What’s your reputation at work? Chances are, everyone in your office has a “rep.” The Chirpy One. The Sloppy Dresser. The Bad Breath Guy. Fairly or unfairly, we tend to label people in our minds—and those labels change the way we treat our co-workers.

Steer clear of these three grammatical pitfalls: 1. "None": It is always singular, never plural. 2. Learn when to use “lie” vs. “lay.” 3. It’s “between you and me,” not “you and I.”

Steve Cody, a public relations consultant who blogs as The Repman, says he’s learned four things about good communication from practicing stand-up comedy: 1. Courage builds courage. 2. Timing is (almost) everything. 3. It’s not just what you say, but how. 4. Humor works like a magnet.

Create a positive impression by making each interaction with people memorable. You can do that in 10 seconds or less, with these approaches:

Even pro presenters can put some shine on their communication skills. Mary Civiello, an executive coach and author of Communication Counts: Business Presentations for Busy People, offers four tips to be your best in front of a crowd:

Meetings are notorious time-wasters, so protect your boss from ineffective sit-downs. When someone invites your boss to a meeting, ask these five questions:

If you hate filing, consider this: Researchers estimate that 80 percent of the documents that the average business operation files are never used again. Feel better now? Recordkeeping policies and privacy laws may force some duplication of effort, but you can design more efficient ways to manage and store documents.

Cut down on meeting time by remembering the three purposes for having a meeting in the first place: to inform, to gather input or to ask for approval. Tell attendees which of those goals your meeting will achieve.

Before you can manipulate office politics to work in your favor, you’ll need an organized, clear picture of the lines of power that exist within your workplace. Here’s how: Start with a blank sheet of paper. Place the names of the highest-ranking people in your unit or company in a row across the top of the page...

Looking for a place to host your next off-site meeting? Some companies are hosting them at other companies’ offices, according to a recent Wall Street Journal Report.

How well do you and your boss communicate? Two people working closely must communicate well in order to collaborate and work effectively. According to research from Gallup, people who are “excellent collaborators” give themselves high ratings for each of the following statements:

Admit it: You’re too busy for all that time-management jazz. You prioritize in your head—who has time to make silly lists? And you’ve tried to block out appointments, but emergencies always throw everything awry.

You’re taking minutes in a meeting when the conversation suddenly goes off topic. Or two attendees begin to argue. To what extent should you capture the conversation? Joan Burge, founder and CEO of Office Dynamics, offers these tips for turning meeting conversations into a valuable road map—even when the conversation is difficult to track.

Most lawsuits are not triggered by great injustices. Instead, simple management mistakes and perceived slights start the snowball of discontent rolling downhill toward the courtroom. Here are 6 of the biggest manager mistakes that harm an organization’s credibility in court. Use these points as a checklist to shore up your personal employment-law defense:

Being an effective manager means confronting those “challenging” employees who, while typically good at their jobs, too often display unprofessional or downright obnoxious behavior. Simply tolerating such workers is a finger-in-the-dike approach, and it runs counter to two traits of good managers—leadership and decisiveness. Managers who silently put up with such behavior will undermine their own authority.

In the downturn, productivity is everything. Any time spent in the conference room should be efficient and results-oriented. Here are some creative tactics business owners are using—and that you can copy:

The first rule of negotiating a raise is to make it easy for your boss to say yes. That means anticipating objections and addressing them in advance. Smart negotiators rarely say, “I want more money.” Instead, they use facts to drive home their valuable contributions. Here’s how to prepare for your next salary review:

A perfect social networking policy to cover these new social media could be drafted using only a few words: “Be mature, be ethical, and think before you type.” Ultimately, you may decide that such brevity is what you want for your business. For the sake of completeness, though, here are the seven most important questions to ask yourself when drafting a social networking policy.

Forget the tirade. Rather than huff and holler when overhearing a discriminatory comment, quash it with poise. Experts share their best strategies for dealing with inappropriate remarks:

When used incorrectly, apostrophes are a huge annoyance for readers such as Lynn Crocker of Comcast Spotlight. “What drives me nuts is people using apostrophes for plural things,” she says. “I’ve even seen people make signs that say, ‘We make key’s!’” Make sure you aren’t using apostrophes recklessly. Some tips:

“A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours are wasted.” This old saying may be true in many cases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. A bit of preparation, discipline and solid follow-up can help you conduct more productive and focused meetings. Here are 11 guidelines for supervisors and department managers as prescribed by meeting consultants:

Has e-mail become so ubiquitous that it has changed the way we craft business correspondence? That’s what admins recently debated on our Admin Pro Forum. Some suspected that writing “Dear” or “Very truly yours” has become too old-fashioned for digital—or even printed—correspondence. A bevy of self-proclaimed “old-school” admins protested.

Frenemies aren’t just found on reality TV shows; they’re everywhere. Even Apple has one: Google. If you have “frenemies"—colleagues with whom you have cordial, unproductive relationships—don’t give up. Before they become full-fledged enemies, take these steps:

In a new study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers ranked these (in order) as the top five skills/qualities they look for in potential employees:

Company bloggers, make sure you’re familiar with the basics of marketing and communications 101. To reach your audience in the right way, think through four key questions. Once you know the answers to those questions, take the next step and create an editorial calendar specifying what you’ll write about over the next several months.