Product development is one of the most challenging aspects of running a business, because it’s a rare situation in which your offering is already so perfect you don’t need to improve or evolve with the market. You can vastly save a great deal of time and stress in your efforts to create new products and services, or expand on or enhance your existing ones, with five specific strategies. Put Yourself in Your C...

Technology and office culture will undoubtedly change in the coming years, and with it, workplace dynamics. Three experts weigh in on how to lead a team in this potential new day. When writing my new book, Humanity Works: Merging People and Technology for the Workforce of the Future, I found a business world in the process of rapid transformation. I learned that one way to have a sustainable competitive advantage in a co...

When the concept of reverse mentoring burst on the scene in the multigenerational workplace, it was all about having cool 20-somethings teach the older crowd how to use “the Facebook.” Now most generations are pretty savvy—in fact their takeover of Facebook has sent Gen Z scurrying to Instagram or Snapchat. But that doesn’t mean that they still can’t learn a thing or two from the younger gener...

Most business owners would agree that product innovation is important to their success in today's world. History is full of companies that were initially very successful but failed to innovate when the market changed, says Jeremy Brandt, founder and CEO of We Buy Houses, an online service that connects home sellers with potential buyers. And that informs the way his company operates. “At We Buy Houses, we c...

Have you ever seen the reality show Undercover Boss? I highly recommend it. On the show, the CEO of a company, disguised in casual clothes and with a made-up back story, spends time working incognito alongside his or her front-line employees. There are the predictable inter-employee spats, miniature crises, and times when the CEO just doesn’t “get” how to do some simple task. It's all in good fu...

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), a time to celebrate the contributions of America's workers with disabilities both past and present and educate about the value of a workforce inclusive of their skills and talents. In honor of NDEAM, we recently talked to John D. Kemp, one of the nation's foremost authorities on disability employment and current President & CEO of The Viscardi Cent...

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) plans to recognize contractors that prioritize disability inclusion. Following its recent Directive to develop a Contractor Recognition Program, the OFCCP has proposed to implement an Excellence in Disability Inclusion Award. This award would recognize contractors 'that ensure equal employment opportunity, foster employment opportunities for individuals with di...

To date, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has issued nine new and proposed directives in 2018. While most of the directives have been covered in prior articles, this article will provide more insight into the directives issued in September, as well as a few observations and an overview of what we have seen from OFCCP so far in 2018 under the Trump administration. 2018 OFCCP Recap With the f...

During the last several weeks, OFCCP has been conducting a series of Listening Sessions to collect information for incorporation into a soon-to-be-released Academic Technical Assistance Guide (TAG). This TAG will serve as a resource for academic institutions who are federal contractors. It's long overdue, and academia is anxious to see which issues the TAG does, and does not, address. Background When I establish...

Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement in October 2017, Congress and state and local lawmakers have introduced a series of laws aimed at eliminating sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace. As we explained in our June 2018 article, by mid-2019, over 125 bills had been introduced by states to eliminate workplace harassment. Many of these statutes and proposed laws have prohibited or limited the use of mandatory ar...