Author: tessas

Tessara Smith was a Content Marketing Associate at PayScale who is working to obtain her degree in Communication Studies at Seattle University. She is passionate about writing, social justice, and volunteering for her community.

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Retention, retention, retention: Employers focus on keeping staff in 2015

Tessara Smith, PayScaleFor the third year in a row, PayScale’s 2015 Compensation Best Practices Report (CBPR), discovered that employee retention was a top concern among the majority of employers.
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Retention, retention, retention: Employers focus on keeping staff in 2015

Tessara Smith, PayScaleFor the third year in a row, PayScale’s 2015 Compensation Best Practices Report (CBPR), discovered that employee retention was a top concern among the majority of employers.
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Job enrichment done right

Tessara Smith, PayScale The time has come to consider doing some spring cleaning in the office, and I’m not talking about mopping and dusting. Employees get bored doing the same job for months, years, and sometimes decades on end. Obvious solutions to this boredom are promotions and pay raises, but in some...
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Bringing energy back to the workplace

Tessara Smith, PayScale Lately it seems like your workers have got a serious case of the Mondays when in fact it’s Wednesday! Studies show that many Americans are chronically sleep deprived, so perhaps it’s no surprise there will be times when employees are barely able to keep their eyes open. On those days,...
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11 tips for working with your introverted employees

Tessara Smith, PayScalePeople can be extroverted, introverted, or somewhere in between. Our society is chock full of personality types, and learning how to work well with all kinds of people is critical to being an effective manager.On a day-to-day basis you’ll typically engage with more extroverts than you do introverts. That’s because extroverts...
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7 Networking Tips for Introverts

Introversion is all too often treated as if it is a curse that afflicts only the most unfortunate members of society. However, while introversion can be the brick wall standing between an individual and his or her dream job, being introverted isn’t an employment death sentence.   (Photo Credit: vuhung/Flickr) What most...
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Brace yourself for the Millennial revolution

Tessara Smith, PayScaleWord on the street is Millennials can’t get it together in today’s job market. Although they’re better educated than previous generations (and getting more educated all the time), employment rates aren’t following suit.
Feuding employeesFeuding employees
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How to manage employees who don’t get along

Tessara Smith, PayScale Office drama is the bane of any leader’s existence. You work your way through high school and college just to have all the immature hubabaloo you thought you left behind end up right in front of your face. Except this time it’s worse. Your career is on the...
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HR tech company dazzles investors

Tessara Smith, PayScale New technology doesn’t solve all our problems, but man does it make life easier! Sure, we complain about people always having their faces in their phones, but you have to admit that navigating before Google Maps was mission impossible.
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Psychic candidates and other hidden interviewee talents

Tessara Smith, PayScale They say you only get one chance to make a good first impression, and some job seekers have really taken this adage to heart.
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Temporary foreign workers creating big problems for corporate Canada

Tessara Smith, PayScale Foreign employees have existed peacefully among Canada’s native workforce for a long time without much conflict, but lately there have been legal struggles over compensation injustice as well as opportunity inequities.
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The secret to keeping top employees

Tessara Smith, PayScale All too often, the bulk of a company’s time, energy, and financial resources are spent sourcing new talent at the expense of existing star employees left languishing for some attention. Can it be too long before these top performers seek greener pastures?
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What to do when your employee’s alcohol use is affecting the job

Tessara Smith, PayScale According to the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA), around 1 in 13 Americans struggle with alcohol dependency. Of course, not every employee who drinks a little too much at your holiday party is an alcoholic, but some may have a problem that goes undetected until...
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Employees with sticky fingers

Tessara Smith, PayScaleIf your business is one that is relies on selling tangible inventory, then chances are you have already had to deal with a worker who you have caught stealing. However, even if your company is one that sells software, you at risk of having mysterious “robberies” take place within the office....
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Attract more employees and keep on trucking

Tessara Smith, PayScale There are many industries where employment rates are subject to the major ups and downs of the U.S. economy. However, if there is one slice of the market that is recession proof, it is the transportation industry. Companies want to sell their products and to do so, they have...
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Five ways to catch an employee in a lie

Tessara Smith, PayScale Liar, Liar Pants on Fire! Remember this chant? I sure do. Lately it has come to my attention that not all people in this world are honest and genuine human beings. Well ok, that’s actually pretty obvious, but what happens when these unsavory characters end up under your employment?...
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Orange Fridays – engagement through learning

Tessara Smith, PayScale Disengaged employees. We all know who they are, or even worse, maybe some of us know that we are the ones who deserve this dreadful title. Time and time again companies watch as their workers fade from bright shining new hires to dull office zombies. What gives? Most employees...
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7 types of toxic employees

Tessara Smith, PayScale There is no denying that retaining employees is one of the best ways a company can continue to grow and thrive. The more time and effort an employee invests in their career at your business, the more committed they become to watching it succeed. However, no matter how long...
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Is unlimited PTO too good to be true?

Tessara Smith,  PayScale It’s no secret that vacations are vital to the sanity of every full-time employee, but what happens when all of their allotted break time is being sucked up by sick days and family emergencies? Instead of planning their getaways to Disneyland or the Caribbean, employees are instead forfeiting...
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Wage theft — the employer oops that’s got workers fired up

Tessara Smith,  PayScale There is a compensation epidemic taking over companies across the nation. It is called wage theft and your organization should avoid it at all costs. By definition, wage theft is the underpayment for money that has been clearly earned. This could mean paying employees less than minimum wage,...
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Morning bias

Tessara Smith,  PayScale Let’s face it, managers love when employees make it in to work early. They get to walk in the door and see that many of their team members have already gotten a “jump start” on the heavy work load for the day. Apparently having the ability to roll...
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Four raises a year

Tessara Smith,  PayScale One of the latest trends in employee compensation and motivation is giving employees four (small) raises a year as opposed to one large raise. Many companies have become strong proponents of this innovative payment strategy and executives are dumping the annual salary review in favor of giving out...
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Employee motivation strategies that don’t work

Tessara Smith,  PayScaleWhen you type in the words employee motivation into Google's search bar, an overabundance of articles pop up suggesting ways to coax your disengaged employees to “check back in”. You read article after article and the themes seem to get a bit redundant to say the least. If you are...
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Social media recruitment 101

Tessara Smith, PayScaleWe live in a world plagued with technology. Everywhere you go people are staring down at their smartphones with such a fixed focus that you would think they were expecting a call telling them they had just won the lottery. Even in a professional office environment, it is borderline impossible...
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First impressions: how to hire the right people

Tessara Smith,  PayScale They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. If candidates blow a major interview and somehow manage to still get hired for a position then the company is either A) desperate or B) knows that they have a track record of proven success....
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President Obama takes a stand for family friendly work policies

Tessara Smith, PayScaleDuring the crash of 2009 almost all industries faced a serious decline in revenue resulting in some substantial cut backs when it came to employee’s benefits packages; at least, for the employees that companies were able to keep. Long hours, making up for the work of their laid off co-workers,...
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KORU starts bridging the skills gap with Millennials

Tessara Smith,  PayScale College graduation is often celebrated by parents as a major milestone for their children. They can finally breathe a sigh of relief in anticipation of their highly capable offspring fleeing the nest; joining the workforce, and becoming financially independent individuals. As much as many University students would like to...
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The Minimum Wage Victory Parade Continues

Tessara Smith, PayScale Just when you thought Seattle approving $15 was the highlight of the minimum wage battle this year, it was announced that employees who work under independent contracts are also getting a pay day. On June 12, 2014 President Obama initiated the first of many executive actions to come that...
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Why Millennials make Great Interns and Future Employees

Tessara Smith, PayScale Millennials often get a bad rap when it comes to our work ethic in comparison with the rest of the work force; we have been called selfish, entitled, lazy, and worst of all unmotivated. The fact of the matter is most of us haven’t had to work half as...
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Canada’s CEOs couldn’t get much richer, or could they?

Tessara Smith, PayScale Cats out of the bag – CEO’s make some of the largest salaries of all the employees in Canada’s workforce, and lately it seems that they are raking in an absurd amount of cash. In 2012, the top one hundred CEO’s earned an average of a little more than...
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Should minimum wage be bumped up to $15 in Toronto?

Tessara Smith, PayScale Minimum wage workers everywhere are beginning to take a stand for higher wages. Inflation is continuing to skyrocket and the salaries of lower level workers don’t seem to be keeping up with this trend.  It is becoming apparent that the annual income of lower level workers is hardly livable...
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Comp budgeting 3: How to request money for your comp budget

Tessara Smith, PayScale If you read parts 1 and 2 of these three part series on comp budgeting, you now know how to handle compensation and inequities. Now that you know exactly how you are going to implement your comp plan there’s one last hurdle to surmount -- you still need to...
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How to give employees meaningful recognition (beyond financial rewards)

Tessara Smith, PayScale Employees are money-motivated individuals, and why wouldn’t they be? They need a substantial income in order to survive. In return for the hard work and dedication they put into your company, you are more than happy to reward them accordingly. That being said, while financial bonuses are always considered...
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Comp budgeting 2: How to calculate raises

Tessara Smith, PayScale In the first article of this three part series on budgeting, we talked about resolving pay inequities. After you've resolved pay inequities, it's time to thing about pay increases. Increasing compensation for your employees is a great way to keep your team motivated and is essential to retaining the...
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Seven ways to keep employees motivated

Tessara Smith, PayScale Employee motivation is tough, if your team members are still working for you at this point then clearly they value their position with your company, but does that mean they are doing the best job they can to help your business succeed? According to employee surveys the majority of...