All posts in Tools for Success

A good business strategy plays an important part of any company’s success.
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Here are three ways to stay ahead of the game over your competitors:

Cost leadership – Become the lowest cost competitor.

Differentiation – Develop products or services that provide superior value.

In her recent article on our toxic work world, Anne Marie Slaughter calls for a paradigm shift in how we think about the work done outside and inside the home. She puts forth a proposal: we’ve made significant strides for the equal right to work; now we should be talking about the equal right to care.

Her article harnesses a growing body of thought leadership demonstrating that flexible, results-oriented work increases profits and improves productivity; and partners it with the well-documented phenomenon of workplace differences for working moms and working dads (see Michelle Budig’s 2014 study showing that having a child helped mens’ careers, but hurt careers of women). At the same time I was reading Slaughter’s NYT piece, a colleague (a white male engineer) pointed me to a study that backs Slaughter’s conclusion with powerful data on the transformation that happens for women when workplaces go flexible: research by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin indicates that flexible work environments result in equal pay for men and women.

Slaughter’s central concern is that today’s workplaces aren’t built to support co-earning parents–our workplaces operate as if half of its employees don’t have a family to care for when they get home.

If your employees are dragging and giving less than they’ve got, it might be a matter of motivation. It’s your job as business owner to inspire your staff, keep them happy, and fuel them to do the best job possible for your company. Here’s how.

1. Listen to Them
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Sure, the summer may be over, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re done with beautiful weather. Whether or not September and October bring beautiful days of Indian summer and you enjoy a day off here or there, chances are your personal time bank may not necessarily be empty.

According to Fortune, employees in the U.S. squander approximately 429 million paid vacation days every year. That’s worth repeating: 429 million days of unused paid time!

Data from a new Monster poll shows 22 percent — that’s nearly one out of four — U.S. employees don’t exactly have the easiest time getting to enjoy the actual paid time off, better known as PTO. Chalk it up to a difficult approval process, boss and/or challenging culture, the point remains: Some workplace environments may not necessarily be supportive of well-deserved and well-earned time away from the office as in unplugged, logged off and enjoying life. Here’s what you can do about it.
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