Your Strict Dress Code is Hurting Workplace Morale

My first job out of college, I was working at a typical corporate America cubicle farm. Like most recent graduates, I had to make the uncomfortable adjustment between academic and office life: early risings, long meetings, mundane tasks and reporting to a boss. However, what stung the most about my new job was the dress…

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Q & A With the Central Park Peacock

Yesterday, New York City was abuzz with the news that a peacock had escaped from the Central Park Zoo, spending the night on a 5th Avenue apartment windowsill before flying back home. Turns out the AWOL avian is a huge fan of trivia, because he granted me an exclusive interview: DJ – So tell me,…

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Trivia Questions For: Liz King, NYC Event Planner & Social Media Maven

In the spirit of sharing trivia and knowledge, today I am introducing a new interview series called “Trivia Questions For…” Readers will now hear regularly from the most intriguing, experienced and compelling thought leaders in the areas of event planning, team building, human resources, management, workplace dynamics, trivia/gaming and pop culture. I can think of…

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50 Fun Ways to Reward Your Staff

The economy remains shaky. Discretionary budgets are tight, and employees are working harder than ever – often with little recognition or reward. However, there are many ways besides bonuses/raises to tell employees that you value their efforts, care about their happiness and wish to retain them long-term within your company. Especially in large urban areas…

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6 Communication Tips for Leaders of Teams

There’s a quote from The Team Handbook, one of the “gold standard” reads on the nature and dynamic of teams, which I think nicely sums up the teamwork challenge: “A team is a complicated creature. Members must work out personal differences, find strength on which to build, and balance commitment to the project against the…

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What the World’s Worst Corporate Team Building Event Looks Like

As the owner of a corporate team building company in New York City, I’ve got my work cut out for me to ensure that our events meet and exceed the high expectations of the most important firms and brands in the world. When striving to create the ideal activity, it’s important to imagine not only…

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How to Get Your Bar Trivia Night Banned from Yelp

I’m taking a break today from writing about corporate team building and employee entertainment to recount one of my war stories from the land of pub trivia. Back when I was first starting out in 2006 as a bar quizmaster on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the bartender Paul and I developed a wacky idea: make…

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7 Things Your Employees Fear the Most

It’s the summer of 2011, yet we are still reeling from the economic meltdown of the fall of 2008. Employees at all levels are anxious about their job security, and for good reason – Bloomberg recently reported that the economy remains “spongy,” and economic growth isn’t as robust as we’d hoped. Besides the obvious fear…

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6 Easy Ways to Make Your Employees Love You

“How can I maintain employee loyalty and retain good talent?” If you’re like other smart managers, you ask yourself this question every day. The era of the lifelong employee who gets a gold watch are long over, and if the recent recession has taught us anything, it’s that knowledge workers want to keep their skills…

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Near-Sighted Leadership: What You Can’t See from 10,000 Feet

As I write this post, I am currently onboard an airplane, 10,000 feet up in the sky – the same perch (metaphorically, anyway) that leaders use to view their businesses. From way up here, it is possible to see your company as a whole: what it looks like, where it’s headed, and how you will…

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7 Employee Concerns Managers Shouldn’t Ignore

Whether your business is local or global, retaining good talent has never been more important for firms who wish to compete in today’s digital marketplace. However, despite an unstable economy, knowledge workers are still free agents, and won’t show loyalty to companies that they feel aren’t living up to their side of the employment “contract.…

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What “The Fighter” Can Teach Us About Building Teams

During a long flight this weekend, I had the chance to watch “The Fighter.” Without spoiling it too much, the film follows a welterweight boxer from a small town on his road to world champion. Coming from a large, highly involved household of boxing fanatics, the fighter must choose between his old team – his…

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30 Clues That Your Company Has a Morale Issue

Recent studies have shown that low employee morale leads to reduced productivity, higher turnover and unhappy customers. Common sense also dictates that when staff feels dispirited or underappreciated, they will not do their jobs as effectively, efficiently or with great care. As a business owner or senior manager, how do you know when your people…

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What to Do When the Boss Wants a “Team Building Activity”

So the head of the company has spontaneously decided he/she wants to have a “team building activity,” and has dropped this assignment in your lap. As the operations manager, department head, HR director or summer intern, it is suddenly your responsibility to identify, arrange and execute an event for staff, with little or no guidance.…

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6 Tips on Avoiding Bad Hires

My first job out of college was a disaster. Not sure what I wanted to do, I was desperate to take any entry level job, and luckily found one doing data entry & analysis. You can probably tell right away that “data entry” wouldn’t be the job of choice for a right-brain guy who would…

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