The President Does An End Run Around Congress

 On July 21, 2014, President Obama signed an executive LGBT non-discrimination order, barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity among federal contractors. The order also protects all federal employees from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Crucially, Obama did not include the broad religious exemption that some faith leaders had begged the White House for. (These requested exemptions would have allowed religiously affiliated corporations to fire gay and trans workers with impunity.) The executive order does, however, preserve a Bush-era exemption that allows religiously affiliated contractors to continue to preference workers of a certain religion.
Obama uses Executive Order to Out-Maneuver Congress

Deliver Results Through Coaching

In the world of sports, athletes hire personal coaches to fine tune their skills and break through the boundaries to improve performance and achieve goals. In the business world, mangers need solid coaching skills to fine tune individual employees and teams in delivering bottom line results. The manager who is able to “coach” is able to make a profound improvement in the performance of employees while keeping them motivated.  

Numerous studies have clearly shown that correctly coaching employees improves the bottom line. Organizations that have paired training with coaching experience outstanding bottom line profitability. Stand alone training improves productivity by only 22.4%, while training coupled with coaching increases productivity by as much as 88%.  

Coaching is the process of open communication and feedback between the manager-coach and employee. This process can be time-consuming but the reward can be great. Your ability to inspire and coach your employees can raise the performance bar significantly, however, coaching works best if the coachee is open and willing to accept the advice being offered.

Why Training Is Important?

Training is essential for many reasons, but one important reason for large and small business organizations to provide adequate discrimination and/or harassment training is to mitigate damages in the event of a lawsuit.

Train the Decision-Makers First

Business owners and/or Board of Directors must see the benefit of training in order for an organization to make lasting and permanent changes in employee relations.