Not all managers have what it takes to be great leaders: Just 10 percent of people have the talent combination required to be excellent managers, while another 20 percent have some of the talents but need the right coaching and development to become successful, according to a Gallup report.
Moreover, the research shows that only 18 percent of current managers have the high talent required of their role.
"Authentic management talent is rare," Jim Clifton, CEO and chairman of Gallup, said in the report.
According to the research, great managers possess a rare combination of five talents:
Motivation: Great managers motivate all of their employees to take action and engage them with a persuasive mission and vision.
Assertiveness: They have the assertivenessto drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
Decision making: Great managers make decisions based on productivity, not politics.
Accountability: Top managers develop a culture of clear accountability.
Relationship building: They build relationships with their employeesthat create trust, open dialogue and full transparency.
Managers with these five traits can help businesses succeed. The study revealed that companies that hire managers based on these five talents see a 48 percent increase in profitability, a 22 percent increase in productivity and a 30 percent increase in employee engagement. Additionally, these businesses experience a 17 percent increase in customer engagement scores and a 19 percent drop in turnover.
In addition, the research discovered that high-talent managers take a strengths-based approach, which leads to greater levels of employee engagement and well-being, as well as increases team productivity and profitability.
Gallup recommended several strategies to help businesses hire and develop more successful managers:
Prioritize talent: Because the study shows talent is the greatest predictor of performance, companies' talent should be connected to how they align, attract, recruit, assess, hire, train and develop managers. Organizations must understand what success looks like in every managerial role and strategically think about how each hire fits into their goals.
Grow leaders: Promoting employees into managerial roles because they have previously been successful or with the company for a long time is a flawed strategy. Businesses should develop career paths for employees based on talent rather than title, as each position requires a different set of talents.
Pay for performance: Regardless of their role, top performers deserve the highest salaries. There is nothing wrong with a system that pays some employees more than their managers. Businesses create an environment in which employees constantly compete for roles that don't suit them when they connect pay to managerial status.
Stress improvement: When employees become managers, it doesn't mean they should stop learning. Managers at all stages of their careers should have opportunities to grow, and organizations must provide them with the resources, tools and support they need to refine and cultivate their strengths. This can happen through mentoring, coaching, group classes, conferences or online learning. The best managers always strive to improve, and their employer should encourage them to do so.
The report was based on more than four decades of extensive talent research, a study of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries and an analysis of the engagement of 27 million employees.
One of the first things would-be entrepreneurs are told to do with their new idea is write a business plan. This critical tool sets the stage for all the fundamentals of a company: Who's running it, research on its target market, profit and loss projections, funding requirements, etc. But it doesn't address every single question that a founder should be able to answer about his or her startup.
While a formal business plan is good to have, there are a few key elements you'll need to work out that could ultimately help you craft that document. Entrepreneurs and business experts recommend taking the following steps before you sit down to write your plan.
Determine your purpose. The primary purpose of a business plan is to show investors, lenders and other potential stakeholders how your company plans to make a profit. Profit is important, but it's far from the only thing that matters when you start a business.
"Business plans can be helpful tools to clarify ... business activities, [but] they ... encourage entrepreneurs to focus on what they are going to do," said Alan Williams, co-author of "The 31 Practices" (LID Publishing Inc, 2014). "This overlooks two more important questions: 'why' — why it exists and why employees would want to get out of bed in the morning, and 'how' — the values of the business, what it stands for, how people representing the business will behave."
Williams noted that entrepreneurs should take time to identify and articulate their business's core values and purpose, which will serve as your organization's compass for decision making at all levels. Williams' co-author, Alison Whybrow, said that this "compass" can be discovered by having an honest, open conversation with your team.
"One thing that a team might want to do is engage in a formal assessment process — looking at habits, beliefs, values and capability — so that they are working from a clear starting point and have a framework for discussion about working styles, strengths and individual and collective blind spots," Whybrow said.
Build your vision. The key to business success is having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish as a company. Before you write a business plan, Evan Singer, general manager of small business loan application service SmartBiz, advised coming up with three to five key strategies that will enable you to achieve that vision.
"Sometimes less is more," Singer said. "Far better to do three things very well versus 10 things not so well."
Clarify your business model. A good business plan always includes financial projections, but before you can figure out facts and figures, you'll need to work through potential scenarios to make sure your business model is going to work.
"Start [answering] 'what ifs,'" said Alex Muller, CEO of retail mobile engagement solution GPShopper. "If I sell this product at this price point, and this is the cost of client acquisition, what rates of return can I get? When you're done building [and testing] the business model, then you can go back [and] write a business plan."
Muller said a good financial model should include many of the details you would include in your formal business plan — hiring, pricing, sales, cost of acquisition, expenses, growth, etc. As with a business plan, Muller noted that your model should be revisited and updated as the realities of your business start to unfold.
Work out your name and legal structure. The way your company is structured — sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, etc. — plays an important role in your business operations and strategy. David Pomije, CEO of jewelry e-commerce retailer BijouxxJewels.com, noted that it's important to not only officially register your company, but to also ensure that you own the naming rights before you work on your business plan. The last thing you want to do is put your company name all over the official documents and website, only to find out that someone else holds the copyright.
Road-test your business idea. There's no point in spending time on a formal business plan if you're not even sure there's a market for your idea. Kara Bubb, a product manager at digital asset management software Widen Enterprises, said entrepreneurs should go out and talk to industry experts, potential customers and other entrepreneurs to determine their business's viability.
"Talk to some real potential future clients [and experts] and ask for some honest feedback," Bubb told Business News Daily. "What do they think about your business idea? Who specifically are you targeting with your business? How big is the market? Will your market buy what you are selling? Who is your competition?"
Bubb also recommended identifying your potential opportunities and risks, which can be done by conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of your business.
The smallest version of Lenovo's Windows-powered Yoga Tablet 2 is a solid, portable productivity slate with innovative stylus technology baked in. The 8-inch model is the first tablet equipped with Lenovo's new AnyPen technology, which lets you jot down digital notes using any regular pen or pencil, or even a car key — no special stylus needed.
So is this the ultimate digital notebook for business users? Not quite. The pen technology is unique, but the tablet lacks pressure sensitivity, and palm rejection is unreliable, making for a mediocre writing experience. Still, this pint-size Windows 8 slate has a lot to offer business users, with a handy kickstand, an attractive design and epic battery life.
Design
The Yoga Tablet 2 is a handsome little tablet, with the same distinctive design as other models in the line. Like those devices, it has a large cylindrical battery along one edge, which can be rotated to reveal a flip-out kickstand.
The all-black design of the Windows-powered Yoga Tablet 2 is more understated than the shiny silver of the Android version, and I think that's a good quality in a work device. I also like the metal edging and kickstand, which add a bit of premium appeal to the hardware. The slate's textured plastic back, meanwhile, is easy to grip.
The slate's asymmetrical design might look a bit awkward, but it actually makes the device easier to hold by giving you something to grab onto. When set on a desk, the cylinder also keeps one end of the device propped up by about an inch, giving you a nice, angled view of the screen.
It’s not the lightest 8-inch slate out there, since the big battery adds some heft. At 0.94 lbs., the Yoga Tablet 2 weighs nearly as much as the 0.96 lb. iPad Air 2, which has a much larger 9.7-inch display. Dell’s 8-inch Venue 8 7000 weighs a bit less (0.86 lbs.), while the 7.9-inch iPad Mini 2 weighs a lot less (0.73 lbs.) Regardless, the Yoga Table 2 still feels quite light, and is easy to hold up.
Stylus support
The Yoga Tablet 2 doesn't come with a stylus, and that's just fine. Thanks to Lenovo's new AnyPen tech, you can actually write and draw using any object with a capacitive tip, including the metal tip of a ballpoint pen, a car key or even a fork. The graphite tip of a pencil also works nicely. I was pleasantly surprised to find that those objects work just as well on the Yoga Tablet 2 as any capacitive stylus. You can't do that on any other tablet.
If the thought of taking an ink pen or key to your tablet’s screen makes you cringe, you're not alone. While testing the device, I cringed while sliding the tip of a key over the glass display. However, Lenovo says the screen is covered by a special chemically strengthened glass that resists scratches. For what it's worth, I didn’t notice any scratches on my review unit, even after jotting notes with a fork, paper clip and screwdriver. Whether or not the glass can withstand that kind of abuse over time is yet to be seen.
So that's how the tech works — but how does it feel? Unfortunately, not that great. To be fair, writing on the Yoga Tablet 2 works as well as using a standard capacitive stylus on any other basic tablet, and the ability to use any writing utensil you choose is certainly convenient — especially since there's no slot to stow a stylus on the tablet's body.
That said, it’s a shame that the slate can’t detect different levels of pressure – in other words, how hard you’re pressing down with your pencil. Tablets with a digitizer baked into the screen let you vary the intensity of your line by varying how hard you’re pressing down, for more precise and natural handwriting. The Yoga Tablet 2 can't do that.
While jotting notes on Lenovo's tablet (using Microsoft's OneNote application), the tablet frequently failed to register pen strokes, and often strung strokes together. For that reason, I saw better success while writing in cursive. My strokes were also noticeably wobblier than on a digitizer-equipped tablet like the $399 Toshiba Encore 2 Write.
The other big issue is that the tablet lacks decent palm rejection — meaning that I often found myself making stray marks with the sides of my fingers while I was trying to write on the screen. In OneNote, this also disables the pen until you lift your hand away. To avoid this issue, I had to keep my hand hovering over the display while I was writing, which I found frustrating. It's a typical issue when you're using a stylus with a capacitive touch screen, but it warrants a mention on a tablet touted for its stylus tech.
For those reasons, I actually found a stylus more useful for simply navigating around Windows 8.1, since most desktop Windows apps weren't designed to be used with a touchscreen.
Also note that AnyPen is only available on the 8-inch, Windows-powered Yoga Tablet 2. All other Yoga Tablet models lack the feature.
Kickstand
The stylus tech is neat, but like all Yoga tablets before it, the real selling point of this slate is its flip-out kickstand. Propping up the device on your desk takes you a long way toward making what would otherwise be a basic Windows tablet into a viable productivity machine — especially if you carry a Bluetooth keyboard to help you work on the go. I also like propping up the tablet next to my workstation, so I can use it to monitor my email inbox and social media feeds.
The kickstand also has a couple of other uses. First, you can pop out the kickstand and set the tablet down on your desk, which gives you a steeper-angled view. Plus, you can use a hole in the center of the kickstand to hang the device on any hook. That's nice for showing off business presentations on the larger Yoga Tablet 2 models, but I'm not sure how useful it will be with this model's small 8-inch display.
Display
The Yoga Tablet 2 sports an 8-inch, 1,280 x 800-pixel display that's more than sharp enough to get the job done. After all, a higher resolution wouldn't do you much good on a screen with such small dimensions. Text looks sharp and colors pop.
But is the display large enough to work on? It's certainly roomy enough for basic business tasks like drafting an email or making light edits to a document or spreadsheet. Split-screen multitasking feels more than a little claustrophobic, however.
Ports
The Yoga Tablet 2's selection of ports is sparse, to say the least. The slate comes with a micro USB slot for charging, and a microSD card slot for expanding the slate's measly 32GB of internal storage.
The 10- and 13-inch Yoga Tablet 2 models also come with a microHDMI port that's handy for business presentations, but it's not included on the 8-inch model. And since the slate lacks MHL support, it's not compatible with HDMI adapters, either. There are still ways to mirror your display to a larger monitor via Wi-Fi, but it's not as convenient as it could be.
Since this device runs on Windows, you still might want to connect a keyboard and mouse on occasion. In that case, you can use a microUSB to USB adapter, or buy a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse that can connect wirelessly.
The lack of connectivity options isn't unique to Lenovo's tablet. Small slates from Dell, Acer, Asus and other manufacturers also keeps ports to a minimum, which is one reason business users might want to consider a larger device.
Videoconferencing
A decent front-facing camera is handy for meeting remotely with clients and colleagues. As with most tablets, the Yoga Tablet 2's front-facing shooter isn't great; photos and videos appear grainy, with a fair amount of visual noise. Still, the image quality is fine for basic videoconferencing.
You'll want to hold the slate in portrait mode while videoconferencing, though, due to the placement of the camera along one of the short sides. If the slate is propped up in front of you using the kickstand, your image will appear low and off-center.
Specs and performance
The 8-inch Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows comes in a single configuration. It's powered by a zippy Intel Atom processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.
It's plenty fast for basic tasks like managing your email inbox, editing documents and spreadsheets, and Web browsing. I did notice a bit of slowdown while streaming HD video from YouTube while juggling a dozen apps in the Firefox Web browser, however.
Software
The Yoga Tablet 2 comes with a fairly clean installation of Windows 8.1, with many of Microsoft's productivity apps preloaded. That includes Skype for basic videoconferencing, OneNote for digital note- taking, and OneDrive for backing up your work files to the cloud. You also get a free one-month trial of Microsoft Office 365, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, although you'll have to buy a personal license to use the software after that. Plus, all buyers will get a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it launches later this year, a new version of Microsoft's operating system that promises better touch navigation.
Battery life
If long battery life is your top concern, the Yoga Tablet 2 won't disappoint. The slate ran for an impressive 9 hours and 42 minutes during our battery life test, which simulates continuous Web browsing via Wi-Fi with the screen set to 100 nits of brightness. That's longer than the tablet category average (6:53), and it also beats the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (7:56). The iPad mini 2 lasted longer though, running for an amazing 11 hours and 6 minutes.
The competition
Also starting at $300, the iPad mini 2 is a good alternative to the Yoga Tablet 2. Apple's 7.9-inch tablet offers quick performance and a better selection of mobile apps, but it lacks a kickstand.
Samsung's 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S 8.4 is another good option. It packs a sharper display than Lenovo's slate, but it runs on Android. As with the iPad, it's not a good option if you depend on a particular piece of Windows software for work.
Toshiba's Encore 2 Write is a slightly pricier 8-inch Windows slate, starting at $350. However, it comes with a pressure-sensitive display and a Wacom stylus, so it provides a better overall inking experience than the Yoga Tablet 2.
Bottom line
The Yoga Tablet 2 has its quirks, but it's still a great work slate at an affordable $300 price point. It offers a sharp display, good performance and epic battery life. The screen isn't big enough for serious multitasking, but it's a good size if you're looking for an ultraportable secondary device for light productivity on the go. The kickstand is what really makes this tablet a standout productivity device, though, letting you easily prop the slate up while typing with any Bluetooth keyboard.
But while Lenovo's AnyPen technology is useful for letting you navigate around the Windows 8.1 environment with any pen or pencil, it's not as useful as it sounds, since the slate lacks a pressure-sensitive screen. If you want a great digital notebook – and can do without a kickstand -- Toshiba's 8-inch Encore 2 Write is a better buy.
Women entrepreneurs face unique challenges when starting a business. Credit: Shutterstock
Entrepreneurship was once considered a man's territory, but each year, more and more women set out on the journey to launch and lead their own companies. These business-savvy ladies inspire other women with dreams of founding startups, but many female business owners face still face significant obstacles because of their gender. Female CEOs shared a few of the biggest challenges women entrepreneurs face today, and how to overcome them.
Women entrepreneurs think they need to act like men.
Most female business owners who have attended networking events can relate to this scenario: You walk into a crowded seminar and can count the number of women there on one hand. When women entrepreneurs have to talk business with primarily male executives, it can be intimidating.
To compensate and protect themselves, women often feel as though they need to adopt a stereotypically "male" attitude toward business: competitive, aggressive and sometimes overly harsh. But Hilary Genga, founder and CEO of women's swimwear company Trunkettes, said this is the wrong approach to take.
"Be yourself, and have confidence in who you are," Genga said. "Don't try to be a man. You made it to where you are through hard work and perseverance, but most importantly, you're there. Don't conform yourself to a man's idea of what a leader should look like."
Sharon Rowlands, CEO of digital marketing firm ReachLocal, agreed that confidence is the key to success, even when you're up against a boardroom full of men. Rowlands noted that when she was a newly appointed CEO, she often felt her ideas received more scrutiny than those from her male colleagues. However, she didn't let that discourage her from being a great business leader, she said.
"I had confidence in my abilities to run the business," Rowlands told Business News Daily. "I just made sure that any initiative I was trying to move forward was backed up by a solid business case. I was never unprepared for the questions that I knew would come. I [also] think many women naturally have extraordinary common sense, a sharp intuitive sense and a great focus on people. These are extremely valuable in business and can help to set us apart as leaders."
Women-owned startups receive significantly less investor funding.
Not every startup founder looks for investors to help his or her business get off the ground, but those who do know how difficult the pitching process can be. Raising capital is even more difficult for women-owned firms: A 2014 Babson College report found that less than 3 percent of venture capital-funded companies had a female CEO.
Bonnie Crater, CEO and founder of Salesforce performance management solution Full Circle CRM, said that venture capitalists tend to invest in startups run by people of their own "tribe" — for instance, a Stanford-educated investor will want to back a Stanford alumnus's business. This means that VC firms with female partners are more likely to invest in women-run startups, but according to Babson, that only accounts for 6 percent of U.S. firms. If a woman is looking for business investors, Crater advised building confidence through a great team and business plan.
"Investors are [typically] looking for businesses that can grow to over $1 billion in valuation," Crater said. "Think about how to do that. If you have experts on your founding team that can execute the business [operations] well, investors will have confidence in those people. [You also] need a good product market fit."
Emotions and nurturing skills can affect women's businesses.
Though trying to act like a man doesn't guarantee success for a female entrepreneur, allowing her "feminine" qualities to stand in the way of getting things done isn't necessarily recommended, either. By nature, women are more emotional and nurturing, which can sometimes be a hindrance to running a business.
"For men, a business is mostly about the bottom line, but for women, it's more than that," said Delia Passi, CEO of WomenCertified, home of the Women's Choice Award. "We get emotionally connected, and that can hold us back from making the tough decisions. Male board members and investors get frustrated when we're not as quick to fire or make dramatic business changes that could impact employees' families."
Passi noted that women also tend to place a high premium on building up relationships that they hope will naturally lead to sales. Connections are highly important to success, and nurturing strong professional relationships can go a long way. However, Passi reminded female entrepreneurs to also be direct and stay focused on their business goals.
Women often lack the support of other female business leaders.
Long before she founded online women's eyewear boutique Rivet & Sway, CEO Sarah Bryar worked with undergraduate female engineering students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These "trailblazers," as Bryar described them, felt insecure about being in the minority as women who excelled in math and science, and longed for more camaraderie and support from female peers in their fields.
"The main challenge for female entrepreneurs is just like the challenge for female engineering students: There just aren't enough of us," Bryar told Business News Daily. "There aren't enough women to be role models, act as sounding boards, do deals with — in short, to create normalcy for women in leadership positions."
Despite the quickly growing number of female executives and business owners, finding fellow women entrepreneurs to connect with isn't always easy. Women-focused networking events like American Express OPEN's CEO BootCamp are good places to start, as well as online forums and groups specifically created for women in business.
"Opportunities to lead do exist for women," Bryar said. "We just need to continue to support and promote women in the limelight to encourage others to come along for the ride."
Many women have to balance raising families with running their businesses.
Work-life balance is often a goal of entrepreneurs across the board, but mothers who start businesses have to simultaneously run their families and their companies.
"Being a mother while running a business is very challenging," Genga said. "There are ways to balance your time, but the perception is that you could be more effective running your business if you didn't have to deal with kids."
Genga said she has learned to not take shortcomings on either front too seriously, and to not beat herself up over the little things, like missing a class trip with her children. "Momtrepreneurs" have dual responsibilities to their businesses and to their families, and finding ways to devote time to both is key to truly achieving that elusive work-life balance.
Women entrepreneurs are afraid of failure.
According to Babson College's 2012 Global Entrepreneur Monitor, the fear of failure is the top concern of women who launch startups. Failure is a very real possibility in any business venture, but Passi said it shouldn't be viewed as negative.
"You need to have massive failure to have massive success," Passi said. "You may need 100 'no's' to get one 'yes,' but that one 'yes' will make you more successful tomorrow than you were today."
Bryar offered similar advice for female entrepreneurs, encouraging them to work through the moments of self-doubt that every business owner faces.
"Work hard at ignoring that inner voice that may discourage taking action, speaking up or getting outside your comfort zone," she said. "It's something I struggle with myself, but I know fundamentally that I wouldn't be a CEO today if I hadn't taken chances to assert myself."
Before you start a new job, you'll likely know your schedule, basic reporting structure and universal workplace etiquette — you'll probably even have a good idea of what you'll be doing. But the specifics of your daily routine, like who you'll be working with and the policies and procedures you'll follow, are waiting to be discovered during your first few days.
While the beginning of this new chapter in your career is exciting, it can also be very overwhelming at the same time. You're bound to experience at least a few challenges and adjustments, whether it's your first job or your 10th. Here's how to navigate them gracefully and make a great impression during that critical first week on the job.
Information overload. One of the most difficult aspects of starting a new job is having to quickly catch up to the rest of your team, especially if you're replacing someone. While most managers are understanding and expect there to be a learning curve, the business can't pause for too long. Therefore, new hires often find themselves bombarded with tons of information and details almost immediately.
"The biggest challenge I faced during my first week ... [was] information overload," said Stacy Shade, who started as a senior account manager at AR|PR last month. "What works best for me when I need to synthesize a lot of new information is to take a few minutes at the end of the day to review notes and jot down questions. I've found that it's almost impossible to ask too many questions in the beginning."
Grunt work (or no work at all). While some new employees do face an overload of work, others face the opposite problem: not enough of it. If your manager and/or fellow team members have a particularly packed schedule the week you start, it's likely that you'll end up doing some menial tasks that don't have a lot to do with your overall job.
In a SparkHire blog post, author Kristin Anderson noted that there's a lot to be learned from "grunt work," because it helps you learn about a lot of the inner workings of a business you'd likely never encounter otherwise. But if you feel like you don't have enough to do, don't be afraid to take initiative and ask for work. Sitting around doing nothing reflects poorly on you, she said.
"Politely ask your boss if you can have something to work on, or if he or she has a spare minute to teach you something," Anderson wrote. "If everyone is truly too busy, then use your downtime to do something productive on your own. Keep current in your field by reading some related journal articles, review your training materials or practice some new software."
Finding a balance between confidence and arrogance. When you're excited about your new job, it's natural to want to start contributing ideas right away. Participating from the very start shows that you're interested in collaborating with your colleagues and helping the company. But there's a fine line between confidence in your ideas and arrogance: Employees who have been at the company a while tend to not like the newbie who thinks he or she already knows everything, despite having just started.
"The goal of every new employee is to jump headfirst into his or her new role and begin adding value, which is great," said Cheryl Kerrigan, vice president of employee success at employee recognition platform Achievers. "However, without having the base knowledge of company procedures, norms and team dynamics, the attempted added value could be misconstrued. Find your balance ... [and] process all new information before recommending alternatives to existing procedures."
Caitlin Iseler, a senior consultant at PI Midlantic, a behavioral assessment consulting firm, said employees with very dominant personalities should try to keep that dominance in check during their first week, especially if they have a managerial position.
"The best leaders don't come in like bulldozers," Iseler said. "Good leaders come in respectfully, observing the current work environment and how the company has succeeded before they were hired. Current protocols in a company usually exist for a reason. Take three months to absorb your surroundings before making changes."
Meeting new colleagues. It's likely that many of your co-workers will be friendly and introduce themselves to you in your first couple of days, but if you want to form lasting bonds with your office mates, you'll have to continue the conversation. It can be difficult to remember the slew of names and faces you learn, let alone any personal details about your new colleagues. Shade recommended adding people to your phone contacts right after you meet them (even if you don't have their number) and adding notes about them such as, "loves rock climbing" or "lives downtown."
"Making notes on the new contacts I meet jogs my memory and better enables me to ask them follow-up questions or reference something from our initial conversation the next time that I see them," Shade told Business News Daily.
Learning your team's dynamics. You're not going to have the exact same relationships with your new boss and team members as you did at your last job. It's your responsibility as a new employee to learn your immediate colleagues' preferred communication and work styles, so you can find a place for yourself within their existing dynamic.
Kerrigan noted that understanding your team's personalities and motivations can be a challenge, but it's important to build good relationships from your first meeting with them and make a good impression. Shade agreed, saying that committing time to figuring out your team's expectations will help with goal setting and communication moving forward.
Fitting into the company culture. Most new employees get a general sense of their company's culture during the interview process, but hearing about it and actually being a part of it are two different things. Once you're there, you need to embrace the culture to really become a part of it.
"Be an actively engaged new employee," Kerrigan said. "Volunteer to host a happy hour, join a committee, participate in philanthropic opportunities and get involved. Actions speak louder than words, and your colleagues will appreciate your enthusiasm to be a part of the company culture."
Kerrigan noted that employers should also do their part to help new hires feel welcome, included and engaged from the beginning of their tenure. Managers should be prepared to train and initiate their new employees, and give plenty of feedback to encourage them as they learn the ropes.
"It's vital that new hires know exactly what is expected of them in the first week," Kerrigan said. "Be sure to create weekly and monthly checklists ... and schedule frequent check-ins to maintain momentum. By preparing the new employee to take ownership and act as a participant in their onboarding, it creates a sense of accomplishment when the learning and tasks are completed."
