The promise of promotion is a proverbial carrot on a stick that often gets dangled over workers' heads, encouraging them to do more and work harder for longer hours, taking on additional responsibilities, under the guise that this “growth” will soon earn them a promotion that pays them properly for the work they have been doing. Of course, while this holds merit when honest intentions are had, all too often this is exploited to get workers to do things they're not being paid to do… This employe…

You never know what you've got until it's gone… An old philosophical adage that rings true throughout all areas of our lives, speaking to the fact that we don't really appreciate something's worth until we no longer have it, whether that be a time in our lives, an object, or even an individual. It's easy to take things for granted when they're right in front of you, and it's easy to think that how things are now is how they will be forever, evoking a resigned, almost begrudging feeling towards…

There's this interesting thing that happens with KPIs, targets, and business focus. Sure, putting impetus into these areas will usually result in increasing them, creating the image of a larger, healthier, more profitable business. But what is the cost? More, importantly, where is the cost? You're not looking for it, you're not tracking it, and you won't know what it is and probably won't even know where it was or how to measure it until it's too late. This happens all the time in businesses wh…

Even if the business has needs for weekend coverage or is experiencing an emergency period of high load and you did need your workers to work an additional day… it would be best to—no, anyone in their right mind would—approach the subject delicately, respectfully, and tactfully. Coming out and declaring to your workers that they should “Kiss their weekend hiking trips goodbye” or anything of that nature would be downright inadvisable… Especially when it's intended to be a pointed comment person…

In jobs and industries that operate off of shift work “The Schedule” is hailed by management as an ancient relic of extreme importance

Starting a small business is a scary thing, putting it all on the line to try and create a successful business, which will see you solely reaping possibly unlimited benefits—if you can make it that far. But, hey, you take on all of the risks, you get all of the rewards; that's fundamentally how we've decided things should work in this world… and when it works well for someone, you're not going to see them complaining. However, taking on the risk means taking on the risk. Which is something a lo…

Working remotely has its advantages and disadvantages… While you no longer have to use your own time and money to commute into an office, which is probably open plan (which you loathe,) crammed directly adjacent to your other disgruntled coworkers (whom you abhor,) all that in order to have your time and productivity wasted by meaningless small talk and because you need to “look" busy even though that actually means you're being less productive. On the flip side, while remote working would cert…

All throughout the 2000s and 2010s, we used to eat up “goodwill” stories about people banding together to help their fellow—coworkers by donating PTO to a sick team member and crowdfunding to help cover the cost and medical debt of sick community members. All this really begs questioning, questions that are finally being asked more frequently in discourse online. Where these types of stories are no longer viewed purely as “wholesome” or “heartwarming” but rather as a sign of the dystopian, soci…

Rejection is a hard pill to swallow, no matter what form it comes in. You can sugarcoat it any way you like, throw around the whole “It's not me, it's you,” “It's just not a good fit,” and your words are still going to have the same message: “You're not good enough for me." This, of course, is a brutal affront to anyone's ego

There's no surer sign that you might need to reassess your leadership "style" than having multiple people opt out, in quick succession, of being under that leadership. After all, as the old adage famously goes, “People don't quit jobs; they quit bosses.” There's no telling the level of miserable or monotonous job conditions some people will put up with just as long as they enjoy working with the people in their immediate team—especially their managers. Good managers are hard to come by, so when…

There's this old adage that takes many shapes and forms but usually goes somewhere along the lines of this: You should always be kind, or at least decent, to the people you meet as you never know when even the smallest act may have far-reaching consequences. You've probably heard of or read one of these stories before, and it's one of the oldest tropes for teaching the morale of being kind to others. Where old stories involved a frail old woman or man asking for assistance from a character, onl…

Bad experiences are a dime a dozen when it comes to interviewing for a retail role; in no other line of work are there so many desperate interviewing managers looking for such a high level of effort and experience for such minimal pay. Usually, if an interviewer takes issue with you, there's no coming back from it, no avenue of recourse; after all, they're the ones doing the judging, and you hold very little control over the situation outside of your ability to walk away. Yet, sometimes, a hidd…

The nature of something serious lends you to believe that that thing will be handled seriously, with calculated, methodical decision-making in its orchestration. Company-wide layoffs are a bit like that; the wide-sweeping impact made on people's lives means you'd expect each and every decision to be made with careful thought. Well, that's not always the case. At the end of the day, there's some administrator somewhere handling the clerical work through some management system, and both people an…

Increased remuneration during your time at a company and throughout the course of your career is usually considered to be given due to your own increased contributions owing to your growing knowledge and experience. The off-the-cuff expectation we have is that generally, our earning potential will only go one direction, and while this certainly won't be the case for all of us thanks to the possibility of layoffs and a shifting job market, we certainly wouldn't expect our pay to decrease whilst…

Attitude is important when it comes to the workplace. Still, the workplace itself is largely responsible for your attitude when you're at work. You can't just demand that your workers be happy and have that be the solution to what is an otherwise miserable job. Yet, one of the first things you're taught in retail is that you should always smile and “greet” “guests” as they walk in the door, setting the stage for an enjoyable experience for them during which they're more likely to fork out more…

There's this thing that happens in some organizations where upper management knowingly sets policies that they know infringe (or come close to infringing) on their legal minimum obligations to their workforce. Then they act all surprised when said minimum obligation isn't being upheld because it's simply not possible to do under the constraints they've created. A perfect example of this is employee breaks, of which there are usually laws where you're working around when, how long, and how often…