Blog
The Top Causes of Employee Turnover
After huge recent fluctuations in the job market—and despite ongoing downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering—unemployment is at record lows and employers are facing more severe talent shortages than any time since we at RainmakerThinking began our workplace research in 1993. Not only must organizations fill the gaps with new hires, they must also ensure their best…
What Gen Z Signals for Generational Change in the Workplace
Most people think of generational change in the workplace as a diversity issue. Some experts will give employers a checklist or cheat sheet for each generation, outlining how to attract, hire, retain, and manage people based on birthdate. That’s misguided. Imagine being told to manage people this way based on any other measure of…
Future-Proof Your Staffing, Whether It’s Boom or Bust
With all the economic fluctuations in this era of uncertainty, one business truth is not going to change: Talent is the number one asset of every organization in every industry. In good times and bad alike, leaders must get more work out of fewer people, and that means the best people are always in…
Two Strategies Hiring Managers Miss When Sourcing Young Candidates
Whether you are hiring young people on the high end or the lower end of the talent spectrum, my guess is that you need to increase your supply of new job applicants. How can you do that? The first places most managers and organizations go to look for new applicants are the very same…
14 Tired Myths About Gen Z for Managers to Replace
These are some of the things that today’s young people are telling us in interviews: “They act like their power is unquestionable, but anyone can be cancelled overnight.” “My boss doesn’t fully trust me to work from home. What? Like I’m going to pretend to work? I could pretend to work just as easily if…
What Has RainmakerThinking Been Doing These Past Few Months? Big Updates and Changes!
It’s been very busy and eventful since RainmakerThinking and I last connected with you! With our many ongoing consulting relationships, numerous speaking engagements, trips across the country and internationally, moving, and new additions to our team, there was no drought of excitement From USA to Thailand! I was honored to participate in the…
No, Your Superstars Don’t Want to Manage Themselves
How much of my management time should I spend on each member of my team? It’s a question many managers have asked themselves at some point. Should they spend more time with the low performers? The average performers? Should they split their time equally among everyone, regardless of performance? (The short answer to that last…
How to fight overcommitment and be a master collaborator
The world of work has been becoming more complex and uncertain since we began studying it in 1993. But now, of course, that complexity and uncertainty has been magnified by new and unexpected challenges. A lot of the problems to be solved are new. But a lot more of them have been faced and managed…
There Are Seven Myths Holding Managers Back
Managers today are under more pressure than ever. The pressures of managing a hybrid workforce, navigating increasingly enmeshed cross-functional collaborative relationships, and retaining as many people as possible are really adding up. Plus, managers still have to find time to get their own work done. Yet, the biggest thing getting in the way of most…
What Is High-Structure, High-Substance Dialogue?
Our research shows that when things are going wrong in a management relationship, almost always, the common denominator is unstructured, low substance, hit-or-miss communication. With the added complications of managing some combination of remote, hybrid, and in-person employees, managers are more prone to low-structure communication than ever. The key is to replace the unstructured, low…