News & Events

Part of the enigma of U.S. history is the apparently opposing dynamic forces of American “Rugged Individualism” vs. teamwork.

The authors of “Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive?” wrote, “Reaching back to the founding, rugged individualism has defined American character and uniqueness. It has been described as the “master assumption” of American political and economic thought. The combination of individual liberty in America’s founding and the frontier spirit provided the rich soil in which it has grown and developed.”

If you have spent any time in a workplace you probably have experienced various levels of feedback from your employer.

Those sit-downs, both formally in scheduled performance reviews and informally when the boss asks you to step into their office, come in all varieties.

Sometimes the feedback can come off as superfluous with an uncaring supervisor quickly checking generic boxes that provide no real insight or help to sharpen your role with the company.

Employers are increasingly prioritizing employee burnout and their mental health as the COVID-19 pandemic trudges toward the 2-year mark.

“This is a historic time; we’ve never been through anything like this. Our mental health and our physical health are really being taxed,” Darcy Gruttadaro, director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health, told ABC News this summer. “If there was ever a time to raise these issues, it’s now. If you’re experiencing burnout and you’re trying to ignore it, that will eventually catch up with you.”

CNBC reported in September that “how to deal with burnout – and prevent future burnout – is a challenge all businesses are now tasked with as many workers hit 19 months of working from home.”

Employees are one of your businesses’ greatest assets, so it is important to maximize their potential and increase your company’s chance of success with strategic planning.

“Loyal customers, visionary leaders and quality goods and services all influence success, but usually a company’s best asset is its employees,” says the Indeed.com Editorial Team.

Compensation studies are important tools that help businesses of all sizes, from Main Street to Wall Street, in the fierce competition for talent in an employee-centric market.

“Salary surveys are important enough that a full 80 percent of human resource professionals said they were consulting them in their business,” according to an article from Study.com.

During these uncertain times of the COVID-19 pandemic we are reminded of former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s “known knowns” quote which is popular in corporate strategic planning.

Rumsfeld said: “[A]s we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

It is no secret that professional football is big business, but some people would be surprised how much NFL teams have in common with big companies such as Google and Amazon when it comes to measuring performances and using scorecards to target success.

Take the NFL 2020 season opener between defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans, for example.

Critics of the performance review have long pushed for its extinction. And it's easy to jump on the bandwagon. When implemented incorrectly, performance reviews can feel outdated, cumbersome, and outright disingenuous. But when handled strategically, the performance review can bring benefits that far outweigh the cost of the process.

Here are five key reasons to keep and perhaps upgrade the performance review for your organization.

All businesses are bound by law to provide at least the legal minimum of employee benefits. What qualifies as the legal minimum varies by state and your company's size. Regardless of the legal minimum for your company, however, it makes good business sense to offer employee benefits beyond the basics.

Why Annual Reviews Are No Longer Adequate

Over the past few years, there has been a seismic shift in thinking when it comes to performance reviews. Most HR managers, department leaders and — perhaps most of all, employees — will love the fact that many leaders are rethinking performance reviews.