles, regardless of what’s happening. For new managers, the
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Writing SMART Goals for Employees (With Examples) A colleague once told me “I have a really important goal in life…I want to climb Mt. Everest, someday.” While he was absolutely serious in his demeanor and spoke at length about why he wanted to do it, the short conversation revealed he had never done any climbing before. Further, he had hardly done research into
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If there is one thing that every manager has in common, it’s that we’ve all dealt with employee performance issues. Every one of us has a Susan, who always does everything right and never makes a mistake. And then, we all have a Michael, who struggles to get it together. Michael’s performance problems never seem to go away and managing
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How to Save Your Small Company’s Hard Earned Cash As all business leaders know, when a company becomes strained and pressed for cash, we need to look for ways to reduce our costs and expenses. While cost control is always important, we naturally spend more during periods of growth to support the increasing size and momentum of the organization. The
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Tips for Hiring and Retaining Employees in Developing Nations Whether you’re hiring in India, recruiting in China, or opening an office in the Philippines, the obstacles are often the same. Because of their rapid growth, hiring and staffing a team in an emerging economy will always present unique challenges in terms of language, skills and retention. But if you equip
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5 Free Ways to Motivate Your Staff in Challenging Times Motivating employees is not easy. When times are tough, motivating your staff becomes even harder. For the past two years, our business has been undergoing a significant amount of corporate restructuring, downsizing, and changes in management, all of which have understandably left my employees concerned about the future. To make matters worse,
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