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Stories by Michael Kinsman

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Compassion and the bottom line

Compassion isn’t a word that is easily digested in the business world. More often, we like to define our businesses as results-oriented, hard-driving and able to steamroll any obstacles that stand in the way of ...

Employers will hire more college graduates this year

…but only 2.1% more than last year.

Nothing seems to come easy for college graduates these days. Not only do they face the highest tuitions in history, but the job market hasn’t been as welcoming in recent years as they hoped. Now ...

A return to liberal arts

Employers seek broadly educated, better thinking graduates

Some employers today are not happy with the quality of college graduates who show up on their doorsteps. They say the college graduates usually possess the technical skills they need to land a job but ...

The Internet knows more than you do

Today’s pop quiz: How many planets in the solar system? Is it eight or nine? Is Pluto in or out? Or how many elements are there on a periodic table? Those used to be simple ...

The Generation Gap Narrows

An unusual connection between the oldest and youngest workers

The workplace generational gap appears to be shrinking – at least among some of the youngest and oldest workers. A new survey by Randstad, a global provider of human resource services, notes the unusual connections ...

Should colleges train the workforce?

Or is education about something higher?

It is pretty easy to write a simple, declarative sentence without thinking too much. But it isn’t always as simple to write a sentence that communicates an idea that is easily understood by the reader. ...

Ambition Gone Wild

I used to work with a goofy guy who was so restless in his job that he used to apply for nearly every position that came open in our company. It didn’t matter to him ...

The Importance of Global Awareness

The woman’s plea over a social network was clear and to the point: “I am going to Saudi Arabia on business and I need to find someone who can tell me how women have to ...

Raises for women!

You have to ask directly

Workers’ Patience Has Run Out

After years of clinging to jobs, workers are expected to seek better employment.

Workplace Changes to Look for in 2013

This will be the year that employers are forced to decide whether they value their workforce enough to invest in it.

Nevermind the Resolutions — Set Goals and Deadlines

You’ll need to commit to a deadline. This is going to be the true measure of your goal.

Do You Say We, or They?

How you talk about your employer says a lot about how you like your work.

Trapped? Stressed? Burned out?

Find relief without quitting your job

Sometimes, having a job is not all it’s cracked up to be. Just look at the findings of ComPsych’s survey of 2,000 employees. It reports more workers than ever claiming signs of job burnout. According ...

Think Before You Reveal Too Much About Yourself

You might find that you’ve shared information that doesn’t sit well with the boss.

Five College Majors Which Don’t Pay

Ivory tower educators tell us that you should not go to college just to enhance your career-earning power. Yet, most of us don’t reside in ivory towers. Reality in the United States dictates that people ...

The Fine Line Between Confidence and Overconfidence

Can you believe yourself into a success, or at least a role as a leader? Yes, you can, if you believe a study out of the University of California’s Haas School of Business. The study ...

Angel, Enforcer, Philosopher… Which One Are You?

A survey suggests that you can have a separate set of morals for working than living.

Good for You, Good for Your Employer

What would you think if you looked at your paycheck this week to find that your employer had paid you in Kazakhstani tenges instead of U.S. dollars? Even though tenges are a legitimate currency on ...

Lost Your Job? Relax.

Even though most people have looked for work in recent years, it makes sense that some have no idea where to begin the job search.

Study Finds Paying for Sick Leave Saves Employers Money

By now, most workers realize that paid sick leave is a valuable workplace benefit that is no longer guaranteed by many employers. Reducing or eliminating sick-leave allotments has become increasingly common as employers over the ...

Survey Reveals the Prevalence of Illegal Practices Among Finance Pros

A report from Wall Street indicates there is a shocking lack of integrity among the workers in financial firms. The survey of 500 senior finance professionals in firms in the United States and Great Britain ...

Give Wellness a Chance

If you are wondering whether your employer really cares about your health and wellbeing, I have good and bad news. First, the good news. A survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management shows ...

Toxic Beliefs That Lead To Personal Failure

In his book As a Man Thinketh, philosopher James Allen says that one is what one thinks, with character being the complete sum of all one’s thoughts. And upon analysis, one wonders how those thoughts ...

Interview Your Interviewer: Eight Questions You Should Ask

Job interviews — as most people have witnessed — can be harrowing experiences. No matter how bright or successful you appear to be on a resume, you are vulnerable when you are confronted with a ...

Don’t Hit “Reply to All”

Some middle managers complain that they dedicate 2.5 hours every day to dealing with their email.

The Power of Positive Feedback

No one enjoys making mistakes in day-to-day job duties, but mistakes do happen, and it never seems to get any easier to accept them. Perhaps the reason for that is because every mistake you make ...

This Is No Job For Wimps

Every year about this time, I get kind of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s the time of the year that tens of thousands of young people will be looking for ...

The Revolution Has Been Delayed

Why Isn’t Telecommuting More Widespread?

Telecommuting is the great work innovation that never took hold. For more than a quarter century, study after study has reported that many American workers would prefer to work from home at least part of ...

Are Employers Becoming More Flexible?

Yes, and No.

There’s nothing like a tough economy to get employers to remember that their employees are people, too. That’s the underlying theme that emerges from a new study of the nation’s employers by the Families and ...

Struggling with Insurance Costs, More Companies Offer Employees Incentives to Get Healthy

If you had an essential bill that more than doubled in cost since 2001, you probably wouldn’t want to pay it. Now you know how employers feel about the cost of health insurance for their ...

Seven Habits of the Spectacularly Unsuccessful

Sometimes life’s lessons can spring from the most unlikely places. In a book entitled “Why Smart Executives Fail,” Dartmouth College business professor Sydney Finkelstein researched 50 major corporate failures in an attempt to find common ...

It’s Time to Rewrite Your Interview Script

The latest buzz on the street is that the job market is about to open up. Businesses seem more optimistic about potential growth than at any point during the past four years, and the San ...

It’s Hard To Focus on Your Job When You’re Afraid of Losing It

One of the least discussed workplace stresses during the economic downturn of the last four years has been the financial fallout on workers everywhere. Once jobs started being lopped from payrolls throughout the country, people ...

Generation Y, Take a Bow

Younger Workers Score Well in Drive, Teamwork, and Innovation.

Whether it’s a conscious decision or simple dependence on our own experiences, each of us probably has been guilty of generational discrimination in the workplace at one time or another. The people who sacrificed through ...

Tim Tebow: Ideal Employee

One of the great stories over the past few months has been the unpredictable success of Tim Tebow, quarterback for the NFL’s Denver Broncos. Tebow was a great collegiate player who won two national championships ...

What’s Your American Dream?

The American Dream — at least what it seems to have become over the past three or four decades — is getting a bit of an overhaul. In times of great prosperity, the American Dream ...

Does it Still Pay to Have a College Degree?

Remember when people told you that if you went to college you would earn $1 million more over your working life than if you didn’t? I’m not sure anyone really believed that, but if they ...

500,000 Holiday Jobs

Are there better times ahead for jobseekers? Well, as much as Americans would like to think that jobs will magically appear as the economy gains steam, it simply isn’t that easy anymore. But, it also ...

It Isn’t All About Pay

What employers should know about their employees.

Employers are often clueless as to why people stay in their jobs. For some reason, companies often believe that it’s the pay and the benefits spelled out in the employee handbook that keep people from ...

The Chinese Dragon Weakens

There was a time in the 1950s that manufacturing was the kingpin of the U.S. economy. At the time, the U.S. produced more than 40 percent of everything manufactured around the world. More importantly, the ...

Civility Costs Nothing. Incivility Costs Billions

You might go to work everyday and barely notice that things have changed. Maybe it’s the employee in the staff meeting who insists on texting a friend rather than listening to what is being discussed. ...

Survival in the Modern Workplace

Our work world is far different from what it used to be. The workplace is always changing and adapting to our societal needs, but there has been an especially dramatic transformation over the past decade. ...

More than Half of Small Business Employees are Unhappy

What Businesses Can Do to Fix the Problem

For about two decades, economists have been holding up roadmaps directing workers toward small businesses. They argued that small business was the place of innovation, where American dreams of prosperity and upward mobility still were ...

You Don’t Have All the Answers, Mr. Manager

The latest victim of the stormy U.S. economy seems to be the management that runs our companies. Maritz Research of St. Louis reports that its latest employee poll found 25 percent of workers have less ...

The Problem of Overqualified Workers

Everyone knows that it is an employer’s market today. High unemployment continues, and the people who hire workers have never had such abundant choices. Downsizings and business failures of the past three or four years ...

Eighty Is the New 65

You’ve probably heard the same thing in recent years that I have from beleaguered workers in their 50s and 60s: “If I can just make it to 65, I’ll be OK.” For more than half ...

Bad Communication Equals Failure

Is there any employee who hasn’t witnessed his or her employer about to make a big mistake before it is made? Probably not. Companies make mistakes because they rush a product to market, fail to ...

You’ve Got Your First Job! Now What?

Every year about now, hundreds of thousands of young people get their first jobs. It’s a great and exciting achievement. But it also comes with a dose of reality: What do you do once you’ve ...

The Case for Internship

The experience of finding that first job &mdash; even if it’s a short-term, part-time summer job &mdash; can be daunting. Teenagers often find themselves in a strange world. They are expected to figure out what ...