The Manager's Resource Handbook
Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
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
» Read more
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
» Read more
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
» Read more
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,
» Read more
How I Cut the Cost of Training My Employees in Half Many managers are familiar with the old 70, 20, 10 Rule for employee development. The Rule suggests that 70% of an employee’s development should be learning-by-doing while 20% should be through mentoring. According to this principle, the last 10% of an employee’s growth and development should be the result of
» Read more
The 7 Rules of Process Development and Implementation Your growing business has a great product, friendly customer service, happy clients and cash. What’s missing? An often forgotten ingredient to a well-run business is the development and implementation of the processes that serve as the backbone for a company. Developing effective business processes makes your internal activities repeatable and consistent. And the more stable your
» Read more
Should I Let Employees Work From Home? Compared to just 15 years ago, the widespread availability of Wi-Fi, tablets, video conferences and smart phones have made the world our office. Many jobs no longer require employees to be housed within the same four walls since they can connect virtually, just as if they were sitting at a desk in a high-rise office
» Read more
Making Organizational Changes in Support of Your Future Success A college professor of mine once told me “There is no book on that. Sometimes you just need to get in and figure your way out.” Knowing when to restructure a business is one of those things. Though there are books on organizational theory and team dynamics, there is no textbook out there telling us exactly
» Read more
A Detailed Account of Downsizing a Team By One Manager at a Fortune 500 EDITOR’S NOTE: The following comments chronicle a layoff event that occurred at a Fortune 500 Company, as recorded by a manager in the organization. This is the second part in a 4-part series. Click HERE for Part 1, and HERE for Part 3. Key details are omitted to
» Read more
The Most Inspiring Question I’ve Ever Heard from a Job Candidate Times were tough. We were working around the clock in response to a major product recall. My team was exhausted. Our customers were furious. We had been at it for months. Even though it was December, many of us knew we would have to work through the Christmas holidays
» Read more
How to Create an Executive Summary Raise your hand if you have ever sat through a presentation and walked away not understanding its core message. Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever asked an employee to give you a project briefing, only for them to bury you in data, facts and graphics. Finally, raise your hand if you’ve ever picked
» Read more
8 Workplace Remodel Tips for Managers Doing it Themselves A workplace is more than just the four walls that surround people. Rather, a modern workplace is an environment in which ideas are born, where breakthroughs are made, and where profit is generated. Impressive campuses likes those of Apple or the trendy refurbished factory that now houses a Brooklyn start up
» Read more
Managing Crisis in the Workplace None of us had any idea that it was the first day of what would become a 10 month, $25 Million investigation. It was late in the afternoon on a cool fall day when the Quality Assurance Manager and the Operations Manager came to my office with a concern over a product defect that had
» Read more
…And How to Avoid Them One of the best feelings we as managers and business leaders experience is seeing our businesses grow as a result of our effort and hard work. For large companies, these emotions may result from watching a steady (or not-so-steady!) increase in stock price. For smaller companies, such feelings can emerge when we simply gain a
» Read more
Overcoming the Legacy of Your Predecessor Maybe they retired. Perhaps there was some restructuring. Maybe they left the firm, or simply got promoted. In any case, the old boss left, and you were hired to take over. Even for experienced managers, the transition into a new management role is tough and may feel like an uphill battle to win over
» Read more
How to Become a More Effective Manager Management effectiveness is not just a trendy phrase, but a true attribute and measure of how well managers perform at their jobs. In this case, we’re not just talking about results, but the whole package – essentially, how our employees see us as leaders. We’ve all had some really bad bosses. But, many
» Read more
Estimating the Cost of a New Hire Fighting for resources is a frustrating problem we’ve all dealt with as managers and business leaders. Every one of us has said it at one point or another: ‘Too much to do, not enough people to do it.’ Justifying more staff is certainly difficult, but it is possible when you create a
» Read more
Is Your Training Plan Being Cut Year After Year? Read On… It’s a battle out there, folks. Between a fragile economy, steep competition, and the rising costs of business, it seems like we as managers spend as much time cutting costs as we do planning our budgets in the first place. The first step in trimming a budget, of course, is to limit what
» Read more
How to Deal with Negative Employees in the Workplace His name was Mark. I was 34. Mark, my employee, was 54. It was not my first management rodeo, but I’m pretty sure he likened me more to one of his three teenagers at home than he saw me as his boss. Dealing with negative employees in the workplace is fairly common for managers, but Mark
» Read more
8 Questions To Help You Delegate Many managers take on too much because they don’t know to delegate work effectively. They are told they should delegate more, but still struggle to do it. I was definitely in this category when I first became a manager, and always struggled to ask for help. Often times, you’ll hear employees say something like this:
» Read more