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Business Management InformationThe Dark Side of Help Desk SLAsYou just signed a Help Desk Service Level Agreement (SLA) and now think things will get easier. However, you may soon be falling into one of these traps: Never Hire Anyone Dumber Than You Are!In a previous life I was a Navy Pilot. Great life, great people to be around. People who were all doing great things around the world flying off great big aircraft carriers. In an environment that complex and dangerous, you need to have teams of people working as one, or bad things begin to happen in large quantities. 7 Strategies for Sustained InnovationThe need for constant reinvention is a given in today?s business environment. And while a breakthrough product or concept can catapult an organization ahead of its competitors, in these fast-paced times, that advantage is often short-lived. How to Leverage Your Strengths for Peak PerformanceAsk almost any business leader how to most effectively develop people and build teamwork and you?ll hear, ?tap into employees? strengths.? Yet when it comes to their own careers, many managers still focus the majority of their personal development efforts on shoring up areas of weakness. Top 7 Methods to Empower EmployeesHow many times have you asked someone to do something like ?draw up a plan for such and such project?? Your employee completes the plan, but then you say, ?That is not what I wanted? or ?That is not how you do it?. And so the employee thinks: you didn?t tell me exactly how you wanted it done. The Leaders Fallacy May Be Howard Deans UndoingHoward Dean's tenure as chairman of the Democratic National Committee will be fleeting unless he avoids a common leadership trap I call it, the "Leader's Fallacy". Argue Your Way To Business Success"Jack" (not his real name) is a vice president of a publicly traded company. Recently, Jack?s stress and anxiety levels have been high enough to impact both his working and his personal lives. (I'm using an alias because he?s concerned about his story becoming public ? for good reason!) Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Training is in the Eye of the BeholderThis article relates to the Training competency, commonly evaluated in employee surveys. It comments on the value of training to both the company and its workforce. The Training competency investigates how your employees perceive the available training opportunities and quality of training. Growing an organization's internal knowledge base is crucial to the success of any business and ensuring a growing knowledge base means investing in the training of your employees. A Gallup poll conducted in 1998 reported that eight out of 10 employees said they would be more likely to stay with their present employer if they were offered more or better training. Specifically, the questions included in this competency are written to measure the adequacy, availability, content of training, and satisfaction with the delivery of training within your organization. Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Responsibility for Job SecurityThis article relates to the Job Security competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency evaluates how your employees view their job security within your organization. In today's often volatile or contingent labor market, it's crucial to understand the level of security your employees feel about maintaining their jobs. Studies show that employees who do not feel secure in their jobs are less likely to be committed to best assisting customers. Evaluating this competency can be especially useful if your organization has suffered recent layoffs or firings. Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part II ? Building Awareness And Building ApprovalSomewhere in the world is a person who wants to see their provisioning/user management systems get a sorely needed upgrade. But they seem to be getting nowhere. Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part I -- Ten Reasons Why Not To Do An UpgradeTommy Sherman daily monitors a helpdesk-provisioning queue for a large company. The current provisioning/user management system was written with homegrown software. It has not had a major update for several years. Each day, he is getting more and more frustrated. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot keep up with the increasing workload. New employees are screaming for their system ids and have no way of checking their id creation status. Existing employees are demanding timely updates to their ids when they transfer across business units. Ex-employees exist in the system months after departure. His frustrated manager will be meeting with him this afternoon to talk about his ?unresponsiveness.? Meaningful Diversity: Creating Cultures of InclusionIn the fitness room the other day, I caught a glimpse of a movie trailer on television. A father spoke very open-heartedly with his son about his work as a fireman. He acknowledged the fear that welled up in him when he looked into a small, dark room filled with life-threatening heat and flames, and described the instinct to run in the opposite direction. Effective Email CommunicationEmail, when used properly, can generate additional direct sales and leads; can be used as a tool to communicate with your existing client base to let them know of upcoming events which may affect them; and as a means of ongoing promotion for your business. Spotlight on Productivity: How to Overcome E-Mail OverloadDo you ever feel overwhelmed by e-mail? Have you ever spent more of your day wading through your e-mail than managing your work? Are you looking for ways to spend less time creating, managing and answering messages? Discover how to overcome e-mail overload and be more productive by writing more effective e-mail messages and reducing the volume of e-mail. Planning Your Recruiting Efforts Can Help You Find Great EmployeesToday, companies have an ever-expanding list of options available to them when it comes to sourcing new employees, from advertising in newspapers and trade journals to powerful, cost-effective recruiting options available through the Internet. Unfortunately, the growth in the number of recruiting options available has made the competition for top candidates even more fierce.
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Cross Cultural Solutions for International Business Globalisation, the expansion of intercontinental trade, technological advances and the increase in the number of companies dealing on the international stage have brought about a dramatic change in the frequency, context and means by which people from different cultural backgrounds interact. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management Skills Solving a big problem is a project: you're far more likely to solve it successfully if you treat it like one. That means you'll need to identify tasks, make and adjust assignments, and keep track of what is due when. Creativity and Innovation Management ? Competition versus Collaboration There is much confusion as to whether competition or collaboration is most beneficial to creativity and innovation. Though there are negatives to collaboration and it is not easy separating the effects of time pressure and group activity, in general collaboration beats competition. 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