By Carolee Colter 176 January-February 2015 As we all know, the baby boom generation is hitting retirement age. Roughly a quarter of the U.S. population was born between 1946 and 1964, and every month a quarter million more are turning 65. That age is not a magic number for retirement. With the recent recession, many people put off retiring longer than they otherwise might [...]
Staff Survey overview and sample report
How will you make your next meeting the best meeting ever? Here is a useful tool for helping you run effective meetings and create common ground with groups. You’ll find tips for meeting process design, preparing for a meeting, creating meeting materials and the agenda, as well as insight into the stages of group development and meeting process. “In this [...]
It happens all the time. Co-workers get attracted to each other and next thing you know…. Workplace romances can impact the productivity and morale of the protagonists and their co-workers. That impact is greater still when a supervisor and subordinate are involved. It happens all the time. Co-workers get attracted to each other and next thing you know…. Workplace romances can impact the productivity [...]
By Carolee Colter, Helena O'Connor 172 May-June 2014 According to 2013 CoopMetrics data, 30 percent of member co-ops in the National Cooperative Grocers Association have expanded or opened a new store in the last five years; and many more co-ops are planning expansions and new stores. Serving more customers in new ways is exciting, but it also adds to the workload of employees and [...]
Sean Doyle, General Manager Seward Community Cooperative, Twin Cities, MN Sean shares his perspective as a St. Mary's Graduate and long-time GM on how to invigorate the co-op culture at your store. In brief: It starts with investing in staff.
"One bad apple spoils the barrel." Intuitively we know this maxim is true. Research at the University of Washington Business School affirms it. Will Felps, Terence Mitchell and Eliza Byington defined three types of bad apples: • Slackers who don't do their share of the work • Perennially unhappy pessimists • Mean-spirited bullies The researchers found that team members will first try moral suasion [...]
“To the person who does not know where he wants to go, there is no favorable wind.” Though 2000 years have passed since the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger wrote those words, they’re still true today for people and organizations. Whether you're making operational improvements or organizational restructuring plans, none of those efforts will matter if you don't have a compelling, clear vision of [...]
