A key factor was communication. "Worker's frustration with an absence of adequate communication," the study's authors wrote, "is one of the most negative findings we see expressed on employee attitude surveys," a fact confirmed by BLR's own National Employee Attitude Survey, which showed company performance at communicating lagging far behind any other facet of organizational performance.
It's a serious shortcoming. Without communication, there is no organization. Teams can't work together. Customers are misunderstood. Leaders may try to lead, but few know how to follow.
That's why we were happy to discover one of the best training programs on effective communication we've seen, called Communication Skills: What Everyone Needs to Know. It's a 30-minute DVD based on a well-known book by Deborah S. Roberts, a copy of which is included. More important are the basic communication strategies detailed in the program. Here's a sampling:
--Communication begins before conversation. As the program's authors note, studies show some 40 percent of what's communicated comes through body language and tone of voice. Both must match the message being imparted. When you tell a subordinate that a mistake he or she has made is "no big deal," don't roll your eyes and wince. On the phone, voice tone is paramount; never compete with the conversation by eating or allowing loud background noise as you talk.
--Name your counterpart. Nothing establishes rapport better than acknowledging others by name. But in today's transient world, names are easy to forget or confuse. "Connect the person's name with someone famous," the program advises. "If you meet George, mentally connect him to George Washington."
--Start with small talk. Chatting amiably opens the door to more substantial messages, but, advise the authors, gauge your counterpart's reaction so as not to go on too long ... and never chat about workplace confidences or gossip.
--Tailor your conversation to your audience. Talks with a boss, co-worker, or customer each require a different style. With bosses, pick the right time and ask honestly for what you need and what they can reasonably deliver. For colleagues, be humble, reliable, and discreet. And if customers call with problems, listen, apologize, and offer a solution. However, a natural smile when appropriate, even on the phone, applies in all cases.
--In writing, match your format to your audience. A short e-mail is fine for inviting a colleague to lunch, but use a more formal letter to ask an important customer to dinner. Also, remember that others beyond your intended recipient and far into the future may read your written words. Never write what you wouldn't want openly read.
--Meet when it makes sense to meet. Nothing irritates colleagues so much as useless meetings, the authors say. Their advice: Meet only when you need to, only with whom you need, and always with a formal agenda. End the meeting by thanking and praising participants. That sends everyone off on a positive note.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Practical Tips to Improve Workplace Communication
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Are You Actually De-Motivating Your Employees?
"Most companies have it all wrong. They don't have to motivate their employees. They have to stop de-motivating them."
With this one attention-getting statement, three researchers recently demolished a whole school of thought on business best practices, in effect, trashing the idea that employees only do work for the money, and therefore, require prizes, slogans, and other special measures to keep them focused on the job.
The researchers are David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer, of Sirota Survey Intelligence, a Purchase, New York, management research firm. From 2000-2004, their company conducted surveys of some 1.2 million employees at 52 Fortune 1000 companies, with results reported in the Harvard Management Update. The key finding:
"The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months - and continues to deteriorate for years afterward."
The researchers laid the blame on both companies and line managers, citing deficiencies in how they dealt with their people that ranged from overly bureaucratic structures to attitudes of "well, that's what we pay them for." Just as important, they also created a recipe to allow that initial motivation to continue and grow.
In digested form, here's what they say to do:
--Create an atmosphere of pride and recognition. Every employer, they say, needs to instill in workers a sense of mission in what the company does. "In effect," say the researchers, "a 'reason for being' that translates into a 'reason for being there' that goes above and beyond money." Companies must then recognize every achievement toward that purpose, large or small, and as soon as possible after it occurs. The Sirota surveys show that a great reason for de-motivation is the lack of even a simple thank you for a job well done.
--Redefine the manager's role. "A command and control style is a sure-fire path to de-motivation," say the researchers. Instead, they recommend that managers redefine themselves as "expediters," whose prime mission is making their workers' jobs easier by clearing obstacles and lobbying for their needs at all levels of the company. This role includes "facing up to poor performance" by "dealing decisively" with the 5 percent of workers who truly shouldn't be there.
--Build a Team. Singer Barbra Streisand was right when she musically celebrated "people who need people." Sirota's studies show that "the quality of a group's effort ... is usually superior to that of individuals working alone." Also, teams build camaraderie and provide opportunities for team members to learn from one another. However, managers need to "carefully assess who works best with whom," and to provide clear expectations on how the team will operate and on what goals it is expected to meet.
Facilitating all this, say the researchers, is the need to clearly communicate, in both speaking with and listening to employees. In fact, they say, "workers' frustration with the absence of adequate communication is one of the most negative findings we see expressed on employee attitude surveys."
We at BLR can confirm this. In our ongoing National Employee Attitude Survey, which to date has involved more than 1,000 companies and 22,000 employees, companywide communication posted scores far below those for any other category of organizational performance.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Legal Hiring
If the current debate over the hiring of immigrant workers shows anything, it's how important it is these days to hire legally.
Employment of foreign nationals … on the rise because of labor shortages in critical skills … is subject to multiple forms of visa regulation (see yesterday's Advisor).
Checking the status of immigrant job applicants is also now more stringent, and employment law on this subject is constantly evolving: The new regulations on checking Social Security numbers to verify that status is one change both you and your supervisors need to be aware of.
All of this has been added to previous complexities. Laws involving national origin are part of a larger mosaic of regulations relating to discrimination in hiring on the basis of age, gender, health condition, and more, with any violation aiming you right at a courtroom. The bottom line: The days of just looking across the desk, shaking hands, and doing your best imitation of Donald Trump's "You're HIRED!" are long over.
What's more, each law has its own nuances: We found some we weren't previously aware of in BLR's new program, Audio Click 'n Train: Hiring Legally -- a 27-slide PowerPoint with professionally recorded narration that trains supervisors in all phases of legal hiring.
Did you know, for example, that when several laws protect an applicant from discrimination, the one "most favorable to the applicant prevails"? Or that while you can (and must) refuse to hire an illegal immigrant, you can't refuse those here legally, even if they're not U.S. citizens?
Or that, on another hiring front, employers should seriously consider how much to emphasize education or experience in job ads? Why? Because some protected groups have been denied the levels of education and experience you'd specify, forming a barrier they cannot, as a group, cross. That's discrimination. (When writing these ads, says Audio Click 'n Train: Hiring Legally, put the emphasis on what work you need done, not what qualifications the applicant needs to meet.)
In fact, Hiring Legally will teach your supervisors all facets of the hiring process, including:
--What laws control hiring (EEO, ADA, PDA, ADEA, IRCA, USERRA, among others)
--How to write nondiscriminatory job descriptions and employment postings
--Questions you can and can't ask in employment interviews
--Legal guidelines for pre-employment testing
--Lawful reference and background checks
--How and what to document in the hiring process
Sight, Sound, and Self-Direction
Users of Audio Click 'n Train: Hiring Legally also report that it's effective with supervisors for two other reasons: the audio track and the fact that the learning is self-directed.
The audio, which uses both male and female narrators, fits a learning theory that says that what you experience in multiple modalities (that's educator-ese for learning through more than one of your senses) tends to be far better remembered than information received through one input, such as reading, alone.
The fact that this is a program supervisors can do on their own (you don't even need to be in the room) also increases the learning. That's because most adult learners prefer to teach themselves, at their own pace, a process called self-direction. Users of self-directed programs are more motivated because they have control over the material.
All these principles of adult learning are explained in-depth in the included Trainer's Guide. There's also a trainee handout to reinforce the main points, a quiz to test learning, and two provocative discussion exercises. You can also customize the slides by adding your company’s information. All this adds to the program's efficacy, without adding to the cost.
If you'd like to experience Audio Click 'n Train: Hiring Legally for yourself (there's that self-directed thing again), just click the link below to see some sample slides and hear the audio track that accompanies them.
Whether you and your supervisors are visual or oral learners, we think you'll like what you see … and hear.
Information & Study Skills
Good information skills are essential for successful professionals.These techniques will help you to assimilate information quickly. This may involve keeping yourself up-to-date on events within your field, absorbing information within reports or learning specialist information needed to complete a project.
Read Information Skills
Stress Management Techniques
Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that "stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental." Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.
Read Stress Management
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
eLibrary
FREE eBooks and Best Sites. Computer & Internet · Mathematics · Classics · Engineering · Business · Reference · Biology · Humanity · Entertainment ...
Online Library
Are you a team player, ?
How to Make
Working In Teams
A Success
Chances are good that you participate in some kind of team: a study group, sports squad, band, work team or other combined effort. This is good, because people who join forces can accomplish amazing things. But teams can also fall flat.
CLICK TO CONTINUE
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Time Management
Learn how to manage your workload and maximize your effectiveness.
Learn Time Management
Online Advertising
With an archive of more than 14,000 postings, since 1996 the Online Advertising Discussion List has been the Internet's leading forum focused on professional discussion of online advertising and online media buying and selling strategies, results, studies, tools, and media coverage. The list also provides editorial coverage of conferences of interest to people in the Online Advertising Industry. Operated by ADASTRO Incorporated and moderated by Internet marketing industry pioneer and conference speaker Cliff Kurtzman, this forum provides information and discussion essential for anyone within the online marketing and advertising industry.
- Online Advertising Industry Merger and Acquisition Deal Flow
- AD:TECH New York November 2006: The Economics of Interactive: Industry M&A for Fun and Profit by Cliff Kurtzman and William Morrison
- AD:TECH New York 2005: A Crash Course on the Digital Marketing Vendor Landscape by Cliff Kurtzman and Jay Weintraub
- The Apogee from ADASTRO
- Cliff Kurtzman's Seminars
- WilsonWeb and Web Marketing Today
- eMarketer
eNews - Adrants
- ClickZ
- MarketingProfs
- MarketingVox
- MarketingSherpa
- Direct Email List Source
- Adbility
- ClickZstats
- Search
Engine Watch - Search
Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) - DM Confidential
- Web Analytics Association
- JayWeintraub.com
- Geek Village
- Newslinx
- ClickZ News
- iMedia Connection News
- alarm:clock
- Marketing Experiments Journal
- E-venting Blog on Interactive Advertising and Marketing Events
- adverlicio.us - World's Tastiest Collection of Online Advertising
Learn Java Script in Just 24 Hours
Academic Tutorials.com is world's largest FREE Online Learning website for different technologies. You can find a full range of online tutorials - from HTML, DHTML, XML, XSL, XHTML, VB, ASP, Javascript to SVG, FLASH, TCP, PHP, ASP.Net etc. The best part is you can learn almost every new computer technology, with just a few hours of efforts in a very interesting fashion & that too TOTALLY FREE OF COST.
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Fresh jobs, Interview Questions and Answers with Tips
Helping material for a successful interview and important questions and answers and Job Opportunities can found by visiting the following link. Interview questions with answers in all fields of occupation.
Interview Questions and Answers
Friday, September 21, 2007
On-Line Libraries
Good resources for online reading
| Title | URL |
| The Internet Public Library | http://www.ipl.org |
| The Library of Congress | http://www.loc.gov |
| Internet Sacred Text Archive | http://www.sacred-texts.com |
| Books On Line | http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books |
| Spirit Site: Spiritual Writings | http://www.spiritsite.com/writing/index.htm |
| Transcript Library | http://www.intuition.org/idxtran.htm |
| Virtual Library | http://vlib.org/Home.html |
| Virtual Library: Subject Catalogue | http://celtic.stanford.edu/vlib/Overview2.html |
| The Great Books | http://www.grtbooks.com |
| The Gutenberg Project | http://www.gutenberg.net |
| Digital Librarian | http://www.digital-librarian.com |
| The EBook Director | http://www.ebookdirectory.com/personal.html |
| The Spiritwalk Library | http://www.spiritwalk.org/library.htm |
| The British Library | http://www.bl.uk |
| Library of Literature | http://www.literature.org |
| Universal Library | http://www.ulib.org |
| Christan Classic | http://www.ccel.org |
| American Library Association | http://www.ala.org |
Interview Question Database
Need to prepare for a job interview? Try this
interview questions and answers database. It has a
nice full-text search function. If you have a good
interview question, share it with us by submitting it
to the database. Go to interview question database.
Interview Questions
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Global Professionals Jobs
Find Resources Global Professionals jobs and read about Resources Global Professionals's career and employment opportunities on Yahoo! HotJobs. At
Professional Jobs
FREE Teaching Resources
Now Featuring FREE Teaching Resources including 330 Theme Pages, Back to School Resources, End of Summer, and much more - complete with Lesson ... at
Sites For Teachers
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Collection of IT Resources
Some major information technology link selections brought to you by itmWEB.
Visit ITM WEB
Online Hotel Booking
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
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Monday, September 17, 2007
.NET Framework, Visual Studio.NET, and ASP.NET Developer Resources
Top-10 .NET Sites
Here's a list of favorite sites for developers, in no particular order.
MSDN's .NET Home Page
It'll be hard to knock this page out of the number-one spot. After all, it's where Microsoft puts all of its most important .NET information, articles, samples, and links. Related sites include the Microsoft .NET Framework Developer's Guide, which lists links to the .NET Framework Reference, Samples, Tutorials, Tools, and Developer Specifications; and the list of Microsoft .NET Technical Articles.
GotDotNet is a community Web site, written by and maintained by the Microsoft .NET Framework Web Team, where .NET developers can showcase their samples and receive information about the .NET Framework. It's supposed to be a "raw, unfiltered look inside the .NET Framework and at the team within Microsoft that is responsible for writing, testing, releasing, and managing the different technologies that go into .NET."
If you aren't on the DOTNET mailing list, you are really missing out. Nearly everyone who is someone at Microsoft (including a ton of Microsoft's developers, product managers, and even marketing executives) have been showing up there. Plus, if there's a name you respect in the community, they're probably posted there too (the rest are lurking). The archives here are absolutely stunning, too. Take a few hours to surf them. You'll learn more here than probably anywhere else.
The mission of this site is to provide a place "for the dissemination of information, tools, and education for developers utilizing the ASP.NET framework." Here are some reasons why you'll find this site helpful: a minimum of two .NET tutorials and how-to's are added each week; their .NET Component Resource (.NETComRes) is a place for developers to download/upload .NET components and source code; they have Quickstart tutorials (including for mobile devices); they are a Microsoft .NET Partner, and their complete site runs on the .NET framework.
This is a favorite .NET site among developers. It includes C# and VB source code.
Andy McMullan wins the "best .NET FAQ" award. This is really useful for programmers to get up to date on the .NET basics and more.
The Code Project was formed to provide developers with a place to meet and exchange ideas. "We hope to provide developers with all the resources they need to help them in their day-to-day programming, as well as helping them keep up to date with the latest technologies." The Code Project is run by Chris Maunder, Erik Thompson, and Uwe Keim.
This is "your guide to the newest version of Active Server Pages called ASP.NET." It's a directory of ASP.NET tutorials, applications, scripts, assemblies, and articles for the novice to professional developer. Over 1,000 resources.
The site is quite easy to use. Just click and go. You can locate resources by browsing directories or searching on keywords. There is also a very handy searchable code library.
You should watch these news sites every day for news. If you have a product or something new to announce to the .NET world, do it on these sites.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Java Projects and Source Codes
Below are Java Projects and source codes submitted to Source Codes World.
Project Ideas http://sourcecodesworld.com/ project-bank/
List of Ideas of student projects, all types of academic projects and dummy projects for your help. All for free!!!
Algorithms
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=57
Here you can find algorithms of various java programs and practical implementation of programs.
Java Swing
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=55
Swing provides a special subclass of Applet, called javax.swing.JApplet, which should be used for all applets that use Swing components to construct their GUIs.
Beginners / Lab Assignments
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=29
Basic programs and lab assignment are given for beginners with easy formatted structure.
Java Applets
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/LanguageHome.asp?LangId=5 Learn java applet, Applet class, which provides the standard interface between the applet and the browser environment.
JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=50
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is a programming framework for Java developers writing programs that access information stored in databases, spreadsheets, and flat files.
Networking
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?
CatId=30&page=2&order=ScriptID
Networking gives complete introduction to developing network programs (both applets and applications) using Java, covering everything from Networking fundamentals.
Multithreading
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=25
Multithreading allows two parts of the same program to run concurrently. This article discusses how to pull off this performance-improving feat in Java.
Utility Tools / Softwares
http://sourcecodesworld.com/source/BrowseCategory.asp?CatId=76
Utility tools / Softwares help you to put together an excellent development environment in Java without spending any money on tools or libraries.
Design Patterns
Design Patterns in Object Oriented Programming Language solves many real time problems easily. Using appropriate Design Patterns for the situation helps a good structure for the application. One can Master the Design Patterns by visiting the WebPage Mastering Design Patterns
Learning Curve
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Java Resources
Documentation and Software
java.sun.com
Offers free compilers for download, tutorials and references.
Applet Collections
JARS Java Review Service
Hundreds of applets organized by category, many with source code.
The Java Boutique
Another collection site that also offers some programming tutorials.
Directories
Google's
Java Directory
From the best search engine on the Web.
