The Secret to Hiring: It Starts Before You Post the Position

Before you scope for a new hire, make sure you know exactly what it is you're looking for.

The moment has come. You know in your gut that your business, team, or department needs to bring someone new on board.

With that comes a feeling of pressure--you know how difficult it can be to find great people, and you’re not sure of all the steps you need to take to ensure that you're not wasting your time. And on top of that, you know the costs of time and money that come along with open roles and bad hires. You know you need to get this right.

Retiring at 27: Ambitious, Lazy or Crazy?

I don't know why the word "lazy" gets such a bad rap -- I'm a big fan of lazy.

Here's why: Lazy is a smart man's motivation to get from point A to B as quickly as possible. A lazy person knows there's lots of life and fun to be experienced, so finding the shortcuts through the slough just makes a lot more sense than dragging your feet down a long road.

4 Tools That Take the Pain Out of Managing Payroll

Employees love payday but, for the small-business owner, managing payroll can be a chore. Taxes, benefits, overtime, vacation days -- even if you only have a few employees the process can take hours.

Need a short cut? Here are four tools and apps that can help make payday a breeze:

Your Employees Are Lying to You. Here's How to Stop Them

Every single day your employees must choose between doing something on-time and with precision or postponing that task and doing it "less than perfect" to make a deadline. If they choose the second path, the next natural step is trying to get away with it.

There is an old consulting saying: "A dead fish rots from the head down." That means you, as the business owner, set the tone for your organization. Your employees and your managers are looking to you for cues on how to behave.

Making Your Knowledge Workers More Productive

With scarcely any help from management, knowledge workers can increase their productivity by 20%. When we interviewed 45 such people across 39 companies in 8 industries in the United States and Europe, we found that by identifying low-value tasks to either drop completely, delegate to someone else or outsource, the average worker gained back roughly one day a week they could use for more important tasks. (We detail this process in our HBR article, "Make Time for the Work That Matters.")

4 Ways You Are Driving Your Employees Crazy

You spend a great deal of time recruiting and training the best people possible. But are you driving them crazy without realizing it? It’s possible, says human resources consultant Roberta Matuson, founder of Matuson Consulting and author of Talent Magnetism: How to Build a Workplace that Attracts and Keeps the Best(Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2013). Just like few people will tell you if you have bad breath, employees aren’t generally eager to point out the error of these management ways, she says. So, check yourself for these bad behaviors.

4 Steps to Deal with an Employee's Substance Abuse Problem

The odds of substance abuse issues finding their way into your business are sizeable. According to the Department of Health and Human Services' 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, of the 18.9 million adults classified with dependence or abuse, nearly 52 percent were employed.

"Many employers miss the signs," says Cali Estes, a certified drug and alcohol therapist who works with companies and individuals dealing with substance abuse in the workplace and elsewhere.