November 2016 Blog Posts (50)

For many professionals, writing skills are learned while they are on the job. In many cases, they would go by a preferred style or other documents or style guides that help to put a certain style in place. Editing, however, is rarely taught. Worse, the perception most people have of editing is that it is revising or rewriting a work. But the truth is different. Editing gives shape to a document. It helps to perfect and sculpt it. The big question most editors face…

Financial institutions have long been the most important source of payments for their customers. Of late, though, with an increase in competition and the advent of new non-bank entries into the marketplace, financial institutions have come under a lot more strain than they used to be.

Financial institutions need to reinvent themselves in a number of ways. They need to adapt novel strategies to…

Nanotechnology, a part of Quantum Physics (QP), is growing fast and has myriad uses. Nanotechnology is all about size and self-assembly. While QP deals with subatomic particles and waves; Nano relates to the atomic and molecular level. Atomic behavior and properties get dramatically changed at the Nano level. Of note are properties such as color change due to refraction of light. Gold, packaging and chemistry are some of the well-known areas into which…

Organizations in the present world have to reckon with the fact that the virtual team is the reality of the workplace. Among the most important reasons that have contributed to the evolution and growth of this trend, we can point to increasing competition in the marketplace, decentralization and globalization of work processes and advances in information and communication technologies.

If companies have to remain competitive, they need to bring about greater flexibility and agility in…

The most important ingredient of any business is the customer. Mahatma Gandhi nailed it when he said way back in 1890 in South Africa: “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider of our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving…

A talented communicator is not the same as an effective communicator. While a talented communicator can bring in only style and not much substance; the effective communicator goes beyond. Her communication is loaded with trust, respect, understanding, empathy and resolution. 

The ability to communicate cannot be hidden. Effective communication goes beyond style and charisma, or possessing a strong vocabulary, or being able to speak in public or even being a good listener. The…

Consider this stunning fact: The annual cost of treating mood disorders is around an unimaginable 50 billion USD in the US. Depression alone out beats heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes in terms of days lost. Untreated mental health and stress conditions cost American employers these huge amounts of money every year because such employees indulge in absenteeism, which results in reduced productivity and compensation claims. It is also equally disturbing to note…

Keeping an eye on weather conditions is, of course, a pretty crucial task on most work sites. Potential injuries from worker slips or falls, along with the risk of damage caused by improperly secured loads or machinery, are among the most pressing health and safety concerns on busy sites –…

Lack of effective communication is at the core of the problems that most organizations face. Over two thirds of small to mid-size businesses admit that communication is their primary problem. A business with around 100 employees spends an average downtime of 17 hours a week on just clarifying communications, losing over half a million dollars annually on this exercise.    

Miscommunication can cost an organization anywhere between a fourth and two fifths of its annual budget,…

The IRS provides updated tax rates and changes how taxable income is calculated each year. It is changing filing deadlines in 2016. So, organizations that are required to file their taxable incomes need to be fully ready for these filing deadline changes. They need to also be aware of the change in penalty structure for noncompliance that President Obama signed into law in 2016. It is to give a thorough understanding of this aspect of the W-2 that TrainHR, a leading provider of professional…

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is considered the world's most popular personality test, mainly because of its empathetic and comprehensive nature. It continues to be deployed in a number of workplace settings as well as in situations involving family, marriage, and career counseling. Where it differs is that it leads the assessor to understand the assessee from a very in-depth perspective.

It helps overcome certain lacuna associated with the general assessment…

The importance of conducting a risk analysis updating it can be gauged from the fact that failure to conduct a written risk analysis qualifies as “willful neglect”, which carries the highest Civil Money Penalty (“CMP”). This cannot be waived by the DHHS unlike violations that happen due to a reasonable cause.

Since risk analysis is a required implementation specification under the Security Rule, failure to do one amounts to willful neglect. If the civil…

Powerful language alone, it is estimated, makes up, at best, 15% of a communication. That is the distance to which smooth and articulate flow of words can take communication. What makes up the remaining 85%? How is the meat of the communication delivered to the receiver?

In an office environment, since it is through emails that most communication is done, it is extremely important to know what to do to convey the full and exact message. Precision and certainness about what to…

HR compliance is a sine qua non for organizations from a number of critical perspectives. It is important from these three core perspectives:

Business: A business perspective as training managers in the basics of HR compliance gives them an understanding of the basics of employment law, of how to write documentation and of how to use the tools of employee development. It is the least expensive exercise for an employer to preempt any unwarranted employment…

Hiring the best is only one part of the recruitment process. Getting them to start off with the right knowledge and experience needed for starting to show results in the first 90 days of onboarding is the tougher part. With the changes in the onboarding processes, employers and HR managers need to be on their toes in making employees put in their best during the first 90 days and later.

Designing, developing and implementing an effective program that will guarantee that the…