Blog
The Fundamentals Are All You Need
Managers today are under a lot of pressure. The bar keeps being raised. They are responsible for more and more employees. More of the people they manage are working in areas of expertise that the manager doesn’t know much about, or maybe knows almost nothing about. Managing people is getting harder, and it can be…
The Value of Leadership Training
Leaders in organizations of every shape and size can probably list a number of ways their businesses could improve. Employees do their jobs the wrong way. There is too much firefighting and not enough work getting done. Low performers are hiding out under the radar. High performers are thinking about leaving. Resources are wasted. There…
Help! I’m Responsible for an Entirely New Team
It’s difficult enough being the new manager. But it’s twice as hard when everybody is new to you and to each other. You haven’t met each other yet. You may not have had any say in who was chosen for the team. As far as you know, nobody on the team has ever worked together…
Are You Ready for Gen Z?
by Alexandra Levit Millennials have captured the global workforce’s imagination. And Millennials are important, of course, as they are our current and rising leaders. But what about Generation Z, born 1996-2012? This year, the oldest Gen Zers will enter the professional workforce, and they are very different than what we’ve come to expect from the…
Hiring Gen Z: Takeaways for Today’s Talent Wars
When it comes to hiring, there’s a lot of advice out there about how to attract the best young talent. Make sure they have access to technology, pair them with a workplace friend, offer flexibility – these solutions make sense on the surface, but they aren’t necessarily specific enough for employers to know which steps…
What Equality and Inclusivity Mean for Generation Z
When it comes to work, Gen Z is all about the human element. Supportive leaders and positive relationships with coworkers support Gen Zers in their own careers, but what about everyone else? Isn’t Gen Z supposed to care about equality and inclusivity? Our data shows that the answer is yes – Gen Zers do care…
The Human Element is Key: What Our Research is Teaching Us about Gen Z
When we brought in four young interns this summer at RainmakerThinking we realized we had a great opportunity to have Gen Zers interview their peers. We’ve been studying young employees since our founding in 1993, when Gen X was the focus of our generational research. Since then, we have kept our finger on the pulse…
Five Ways to Take Advantage of the “Development Investment Paradox”
When it comes to being an employer with a strong reputation for training and development, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you can successfully build a culture of learning on your team or in your organization. The bad news is that if you do manage to get employees engaged…
3 Reasons Why Your Attraction Efforts Aren’t Working
You may have noticed that despite using the most tried and true tactics, your organization is no longer attracting the top-quality talent that it used to. Competitive salary, good benefits, and long-term career paths are no longer enough to make you stand out as an employer. So, what do you do? Many employers today realize…
When Attraction Doesn’t Equal Retention: How to Make Flexibility Work
Flexibility is the key word in the Talent Wars today: flexible scheduling, flexible location, flexible pay, and even flexible employment itself. The benefits of such flexibility are probably obvious. By allowing employees to set their own terms, you create a unique value proposition that makes them less likely to jump ship and work for your…