First days on the job tend to be stressful. Not only must fresh hires learn the names of a litany of new colleagues, they may also be required to endure often boring orientation sessions. In corporate environments especially, these standardized introductory rituals teach new hires to tone down their own personalities in order to conform to the company’s way of doing things. While this is likely an efficient way to acclimate employees to the job, new studies show that Continue reading
In the business world, companies aren’t the only ones who are concerned with attracting top tier talent. Governments, too, have a vested interest in either retaining their most skilled individuals or attracting the best from elsewhere. After all, an innovative and educated workforce can only sustain itself by remaining desirable to other capable candidates. For countries like India, this means keeping doctors and engineers local so they can help a homeland in need rather than travel abroad for greater fortunes. Continue reading
In today’s modern economy, statistics are supreme. GDP, unemployment and interest rates all play dominant roles in the allocation of the government’s budget. No spending bill can hope to pass into law without a battery of statistics and figures charting how such legislation will benefit the country. But just how accurately do those numbers reflect the world we live in?
Take GDP, for instance. The famous figure has only been reliably collected in the U.S. since the 1930s and didn’t Continue reading
The beauty of Italy’s ancient structures and sculptures has been renowned for more than two thousand years. Over the course of those centuries, maintenance responsibilities for the nation’s antiquities have transferred from their Roman builders to the Catholic Church and finally to the present-day Italian government. But there’s one major matter that separates the latter from its two mighty predecessors: money. As a result of the Italian economy’s recent collapse, the government has been forced to slash the maintenance budget Continue reading
The years following the start of the recession have not been kind for much of the retail industry. For the clothing company Zara, however, the downturn has been something of a blessing. The Spanish brand came to global prominence in the 1990s as its affordable but fashionable looks started to arrive at stores on foreign shores. Today the company brings in more than $9 billion annually from 1,600 locations as shoppers the world over turn to Zara’s lower price tags Continue reading
To most American beer drinkers, there’s only one Budweiser. Go to the Czech Republic, however, and you might be in for a bit of surprise. Since 1895 the brewing company Budejovicky Budvar has been making a beer called Budweiser. And no, they didn’t just rip the name off from the iconic AB Inbev brand. The brewery operates in a region of the Czech Republic called Budweiser, where people have been brewing beer since 1295. In fact, the region’s proud brewing Continue reading
When the credit crisis hit in 2008, much of the public’s ire fell on the Wall Street executives who earned enormous salaries as the financial system crumbled. Legislators and activists demanded that the country’s corporations revert to more reasonable pay packages, especially those companies who received government bailouts. Nearly five years later, however, little has been done to curb outsized executive compensation. Well, at least in the U.S.
Switzerland, on the other hand, recently voted for legislation that aims to Continue reading
As long as there are offices, there will be conflicts between management and staff. Still, no business can hope to succeed without a successful working relationship between these two occasionally combative entities. Managers will always need motivated employees to work hard and achieve the company’s goals, and employees will always need managers to set those goals and pay them for their efforts to meet them. Indeed, this seeming imbalance of power is why some staffers inevitably come to resent their Continue reading
With economic recovery proceeding at a sluggish pace, many companies are operating on razor thin margins that can be easily disrupted. For instance, business got so slow at the plastics company Saint-Gobain last fall that executives cut worker hours by 40 percent. Although this type of story has become all too common since 2008, a federal government-funded work share program ensured the company’s staff didn’t lose their entire income. Thanks to the additional funds, Saint-Gobain’s employees recouped 70 percent of Continue reading