Thoughts on HR

At least once a year, every company should take stock of every employee and where they stand in terms of performance and culture fit within the organization. Here’s what you need to do: Take a sheet of paper and divide it into four quadrants. Then label the vertical...

When it comes to benefits, and particularly health insurance, we talk to a lot of small business owners who are frustrated about their options. They feel like they have to sign up for whatever is in front of them if they want to provide health insurance for their...

In the past few years, there’s been a trend of companies throwing out some key policies, including things like dress code and attendance policies. Some of it stems from decision makers feeling like the policies are outdated and no longer necessary, but are they really...

Many businesses think about hiring interns as a way to get easy help with an overwhelming workload. They think of an internship as free labor. But an internship is decidedly not free labor—in fact, it’s supposed to be something of a burden on the employer. If you go...

A lot of small businesses think it won’t happen to them. They won’t get fined for skirting a few rules. They’re a small business, so nobody will notice if they’re not in compliance, right? But it can happen. It does happen. And it can be costly. One small business...

Your business is growing and you’re either ready to hire your first manager position or you’re planning to promote from within to a supervisor or manager position. But what happens next? What sort of training should you plan for a new manager to ensure they’re set up...

Companies love star players, and that’s a good thing. We love star players, too, and we fully support rewarding them. But sometimes a company’s plan to reward a star player backfires because it doesn’t align with what that employee wants. It’s dangerous to make...

When an employee violates policy, one of two things is generally happening. Either they haven’t been trained correctly on that policy or they’re choosing not to follow it. And the response to those two situations is very different. If an employee violates policy, it’s...

Remote work is a huge topic of conversation in today’s workforce, and it’s something that can help companies gain a competitive edge when it comes to recruiting talent. Unemployment is pretty low, which means the market for capable employees is thin. Are you missing...

Most people who start a business know that, at some point, they’re going to be involved in human resources. Some people use HR as a success metric: they’ll know their business is successful when they’ve hired enough people to need HR. But as with many other fields,...