Management Training

How to avoid the two most common pitfalls in writing performance reviews.

HR Law 101: Your supervisors probably understand that they can’t pay a male more than a female to perform the same job or dole out promotions only to males. What they may not appreciate are the more subtle forms that gender discrimination may take. They may not make an effort to scrutinize their decisions to uncover any entrenched patterns of discrimination and practices that discourage women from applying for promotions or asking for raises ...

Job descriptions are the cornerstone of communication between managers and their employees. After all, it's hard for supervisors to measure job effectiveness during performance reviews unless they and the employee both know what's expected. Here's how to do job descriptions right.

If you're relying solely on your memory to evaluate employee performance, you're making appraisals far more difficult than necessary. That's why it's best to institute a simple recording system to document employee performance. The most useful, easy-to-implement way is to create and maintain a log for each person. Follow these six steps:

In a recent survey, The HR Specialist asked readers whether they’ve been sued by employees and, if so, what single piece of advice would they give to other HR professionals to help them avoid (or respond to) an employee lawsuit. Here are some of their suggestions:

Does your mind work like an executive’s? When Jodith Allen first stepped into the job of executive assistant, she received a swift lesson in thinking like a manager. Here’s what happened:

Using the computer toolbar again and again to pull down the same functions is monotonous and stifles productivity.

Ursula Faix, of Sarasota, Fla., offers her time-saving strategies of bypassing drop-down menus so "every command I need is one click away. For me, the most important time-saving technique in Microsoft Word and Excel is to customize the toolbars," she says.

When creating a form letter or other document template, the field code feature in Word versions 97 and higher can come in handy. With dozens of field codes available, you can manage everything from inserting information that is automatically updated to creating drop-down lists that allow users to choose which information to insert.

In business writing, you don’t receive extra credit for slathering your sentences with fancy phrases, the way you did in college. Do that in a memo or e-mail, and you can expect eyes to glaze over. Here are five "less is more" tips for writing more effectively at work.

No manager enjoys having “the talk” with employees. But ignoring an employee’s poor performance won’t make the problem go away; it’ll only make things worse. If you’re apt to take the head-in-the-sand approach to employees’ job failings, you’re not alone: Only 31 percent of U.S. workers agree with the statement that “My manager confronts poor [...]