Make It Easy For Your Employees To Volunteer

If you are a workplace leader who supports a volunteer program at your business, you already know that by encouraging employees to give back to your community you are:

building teamwork
motivating employees
attracting new hires

In fact, job seekers much prefer companies that have a strong volunteer program. And, a growing number of businesses are rewarding employees who volunteer by giving them extra vacation time and other incentives.

Fortunately, throughout the U.S. there are hundreds of volunteer opportunities where employees can contribute individually, or where leaders can organize teams of employees to volunteer together on a routine and scheduled basis.

To find organizations in need of volunteers, go to Volunteer Match and type in your zip code. You'll be presented a list of nearby volunteer opportunities. Also, you can find opportunities on iPartcipate.

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Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

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How To Lead A Family Business

Julie Charlestein is the author of the book, How To Lead Your Family Business: Excelling Through Unexpected Crises, Choices, and Challenges . Charlestein is also the fourth-generation leader of an incredibly successful family-owned enterprise, and she’s seen it all firsthand, including family drama in the workplace and the office politics that come with any corporation. Her book features her unique set of strategies for navigating the distinctive challenges and choices facing family businesses. In her highly personal storytelling style, Charlestein shares her experience as an emerging leader and ultimately CEO, who has worked to earn her colleagues’ respect. She details her leadership adventure, offering actionable strategies for those leading and working within their own family businesses. The book is ideal for anyone leading a family business or starting a family business. It’s also good for anyone taking over an existing (or new) business. More about Charleste...

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Resolve To Find A Mentor In 2025

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Ask Your Customers To Help You Write Your Strategic Plan

Mike Brown, the founder of the Kansas City company called, The Brainzooming Group, encourages business leaders to solicit feedback from their customers when creating a strategic plan. Brown recently wrote in Smart Companies Thinking Bigger magazine, that you should “ask a group of current, former and potential customers the following questions:" If you’re a current or former customer, why did you start using us? What have we done in the past to make your biggest challenges more difficult? If you still use us, why do you continue to do so? If you don’t use us currently, what are some of the reasons why you don’t? “These questions are designed to allow your customers to share their perspectives and opinions openly, not rate performance on a numerical scale,” explained Brown. He explained that the answers to the questions will provide you valuable insight into : Your current strengths and weaknesses Opportunities to more successfully help your customers Potential challen...

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves. This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers. That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives. But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences. It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers. By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.

Do You Really Need To Read Leadership Books?

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How To Improve Your Internal Communication Skills

Here is this week's book recommendation. It's a quick read, yet power-packed with useful tips for communicating effectively -- tips you can start to use tomorrow. And, the eBook is free! As author David Grossman says, "good internal communication gets the message out, but great internal communication helps employees connect the dots between overarching business strategy and their role. When it’s good, it informs; when it’s great, it engages employees and moves them to action. Quite simply, it helps people and organizations be even better." I really found this book useful.

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

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