Gemmy S. Allen is Management Coordinator and Faculty at North Lake College, Irving, TX of the Dallas County Community College District. She is the co-author of the textbook Management: Meeting and Exceeding Customer Expectations, published by Cengage. Her awards include being named Outstanding Mountain View College Faculty Member and receiving the Golden Oak Award, Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce; the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development Excellence in Teaching Award; and the award for Mountain View College Innovator of the Year. She served as a member of Microsoft Mentors, the Microsoft/Compaq College Advisory Council and the St. Philip’s College Model Electronic Commerce Curriculum Advisory Committee and is founding teacher, Virtual College of Texas — “Internet Teachers at Every College.” In addition, she has co-authored several discipline-specific, Internet-related books, developed several online classes, made numerous presentations to industry, and has led workshops in the United States, Australia and Mexico.
Millennials are the most likely of all adult generations to participate in Halloween. They wear costumes, decorate, AND hand out candy. Costumes from the movie Star Wars: the Force Awakens are selling well. Many people buy their pets costumes.
How much will you spend on Halloween? What do you buy?
How will you celebrate Halloween?
How do businesses celebrate Halloween?
The infographic above is from TheSquareFoot.
Is workplace culture overrated?
How can a great culture improve the overall organization?
Source: Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement: Revitalizing a Changing Workforce (SHRM, 2016)
There are many stereotypes about millennials: entitled, lazy, and self-centered. SHRM suggests three steps to manage millennials.
Step 1. Stop the stereotypes. When designing training and development programs or benefits strategies, keep in mind other elements, such as career level and life stage, not just age, to build an approach that is appropriate for various groups of employees.
Step 2. Cultivate culture. Value-centric Millennials typically place high importance on openness, equality, community and purpose. Building an inclusive feel within the organization will help establish an emotional connection between the employee and the employer.
Step 3. Develop and engage your talent. Millennials believe managers and employers should nurture and invest in them. They are looking to create outcomes within meaningful projects and may become impatient with mundane tasks. It is important to provide opportunities for them to be challenged.
Comment on the following: "Generalizations about Millennials often lead to misinterpretations about this cohort. Workplace tension is often falsely attributed to generational differences. Many conflicts may be a product of various life stages, career stages or job levels."
Hopefully, you will never work with a toxic employee. But, if you do, the infographic above gives some guidelines (antidotes) for working with him/her.
Explain what you think will happen to a toxic employee.
Workers are classified as full-time employees or part-time or independent contractor. A 'gig economy' is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short term engagements. Contingent workforce or contract workforce are a provisional group of workers who will work for an organization on a non-permanent basis. Also, they are known as free-lancers, independent contractors, temporary workers, or consultants.
The infographic above highlights information that you need to know whether you’re the one hiring workers, or you’re being hired.
Why would anyone want to be an Independent Contractor?
Below is a summary of six different management styles, by findmyshift.
Do you think the styles listed above are management styles or leadership styles? Explain.
How do these styles differ from the ones in your management textbook?
Which style do your prefer? Explain.
Wharton professors Harbir Singh and Mike Useem contend that the best managers must possess leadership and strategy in their new book, The Strategic Leaders’ Road Map: Six Steps for Integrating Leadership and Strategy.
How can managers develop strategic thinking along with strong leadership skills?
In the era of "always-on" transformation, organizations are always going to be transforming. But doing so does not have to be exhausting. Why is transformation so exhausting?
Explain how we can fix transformation from being so exhausting.
How will you put people first when you are a manager?
What does the infographic above show about attributes that contribute to workplace success for people in leadership roles?
How should an executive appear to others?
What skills does an executive need?
What does an executive need to know?
What are the consequences of negative attitudes at work?
How can you identify and quell negative feelings in the workplace?
Most everyone has encountered cross-selling with a salesperson on the phone, in the store, or suggestions on the Web. Cross-selling is when a suggestion is made about a different product than in the one you have shown interest.
Thomas Curry, the US comptroller of the currency, said that banks "should review what risks may arise from efforts to "cross-sell" to existing customers, which he called a common strategy."
Wells Fargo is one of the oldest banks in the country, with a tradition dating back to the Pony Express. It will pay over $185 million in penalties to regulators for more than 5,000 employees opening as many as 2 million deposit and credit accounts in customers’ names without their consent. John Stumpf, the bank’s CEO and chairman, found that his own compensation will be on hold while the directors investigate.
Morgan Stanley was charged with "dishonest and unethical conduct" by Massachusetts' top securities regulator for having pushed its brokers to sell loans to their clients. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin alleges that the bank ran high-pressured sales contests in Massachusetts and Rhode Island where brokers could earn thousands of dollars for selling so-called "securities based loans."
Explain how cross-selling might be wrong as a business strategy.
Wells Fargo clients had no idea that accounts were being opened in their name. But, did Morgan Stanley’s clients know that their brokers were competing – and being paid – to open these new loan accounts? Did they really need a new loan?
In the video above, Brookings Fellow Richard Reeves explores inequality and opportunity in America. He shows the chances that the poorest fifth of Americans have to rise to the top, based on their race, the marital status of their mothers, and their level of education.
How important is a college education to social mobility in America?
In the video above, Isaac Lidsky asks, "What reality are you creating for yourself?"
What are your excuses, assumptions, and fears?
How will you accept the awesome responsibility of being the creator of your own reality?
The infographic below from teamfocus explains how managers can go on vacation. Unfortunately, many managers do not disconnect from work while on vacation. Managers must trust employees to do the work while they are away. But, with training, employees can be trusted to do the job. Then, managers can enjoy their vacations.
Why do some mangers believe that nobody else can do the job?
Why are vacations important?