Do You Not Play Well with Others? Effective networking is a game-changer. It’s the unofficial homework of today’s business professional. Whether entwined within charitable ventures or business or social clubs, professional connections are far more powerful career-builders than the old school resume. It’s not just 'who you know.' It’s 'who you know who knows who you want to know.'Most of us can navigate a room of name-tagged citizenry with reasonable success. But in this competitive world, why settle for adequacy? Read on for a few of the ways some networkers relegate themselves to the... view article details

Avoid Them at All Costs You’re presented with a choice by your employer. You can work at home, where you may be distracted by children, laundry, dogs barking or the neighbor cutting his grass. Or you can work at the corporate office in that most glorious of settings - the cubicle.Invented in the 1960s by Robert Propst, the idea was to give individual workers an autonomous workspace. The reality? Well, that’s something very different.There are few things that evoke fear in the hearts and minds of workers like those geometrically-connected, modular desk units that are the model of offic... view article details

How’d you like a $5,000 raise? My guess is that 100% of the people reading this would say sure, I’d love to get a nice pay increase.Now let me ask you this. Does it matter to you HOW you get that raise? Let me present two options:Option A: One day your boss comes in and says, 'I’ve got some good news. You’ve been here about a year now, and management all agrees that you're doing great work. We view you as one of our top performing employees and we want to recognize that, so we're going to give you a $5,000 raise.'Option B: You’ve been at your company a year and it’s time for your annual perfor... view article details

roductivity Nightmare or Communications Dream?No longer just a tool of the idle masses exchanging rumors and recipes, instant messaging (IM) applications have encroached into the working world, where professionals swap industry information, gossip, and expertise in the blink of an eye. Instead of traipsing down the hall, making an abrupt phone call, or waiting for an e-mailed response, employees can communicate with one another via online text, 'pinging' each other questions and requests, speeding up reaction rate and increasing productivity. According to a recent Jupiter Media Metrix report, ... view article details

 We all know the 7 Deadly sins, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride, are practices that are usually best avoided in daily life. But what are the '7 Deadly Sins of the Workplace' and how can committing these 'sins' affect your career?This week, we will explain the '7 Deadly Sins of the Workplace' and reveal the results of our recent poll on the perceived career impact of these 'sins,' complete with some of our readers' real life examples from their jobs. Lust Desperately wanting a coworker's jobUsers who admit to committing this sin: 12.1%A little ambition is healthy, ... view article details

What is the PSR? The PSR is our Personal Salary Report. You probably know about and have used our free Salary Wizard, but the PSR is an enhanced compensation analysis that costs a little bit of money, but gives you much more of an edge when it comes to negotiating salary.So why should you buy the PSR when you can get free information in the Salary Wizard? Glad you asked, because here's our step-by-step guide to understanding the PSR.For Starters... The very first thing you'll do is enter your job title, state, and city. This is important because the region in which you live h... view article details

Welcome to the World of Sleep Disorders Not everybody is cut out for the 9-to-5 workaday world.Mounting evidence demonstrates half a million Americans have biological reasons for needing to work alternative shifts. In this fourth story (read Part I, Part II, and Part III here) about delayed sleep phase syndrome (also DSPS, or delayed sleep), you’ll meet Julie Peggar, an ethnographer who suffers from this type of circadian rhythm disorder. Peggar, the president and chief storyteller at Gaze Ethnographic Consulting, Inc., shares insights from her world as a highly functional night owl w... view article details

How to Counter A Job Offer To Get A Higher Pay In the world of salary negotiation, there’s an important word that comes up quite often: Leverage. By definition, it means using a situation or advantage to obtain a desired result, in our case, negotiating a higher salary. When you’re looking to gain leverage, it often comes as a result of having other options. Someone who already has a steady income in a job has more options than someone who has been out of work for 6 months with bills piling up If you have in-demand skills, such as a mobile software development, you’re going to have mor... view article details

Positive Conflict in the Workplace If everyone agreed all the time, there would be no reason to consider different perspectives or look for new ways to handle situations. The best ideas often emerge from the creative problem-solving process that has to occur to reach conflict resolution. Here are five benefits of conflict in the workplace: 1. As team members work through conflicts, they are able to make progress toward accomplishing goals that need to be reached. This is true in terms of project-specific goals, as well as the goal of becoming a stronger, more unified team. Team members ... view article details

Q: I am an accountant for a franchise owner and I am salaried. I understand that this means being exempt from the time clock, overtime, etc. There are times when I might work over the weekend or past the normal business day. My manager tells me there is no such thing as comp time and even that it is against the law to allow time off for extra time worked. This is the first I've heard of such nonsense.Are there laws on this subject for salaried employees? I've missed one day in the last six months, and I was docked a day's pay. How do you take away a day of earnings from someone who is salaried... view article details