rebecca.hastings

Hiring a consulting firm to develop or support a diversity and inclusion (D&I) function is fine, experts say, as long as senior leaders drive the organization’s diversity strategy. Before seeking outside help, therefore, it’s important to ensure executive buy-in and support, experts say.

High morale may not correlate with retention, recent studies suggest.

Consider these seemingly contradictory results: Eighty-one percent of 443 U.S. based employees described morale at their organization as “very good” or “good” in a November 2012 Accountemps survey. In a Right Management survey of 760 employees in the U.S. and Canada, however, 86 percent of respondents said they “intend to actively seek a new position.”

Organizations with established employee recognition programs seek to improve employee engagement and morale, a new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey finds. The majority of employers contended that they are achieving that goal.

When Tammy Erickson, author of What’s Next, Gen X? (Harvard Business School Press, 2010) and a self-described Baby Boomer, began interviewing members of Generation X for her book, she was “stunned” by how different their perspectives were from her own.

I was born in July 1963, several months before a defining moment for the Baby Boomer generation occurred—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  I was a “latch key kid” – I walked home from elementary school to an empty house because both of my parents worked.  In fact, I started walking to school by myself in first grade after everyone else had left the house. I wasn’t supposed to use the record player but nearly every morning I used those few minutes before school to play a 45 of Tommy Roe’s hit song “Dizzy” over and over again.

To advance women around the world into leadership roles, business leaders should identify—and develop strategies to counteract—specific barriers inhibiting the recruitment, promotion and retention of women at their organization, new research suggests.

The report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm, finds that gender diversity continues to be emphasized worldwide. Eighty-five percent of business leaders interviewed in 2012 see gender diversity as a top priority, and 90 percent see a connection between diversity and their companies’ success.

Experts say leaders need to step up their communication efforts to fill information gaps that exist in some workplaces. Reframing the importance of communication can help.

A recent study finds a slight increase in the demand for leaders with skills in multiple languages, combined with a spike in employers providing language training. Yet experts say that language skills alone are not enough to ensure global business success.

When employees observe workplace misconduct such as stealing, safety violations or substance abuse—and decide to report it—most will go to their supervisors to do so, an ethics survey finds.

Sixty percent of the 2,172 workers surveyed in June 2012 by the Ethics Resource Center (ERC), a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, said they will report misconduct they observe to their supervisor first. About one in five (21 percent) will report to higher management and about one in 10 (11 percent) will call a hotline. Just 1 percent will go first to an outside agency.