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Gordon Gekko on Handling Other People’s Money
In a scene from the 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, financial trader Gordon Gekko — played by Michael Douglas — defines moral hazard as a situation in which “somebody takes your money and he is not responsible for it.” A team of European researchers cite this cinematic example in a recently published study on how people feel when they take economic risks on someone else’s behalf, rather than their own. Scientists from the Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive in France found that when we entrust our money to someone else, they tend to not handle it as carefully as they would their own.
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How Your Smartphone Can Affect Your Well-Being
Volkswagen turns off some workers’ email 30 minutes after quitting time. BMW is instituting new rules that will guard employees from being contacted after working hours. In fact, an increasing number of companies have created similar rules, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Employers appear to be recognizing, after years of freely contacting workers on their smartphones at any time of the day or night, that employees need to be able to escape from work.
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A Multicultural Mindset Can Bolster Your Career Prospects
Many leading companies are taking a stand on diversity. They’re actively seeking new hires from different backgrounds and cultures, following the logic that new people can shake up the status quo with fresh insights and unknown perspectives. It’s not difficult to see why -- popular support for such initiatives is at an all-time high. Edward Jones, a leading financial advising firm, just commissioned a survey to see how more than 2,000 adults feel about multiculturalism in the workplace. More than 80% of minority respondents and 66% of people overall said it makes financial sense to hire a diverse group of individuals, and that doing so is likely to instill trust in clients.
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How Warm Is Your Brand?
The world is having a love affair with Costco. Fortune Magazine ranks the warehouse retailer as one of the world’s most admired companies, and only partly because of its commitment to social responsibility. Operating under the philosophy that happy employees deliver effective customer service, the company pays its employees extremely well — a sterling contrast to the way competitors like Wal-Mart and Kmart compensate workers. Costco’s practices even drew a shout out from President Obama during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday. Whether they realize it or not, consumers tend to regard companies the same way they do each other.
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The Option to Quit Can Make You More Determined
Stephen King’s novel, Carrie, was rejected 30 times before it finally got published — and launched a legendary literary career. Thomas Edison failed thousands of time before he finally perfected the light bulb. Most of us aren’t aiming to create a revolutionary invention or get a novel published. But we all have professional goals, and will face at least some degree of failure or hardship in achieving them. In some cases, we have no choice but to keep trying. Giving up on a complex project you’ve been assigned at work could cost you your job.
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Effective Mentoring Stems From Workplace Climate
Mentoring a less experienced colleague -- and doing it effectively -- can be a demanding task, especially when deadlines are looming. The relationship is a delicate one, and trying to foster a working dynamic that is productive but also engaging is a skill that requires practice. New findings suggest that how your company operates as a whole can have significant bearing on whether the mentor/protégé bond flourishes or flounders. That is, the overall tenor of the workplace environment influences the give and take of the relationship.
