Business Management Skills

It is known that,United States federal law prohibits the practice of employment discrimination. Employers who are found guilty of violations of the law can face rather stiff financial penalties and other actions that simply combine to show that employment discrimination is not something to get involved with.

Under federal law, employment discrimination can take place under a few different circumstances that impact most businesses. These include:

• During employee hiring and firing
• In regard to the pay, assignments or classifications given employees
• During advertising, recruitment, training and testing of employees
• In regard to any fringe benefits, pensions or other forms of compensation given employees

To protect against charges of employment discrimination, employers must take steps to ensure their actions are fair, unbiased by certain factors and generally only hinge on qualifications, abilities and demonstrated practices of employees themselves.

The buzz words employers need to watch out for in regard to employment discrimination are many. In general, employers are prohibited from:

• Harassing employees on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age or disability.
• Engaging in any act of retaliation against an employee who files a complaint of employment discrimination or takes part in an ongoing investigation about discrimination.
• Making hiring decisions based on stereotypes based on sex, age, religion, color, national origin, disability and so on. To be safe and avoid employment discrimination charges, employers should make hiring, firing and promotion decisions based solely on an employee’s qualifications and demonstrated performance. Take care with the wording of employment advertisements, as well. These can sometimes be used to prove discrimination claims.
• Making hiring decisions based on a potential employee’s marriage to someone based on color, race, religion, origin, disability and so on. The potential employee or the employee’s spouse should not be a factor in hiring, period. This is the best way to avoid a claim of discrimination based on these factors.

Employers that want to protect themselves against claims of discrimination should take measures to ensure fair practices throughout their business structures. Employees should be rewarded or reprimanded solely on their performance and abilities. Never allow other factors to come into play and the chances of a claim being filed are minimized.

Employment discrimination is a very big issue facing employers today. To protect a business, it is best to use the best judgment when hiring, firing or promoting. Creating uniform policies and procedures and ensuring they are followed can go a long way toward this end. Even with the best laid plans, however, complaints are sometimes still filed.

Other resources for employment discrimination information can also be found free at this employment site.

As a small business owner, you may not need to hire employees regularly. In every business, and particularly with small business, it’s important to make new hires feel comfortable and provide them with the resources they need to get the job done. If your company doesn’t regularly hire new employees or has a small, long-term workfoce, you may not have the proper mechanisms in place to help new employees acclimate. While this is understandable, it’s critical that you do all that you can to make new hires feel comfortable and a part of your team.

A few things you can do for new hires:

* Make sure your new hires have what they need to get the job done. This includes simple things like office furniture and stationery supplies, as well as necessary computer software and hardware. If your employees require a specific uniform or computer program, make sure they have what they need before they start the job, if possible. Starting a position without the proper resources makes employees feel undervalued and gives new hires the impression that your company is unorganized and chaotic.

* Have employees fill out employment and financial paperwork before they begin. This helps ensure that new hires will be paid on time and helps ease much of the financial anxiety employees have when starting a new position. To find out what kind of forms you’ll need your new hires to fill out, click here.

* Make sure you give new employees adequate work and responsibility. Though it can take some time for new hires to integrate themselves into your company’s structure, it’s still critical that you let new employees know you value their skills and abilities. Nothing makes new hires feel more insecure than not giving them anything to do; let them know you see them as part of your team by assigning them tasks up front.

The first few days and weeks of your employee/employer relationship set the tone for future interactions and work dynamics. Spending a little time and effort to make your employees feel comfortable will pay big dividends in the long run.

By Julie Gerstein

Julie Gerstein is the editor of 247advisor.com, the homepage for small businesses on the web. For more information, contact Julie at: julie@247advisor.com or go to: www.247advisor.com.

When you just start working, there are certain things that you must go through. For instance, you end up filling out a lot of forms that the company gives to you. One of the most essential pieces of paperwork is the contract of employment. If you are only planning on paying attention to one of these papers, this should be the one. The contract of employment states all of the terms of your work with the new company. It lists all of the relevant information pertaining to your employment there. If you have any questions about your wages or benefits, most of your questions can be answered by reading the contract.

Aren’t sure if you have a contract of employment or if you filled one out at all? This is a common reaction to hearing about how important they are. If you are with a company for many years, you tend to forget about what happened when you first got there. Still, there may be an incident in which it would help to take a look at what you agreed to on the contract of employment that you signed. For example, you might expect to be getting a certain amount of paid vacation time, but the human resources department disagrees with the amount of time.Or you might end up with some work discrimination. To settle the issue, you should get a hold of your contract, which will usually list this kind of thing.

If you look through your paperwork and don’t find a copy of the contract, don’t fret. You most likely did fill one out and sign it when you first started, since it benefits both you and the company you are working for. If you contact your manager or the human resources department yourself, you can request a copy of the contract of employment. Although a lot of companies will do this for you for free, some will charge you for making a copy. This is especially the case if you want them to send it to you in any quick manner.

As you can see, employment contracts are really beneficial to have. If you are starting with a new company, you should ensure that you are getting that type of security. Be wary of companies who don’t have a contract of employment for you to sign. You may end up losing some of your benefits and you won’t have any recourse to fight for those back from the employment law side. It really is just a good idea to fill one of these out. Pretty much all companies who use them require you to sign; you really have no choice. Don’t worry, though. It benefits you just as much as them.

Communication is the exchanging of ideas and information. Clear communication is an essential element in any business environment to manage business activities. For the success of any business communication between the employer and the employees is a must. Communicating effectively with your employees will help to improve the work relationships and make the employees more harmonious and hospitable. Below are some simple tips which help you to know how to communicate with your employees.

Be a good listener

The first step in effective communication is to be a good listener. You must pay attention to whatever your employee wants to talk. This encourages the employees to talk any problem or explain his/her ideas to you. If your employees feel that you are not a good listener they won’t express their ideas or discuss their problem with you. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with your employee or not, let him/her speak. If they don’t communicate with you it will result in much trouble as the employee may keep it aside with him/her. So try to become a good listener.

Arrange regular meetings with employees

You have to arrange frequent one-on-one meeting with your employees. This is another important step which helps the employees feel you are putting enough time to know their problems and opinions. Sometimes if you are not able to conduct weekly meeting you can arrange it twice a month. If your employees are working at different places meet them by phone and show them you provide full attention for them. Provide enough time for them to speak about their ideas, problems, needs, or even about how to improve the business etc. This makes a felling that you are hearing their words and they will try to express their ideas.

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A major problem for employers today is attracting the best talent, and then retaining key employees. Research shows that the key ingredient for retention lies within the manager’s ability to understand what employees really want.

The survey results below first came out in 1946 in Foreman Fact, from the Labor Relations Institute of NY and was produced again by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine in 1949. This study has since been replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980); Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988); Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training %26 Development (1991); and Sheryl %26 Don Grimme, GHR Training Solutions (1997-2001).

Pay particular interest to the top three things managers thought employees want from their jobs, and then look at what employees said they REALLY want:

WHAT MANAGERS THINK EMPLOYEES WANT, starting with the most important:
1.Good wages
2.Job Security
3.Promotion and growth opportunities
4.Good working conditions
5.Interesting work
6.Personal loyalty to workers
7.Tactful discipline
8.Full appreciation for work done
9.Sympathetic understanding of personal problems
10.Feeling “in” on things

WHAT EMPLOYEES SAY THEY WANT, starting with the most important:
1.Full appreciation for work done
2.Feeling “in” on things
3.Sympathetic understanding of personal problems
4.Job security
5.Good wages
6.Interesting work
7.Promotion and growth opportunities
8.Personal loyalty to workers
9.Good working conditions
10.Tactful discipline

You can see there is quite a discrepancy. This indicates the value of the “intangible rewards” of appreciation, involvement and understanding. An important benefit is that the top 3 things employees want are all influenced by the relationship with their direct manager or supervisor.

Show your employees you truly value them, and never underestimate how important you are in maintaining a strong workforce and retaining your best talent!

By Susan Cullen

Susan Cullen is President of Quantum Learning Solutions, Inc., based in New Jersey. She has over 15 years experience in Organizational Development and is considered an expert in the use of blended learning methodologies for lasting organizational change. For more information go to http://www.quantumlearn.com or you can reach us at (800) 683-0681.

What does a typical day in the corporate world look like? High tension atmosphere, people running helter skelter; some screaming on the phone, some sitting in strategy meetings-a look of extreme concentration on their faces. Business world is all about being on the edge, and often we find excellent managers suffering from burn-out and extreme stress levels because of the increased competitiveness at work. The lifestyle is crazy, the tension is palpable. The one thing which can make all the difference to people’s business acumen is sorely missing from the scene. If you are wondering what that factor is it is calmness.

Hypnosis brings that peace of mind and calmness. It is when people are able to put their heads down and think over something in a cool manner that some really positive results come out. Another big issue is that people are not able to understand each other in a perfect manner. They completely miss on the unspoken communication. This is the biggest barrier. Sometimes its more important to understand what the person actually mean as compared to what he is trying to say. This is the kind of power that Conversational Hypnosis (Read more Conversational Hypnosis) Conversational hypnosis is one area of hypnosis that is not much spoken about but has attracted a great deal of attention from the corporates. The reason is simple who does not wants more powerful and effective employees. Draw more sales per client and have more satisfied customers.

There are a lot of people out there who claim to be hypnosis gurus. I have found that most of so called gurus know so little about hypnosis. Most of them are con artists who try to fool people using tricks. However one person who stands out in this respect is Igor Ledochowski. His program conversational hypnosis is one of the best programs out there. To know why this program is so succesful and what makes Igor Ledochowski so popular follow this link – Igor Ledochowski.