As an employer, Hound is your resource for workplace staffing, hiring, and productivity. This year’s most-read Hound articles covered everything from how to deal with your employees taking too many sick days, to the best ways to retain your workers, to must-have tips for drafting employee performance reviews. Here is a breakdown of the top 20 most-read, employer-focused Hound articles in 2016: If you face the workforce management dilemma of employees taking too many sick days, you are not alone. But there are ways to handle the situation when employees take too many sick days. This article covers how to keep tabs on employee sick days and reduce them with health initiative and other measures. Managers must be great leaders. This article tells you how to be a better leader so your workforce will be more loyal and productive. The first key to leadership is to learn everything there is to know about the people who work for you. Find out more in this article. No manager enjoys terminating an employee. But there are times when a worker must be let go for the good of the company. This article tells you the five signs to look for to know when it is time to fire someone. These signs include an employee showing no will to work and an employee adopting a “blame it on others” attitude. Among the ways to retain employees at your company are opening the doors to additional growth opportunities and providing a positive culture of recognition. Find out more about these techniques as well as other methods in this popular article. Did you know that five percent of job applicants falsify their name and/or Social Security numbers, and that there are eleven thousand violent occurrences in the workplace each year? This article explains the problems that come from not properly vetting your employees. It explains the three steps employers need to take to explore a candidate’s background. Do you struggle to get the best out of your employees? If so, then this article is for you. It discusses essential ways to ensure top productivity from your workers – including by ensuring that your workers have the right tools and by keeping their jobs interesting. The two things that top-performing companies do are reward employees and communicate with employees. But what does that mean? Among other things, as discussed in this important article, it means making performance management a centerpiece of reward efforts and communicating often and openly about pay and other rewards available for exceptional employee contribution. Your company could have a run-of-the-mill mentoring program or it could have a stellar one. One way to have a successful mentorship program is by carefully pairing the mentor and the employee. The mentor should both suit the needs of the employee and also have excellent “soft skills.” Learn more in this article. Being a better boss means you will have more loyal and productive employees and your company will be stronger and more competitive. As this article discusses, you can win over your team by employing tips like showing courage, connecting with your team on an emotional level, and rebuking workers only in a private setting. What are the most effective ways to draft employee performance reviews? There are many things you should and should not do. For example, you should focus on the worker’s overall qualities but you should not compare employees to each other. Find out more in this informative article. Many employees list an employer’s willingness to meet their needs and help them balance their work and personal lives as among the major reasons for staying with that employer. This article explores this issue of flexible and alternative work arrangements to help managers assess whether they can make such arrangements work at their companies. This article tells you why self-appraisals should be compulsory – in order to help ensure that employees have positive attitudes and do not feel misunderstood or victimized. Find out four other key factors that will help you foster positive attitudes among your workers and throughout your workplace. This article gives you the tips and tools you need to resolve employee conflicts. Whether your company is large or small, this article will help you learn how to smooth the way for better work relations among your employees. If you want to avoid the drain of resources involved in constantly training new personnel, you will need to inspire loyalty among your employees. As discussed in this article, you can inspire loyalty among your employees by earning the trust and respect of your employees, by paying your employees well, and by nurturing and encouraging career growth among your employees. Unless you want to lose out on the best employees, you need to take care to avoid certain mistakes in your job postings. The seven mistakes to avoid include using odd titles, omitting salary and benefit information, and failing to have your job postings proofread. Your company probably has a policy on personal phone calls, but does it have one on text messaging? This article gives you the tips you need to deal with decreased productivity caused by employees engaging in too much text messaging on the job. This article tells you the latest on how to communicate with your company’s employees. In addition to traditional print media, there are now a myriad of alternative communication methods, such as interactive voice response systems, call centers, videos, corporate intranets, on-the-shop-floor kiosks, and even direct mail. This article explores the topic of “cost per hire” – or CPH. Among the costs that go into computing CPH are internal costs that relate to the cost of personnel as well as external costs paid to cover the cost of outside recruiting agencies. Learn more in this article. How can you give employees a vested interest in the success of your business? This is important because employees who feel that they have a stake in the enterprise tend to work harder and are more productive. One way to do this is by giving your employees significant responsibilities. Learn the other ways in this article. Your company’s employees want more flexibility in their work schedules, but is it wise for your company to accommodate them? This article examines the pros and cons of adopting flextime in your workplace.
