Qusetion: Sharpening Your Communication Skills
A visit to the Business Owner's Toolkit, at www.toolkit.com, can help you reduce your legal liability whether you are laying off or firing a single employee or are contemplating a companywide reduction in your workforce. Visit the website and scroll down to the Small Business Guide and click on People Who Work for You, followed by Terminating Workers to find out the safest way to fire someone from a legal standpoint before it's too late. Learn why it's important to document disciplinary actions. Then use the information at this website to write a short memo to your instructor summarizing how to set up a termination meeting and what you should say and do at the meeting when you fire an employee.
Building Your Team Skills
Team up with a classmate to practice your responses to interview questions. Use the list of common interview questions provided in the Prologue and take turns posing and responding to those questions. Which questions did you find most difficult to answer? What insights did you gain about your strengths and weaknesses by answering those questions? Why is it a good idea to rehearse your answers before going to an interview?
Developing Your Research Skills
Locate one or more articles in business journals or newspapers (print or online editions) that illustrate how a company or an industry is adapting to changes in its workforce. (Examples include retraining, literacy or basic skills training, flexible benefits, and benefits aimed at working parents or people who care for aging relatives.)
1. What changes in the workforce or employee needs caused the company to adapt? What did the company do to respond to those changes? Was the company's response voluntary or legally mandated?
2. Is the company alone in facing these changes, or is the entire industry trying to adapt? What are other companies in the industry doing to adapt to the changes?
3. What other changes in the workforce or in employee needs do you think this company is likely to face in the next few years? Why?