July 17th, 2009
In a worldwide economy with rapidly changing conditions, when competition for business is not only fierce, it can be deadly for organizations that enter the battlefield unprepared, it’s more important than ever to make certain your employees are ready. Many companies have encouraged their employees to stretch themselves mentally and hone their skills with continuing education.
July 17th, 2009
Job stress comes with a hefty price tag, costing American businesses more than
$300 billion a year. Just how do all those dollars add up? Stress impacts our ability to perform, leads to workplace turnover, and is a direct contributor to medical and insurance costs.
June 30th, 2009
Companies looking to hire have an enormous field of candidates from which to choose, yet the market is flooded with job applicants, many of them desperate to get work doing something—anything—even if they aren’t remotely qualified.
June 30th, 2009
Maximizing performance should be every company’s top priority. But when
it comes to performance, we must look beyond our daily to-do lists toward
big picture results.
June 29th, 2009
With the announcement of the ‘50 Best Small & Medium Companies to Work For’ today at the SHRM Conference, many of us were debating and sharing ideas about what makes a company a truly ‘great place’. I posed this question via twitter:
“in 140 characters or less, what makes a company a great place to work?”
Here are a couple of the responses:
@imbrimful said: What makes a place one of the best places to work? Flexibility and caring, kind managers that take interest in their employees
@tlcolson said: decision autonomy within your sandbox, results oriented culture, “right-sized” company, market based comp/benefits
Jack Welch (at the Sunday keynote) stressed trust and communication (amongst a few other more colorful thoughts!).
What’s your take? Comment here or let me know via twitter: @4imprintklt. It’s an important topic.
Especially in today’s economic climate.
June 28th, 2009
All the great conversation and thinking about topics related to people/business/culture inspired by the SHRM Conference prompted me to pull together this quick list of several Blue Papers (which are our version of white papers, but if you’ve seen our Blue Boxes around, you’ll know why we chose blue instead!) we’ve published.
These papers will get you thinking – and maybe even implementing – which is a good thing given the critical nature of the topics involved!
June 28th, 2009
The SHRM Annual Conference and Expo is THE event in Human Resource Management – it’s the world’s largest exposition dedicated to the HR profession.
It’s a huge show – but to me its size is proportional to the importance of human resource management to every business.
My first exposure to this show was last year when we were named one of the Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America (7th on the 25 medium sized companies) – honestly one of the most thrilling days ever – an honor for our team and an honor to represent them. It was wonderful to meet and be surrounded by so many people who truly recognize that people make the difference, and therefore professional, thoughtful and strategic human resource management is a fundamental building block of success.
This year, not only do we have folks from 4imprint attending the show as part of their professional development in HR, we’re also displaying at the expo for the first time as promotional products work in a variety of HR applications – recruitment, recognition programs, wellness programs, safety programs, corporate events and community outreach and much more. We got the booth set up yesterday (which always takes longer than you think it should!) with plenty of samples to look at and many more to giveaway (if you’re going to the show we’re at booth 3346-3348). I’ll be there when the expo opens this afternoon, and will be there tomorrow as well. Mary (our HR leader!), will be there from time to time (when she’s not at a seminar or checking out other booths) and John and Guenevere will be there throughout (thanks guys!).
I’ll be posting any additional thoughts (not only on the HR side of things, but also the trade show marketing side as well) while I’m here . The show atmosphere has also inspired me to pull together all of the HR/People/Culture papers we’ve published in one nice, handy post. We’ll get that out a bit later.
I’ll get updates out via twitter as well if you’re interested. You can follow me @4imprintklt
June 28th, 2009
Thanks to The Oshkosh Northwestern Editorial staff for recognizing our ’silver’ award for worksite wellness from the State of Wisconsin. We’re proud of the award and it was especially nice for our Oshkosh area folks to see it mentioned positively by others.
You can read about the program here.