Author: Debra Stewart

Onboarding-What Did I Miss?

I recently did a morning seminar for the Thumb Area Manufacturing Forum on the “Three Keys to Hiring, Developing, & Retaining Top Performing Employees”. The first key, as you might guess, was to improve their hiring process. But, given the time I had to do the seminar, I wasn’t able to expand on all facets…
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Succession What?

I recently had breakfast with a friend of mine, a businessman who owns a company with about a hundred employees. Among the many things we talked about that morning was his desire to retire in the near future from the day to day involvement in his company. His longer term plan is to just retain…
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Keeping Your Best: How to Improve Your Odds

The good news according to The Center for Michigan is that “Jobs are plentiful and wages are booming in Michigan”. The bad news for employers is they can’t find enough applicants (let alone qualified applicants) to fill their open positions. This condition is true for virtually all employers – manufacturing, health care, retail, transportation, financial,…
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Get the Right People on the Bus – Will We Know Them When We Find Them?

Since the publication of Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great in 2001, there’s been a proliferation of books and articles all confirming the importance of “Job Fit”. Because of this, there are lots of managers who fervently endorse the concept of “get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats,…
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5 Steps to Moving Low Performers Either Up, Over, or Out

 Every organization, despite its best efforts in recruiting, hiring, and motivating employees, invariably faces the problem of low performance employees.  We all know the signs … tasks which get done, but seldom on time and usually poorly done; absenteeism and tardiness creeping up; and managers who gradually shift some of that person’s workload to other,…
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