Strategic Planning

After the Election: How Employers Must Prepare for Political Change

11/05/2008

When Barack Obama takes office in January, it may signal a time of enormous change for the world of labor and employment law. Depending on how many Senate seats Democrats control, here are two potential scenarios for change, the eight key legislative issues in the hopper and what you can do right now to prepare …

Don’t forget service when choosing workers’ comp carrier

10/03/2008

HR pros should look at more than price when they’re shopping for a workers’ compensation insurance carrier. Here’s a checklist to cover with your insurance broker before selecting a carrier …

By The Numbers: Expertise walks away

10/03/2008

Employers are dragging their feet when it comes to capturing the knowledge of soon-to-retire baby boomers …

Upside of the Downturn: How HR Can Help Weather the Economic Slump

09/30/2008

HR pros have an important role to play in helping their companies weather the economic downturn. Whether sitting in on C-Suite meetings, offering one-on-one counsel to decision-makers or training employees, you need to know about the strategies successful companies use to survive and thrive in tough economic times.

Budget for lower health cost growth in ’09

09/05/2008

Health care costs are expected to increase on average 10.6% in the next 12 months, the lowest percentage increase since 2001. That’s what Aon Consulting Worldwide found when it surveyed more than 70 health care insurers, representing more than 100 million insured individuals …

5 Steps for Communicating Benefits Changes

08/19/2008

As your organization shifts more responsibility to employees to manage their own health and retirement expenses, you risk alienating your work force. But it doesn’t have to be that way …

3 Keys to Creating ‘Employee Lifetime Value’

08/12/2008

Savvy business people have long focused on customer lifetime value—the gains to had from cultivating lifelong relationships with customers eager to patronize them again and again. Here are three keys to nurturing those same kinds of relationships with employees—and reaping the same kinds of rewards.

6 Ways Workers Can Tell You’re Just Talking the Talk

08/12/2008

“Our People Are Our Greatest Assets.” It’s been one of the business world’s favorite clichés for decades. For just as long, it’s prompted eye rolling from the greatest assets themselves. Now a provocative BusinessWeek article takes HR to task for allowing talking the talk to stand in for walking the walk. Do any of these accusations sound familiar?

Face-to-Face talk best bet for helping cope with slump

08/01/2008

CEOs who participated in a recent survey conducted by Vantage Research agreed that an economic downturn isn’t the best time to make bold, sudden business moves. Instead, they advocate “hunkering down and building up the business” in tempestuous fiscal times like these …

15 Questions to Ask Employees in Their First 60 Days

07/21/2008

A good employee who seemed happy quit after just three months. His supervisor never saw it coming. What happened? That unexpected turnover might have been avoided if the boss had checked in to uncover any potential problems. Here are 15 questions supervisors or HR should ask all new employees in their first 60 days on the job.