5 Ways to Make Video Conference Calls More Productive

1. Learn a few stealth moves.

If you decide to leave the room during the call, make sure it’s during a time when no one will notice. When you’re the next one on the agenda, it will be fairly obvious to everyone on the call that you’ve left your computer.

2. Type softly.

A few times throughout the call I took notes. The good part is that when we finished, I had clear notes about what we discussed. The bad part is that I usually hit the keys too hard (bad habit) which can be hard on everyone’s ears.

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CEO Council Demands Cuts To Poor, Elderly While Reaping Billions In Government Contracts, Tax Breaks

WASHINGTON — The corporate CEOs who have made a high-profile foray into deficit negotiations have themselves been substantially responsible for the size of the deficit they now want closed.
The companies represented by executives working with the Campaign To Fix The Debt have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies’ tax bills.

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What Obama Should Do About Workplace Discrimination

What Obama Should Do About Workplace Discrimination

LAST week, the defense contractor DynCorp International announced that it had changed its corporate policies to forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The company’s decision was voluntary but came under pressure: DynCorp recently agreed to a $155,000 settlement with an aircraft mechanic named James Friso, a heterosexual man who endured anti-gay epithets and other harassment at his DynCorp workplace.

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Workplace Discrimination for Caregivers: A Reality

Discrimination against caregivers is still a reality in the American workplace, reports Melanie Trottman in a story in today’s Wall Street Journal.At an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C., employment and legal experts said that pregnant women and caregivers face everything from harassment and hostility on the job to terminations and decreased work hours. That’s despite a law passed 30 years ago – the Pregnancy Discrimination Act – and other measures like the Family and Medical Leave Act intended to protect workers balancing job and family obligations

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Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Nearly a third of Massachusetts residents report that they or someone they know has experienced age discrimination, a new AARP survey finds

According to Debbie Chalfie, AARP expert on age discrimination, older workers are concerned about keeping their jobs, and hiring bias has been a top issue during the economic slump. “Everyone has taken it on the chin during this recession, but older workers are the ones who don’t have the time to recover if they’ve lost their jobs, or used up their savings.”

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Progressives forming boycott over Papa John’s CEO’s response to Obama’s election

Many progressives are today organizing a boycott over Papa John’s threat to cut worker hours in response to President Obama’s re-election. John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John’s, said that as a result of Obama’s re-election, and the subsequent implementation of Obamacare, he would consider cutting his employees hours. Scnatter’s comments immediately created controversy, and many Twitter and Facebook users are now promising to boycott the pizza chain.

This is not the first time that Schnatter has taken issue with Obamacare. In August of 2012, Schnatter said he would have to raise pizza prizes by up to 20 cents in order to pay for increased costs under Obamacare. Many Facebook users angrily replied that would gladly pay 14 cents more per pizza for increased access to health care. It is also worth noting that Obamacare provides tax credits and deductions to help offset the costs of health care insurance.

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Privacy in America: Workplace Drug Testing

INVASION AND ERROR However routine drug tests have become, they’re still intrusive. Often, another person is there to observe the employee to ensure there is no specimen tampering. Even indirect observation can be degrading; typically, workers must remove their outer garments and urinate in a bathroom in which the water supply has been turned off. The lab procedure is a second invasion of privacy. Urinalysis reveals not only the presence of illegal drugs, but also the existence of many other physical and medical conditions, including genetic predisposition to disease – or pregnancy. In 1988, the Washington, D.C. Police Department admitted it used urine samples collected for drug tests to screen female employees for pregnancy – withouttheir knowledge or consent.

Furthermore, human error in the lab, or the test’s failure to distinguish between legal and illegal substances, can make even a small margin of error add up to a huge potential for false positive results. In 1992, an estimated 22 million tests were adminstered. If five percent yielded false positive results (a conservative estimate of false positive rates) that means 1.1 million people who could have been fired, or denied jobs – because of a mistake.

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Preventing Bias On the Job

Even if discrimination based on sexual orientation were rare, there would be reason to outlaw it. But there is strong evidence gay and lesbian workers are treated unfairly.Even before President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage, that cause had become synonymous in many minds with gay rights. But an equally important item on the equality agenda is protection of gays, lesbians and transgender people from job discrimination.Last week the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of “actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.” Sixteen states, including California, and 140 localities protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, but 56% of the U.S. population lives in areas without such protection. That would be remedied with the enactment of ENDA.

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Medical Marijuana at Work: Your Obligations and Limitations

In Connecticut, a new law took effect in October that permits medical marijuana usage. Under “An Act Concerning the Palliative Use of Marijuana,” the use of prescribed medical marijuana is permitted to alleviate symptoms of a debilitating medical condition, such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, and Parkinson’s disease. This law prohibits employers from refusing to hire, discharge, penalize, or threaten an employee solely on the basis of his status as a qualifying patient or primary caregiver for someone who uses medical marijuana.
It’s clear from recent legislative action that the topic of medical marijuana usage isn’t going away. Now is the time to get up to date on the types of restrictions and obligations you could face when the issue of medical marijuana usage arises in your workplace.

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Marijuana eases painful MS muscle cramping

NaturalNews) A recent Reuters write-up of a marijuana for an MS pain and spasticity trial highlighted positive results for the MS (muscular or multiple sclerosis) patients after using marijuana. They felt less pain and spasticity, which consists of extreme muscular tension, cramps and uncontrollable muscle spasms.
MS is a degenerative autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that eats away at the nerves’ protective myelin sheaths, which also assist with transmitting nerve signals.

The test subjects using marijuana reported feeling better, being more relaxed, and being able to function better. You’d think the phrase “looks promising” would have been part of the Reuters release. Instead, the researchers equivocated cautiously with comments about the test’s questionable accuracy and unproven long term marijuana effects on cognitive abilities.

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4 Office Faux Pas To Avoid At All Costs

There are certain things that simply should not be done in the office or in the company of colleagues if you wish to continue commanding respect amongst your co-workers.
In any social situation, there are unspoken rules as to what you can and can’t do and the office is no exception. What’s appropriate when you’re at home or in a bar with some friends is probably not appropriate in the office. This goes for office social events such as Christmas parties as well as the everyday office environment. When with your colleagues in a work-related situation, you should act professionally as you don’t want to get fired or sanctioned for inappropriate behavior.

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Drug Testing in the Workplace: A Bad Idea and a Bad Investment

Indiscriminate testing of employees for drug use is an intrusive and degrading process that undermines our most deeply held tenets of fairness and privacy in the workplace. It should not be surprising, then, that a recent study concluded that workplace drug testing lowers productivity. What is surprising is that, despite these obvious liabilities, employers continue to make drug testing in the workplace a growth industry in the United States.

Although employees of private companies are not entitled to the same constitutional protections as public employees, private employers could benefit from reading court rulings on drug testing in the public-sector workplace. Arcane as the courts can be, we rely on them to interpret constitutional principles for us in meaningful ways that ultimately become part of our culture.

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ESCO Corporation chooses employee termination over layoffs, another effect of Obamacare?

How does a company decide the best method of attack when they need to “thin the herd” in these tough times, and where do they point the blame finger at?
Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, ESCO Corporation is a leading manufacturer of high-quality products for mining, construction, wood processing, rock crushing, dredging and other industrial industries. With Obamacare hovering over them, production numbers down, and a major customer pulling out, panic set in and they created a disastrous plan of action.

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Getting the best office layout

Believe it or not the layout of your office space is very important in how to motivate your staff work while keeping within the health and safety guidelines. For example did you know that if you place your staff’s desk so they have a clear view of a window it provides inspiration for your creative staff? However if you place one of your staffs desk so that they are facing a window directly it is more likely to cause them more of a distraction throughout the day rather than encourage them to work. Therefore getting the best office layout is very beneficial to both your staff and your business.

Most Offices go for the railroad approach when organizing employee desks in that all desks are side by side in a line. This does mean more desks can fit into the space provided however it can create a cluttered look and your employees feeling squashed into a room. By giving each desk a foot or two of space in between each other it will give your employees the space they need to not feel claustrophobic. Office partitioning can also be a welcome addition in some offices as it provides the employees with a certain amount of privacy.

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ESCO Corporation Portland Oregon: Discrimination in the workplace

Fairness and privacy rights in the workplace are important issues! No one should be treated differently because they don’t have an certain title, work in a certain department, or have a relative in high places. Company policies should be applicable for all employees. Companies should also offer compassion and options when their employees have circumstances that may put their job in jeopardy.

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ESCO Corporation Joins The List Of Companies Cutting Jobs Because of Obamacare

Instead of company layoffs that their employees were expecting, the company changed course and surprised everyone with job terminations. Using workplace drug testing as a strategy, they quickly updated their employee handbook with new policies and were able to fire employees to avoid costs like health insurance and unemployment benefits.
Cancer victim Holly Hicks states, “My husband was a dedicated employee of ESCO for 39 with a spotless record. He failed his drug test because of a trace of THC. He had escaped our world of cancer for a few hours and inhaled three puffs of marijuana five days before being tested. ESCO took away our income and our health insurance that I need to continue my cancer treatments. They denied his unemployment benefits that he paid into for 39 years. How can ESCO Corporation president Calvin Collins justify what they did to us and so many other families? We’re asking the public to support us by signing our petition. We are asking ESCO to grant unemployment benefits so we can pay for my cancer treatments. So far, the company has ignored our attempts to communicate with us.

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ESCO Corporation discriminates against its employees

It was common knowledge that a large layoff was coming very soon. Esco Corp decided that they needed a fast and dirty way to get rid of a lot of employees first so they could save $$$.

Paul Hicks was one of many employees that failed their test that day and was fired. His test showed a “trace” of marijuana in the results. Could it have been from Second Hand Exposure to his wife’s use of marijuana while undergoing cancer treatments? Could it have been from taking a few puffs to escape the world of cancer we’ve been living in all year? Do either of these things warrant firing a 39 year employee with a shining record?

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Getting the best office layout

Believe it or not the layout of your office space is very important in how to motivate your staff work while keeping within the health and safety guidelines. For example did you know that if you place your staff’s desk so they have a clear view of a window it provides inspiration for your creative staff? However if you place one of your staffs desk so that they are facing a window directly it is more likely to cause them more of a distraction throughout the day rather than encourage them to work. Therefore getting the best office layout is very beneficial to both your staff and your business.

Believe it or not the layout of your office space is very important in how to motivate your staff work while keeping within the health and safety guidelines. For example did you know that if you place your staff’s desk so they have a clear view of a window it provides inspiration for your creative staff? However if you place one of your staffs desk so that they are facing a window directly it is more likely to cause them more of a distraction throughout the day rather than encourage them to work. Therefore getting the best office layout is very beneficial to both your staff and your business.
Most Offices go for the railroad approach when organizing employee desks in that all desks are side by side in a line. This does mean more desks can fit into the space provided however it can create a cluttered look and your employees feeling squashed into a room. By giving each desk a foot or two of space in between each other it will give your employees the space they need to not feel claustrophobic. Office partitioning can also be a welcome addition in some offices as it provides the employees with a certain amount of privacy.
Most Offices go for the railroad approach when organizing employee desks in that all desks are side by side in a line. This does mean more desks can fit into the space provided however it can create a cluttered look and your employees feeling squashed into a room. By giving each desk a foot or two of space in between each other it will give your employees the space they need to not feel claustrophobic. Office partitioning can also be a welcome addition in some offices as it provides the employees with a certain amount of privacy.

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Four Ways to Foster Fairness in the Workplace

Employee concerns over pay systems, managerial favoritism and equal recognition are common leadership challenges. While leaders of some of the best small workplaces struggle with fairness issues just like their corporate counterparts, we’ve found that they often achieve more favorable results among their staffs nearly 10 percent more often. This greater success is the result of thoughtful and comprehensive management approaches. To help your organization strengthen its own tactics, here are a few lessons to consider:

Reaffirm that everyone will receive an equal opportunity to be recognized. One of the fastest ways to erode a workplace’s sense of fairness is by giving recognition unequally. This challenge can be especially difficult when managing employees across multiple sites. When McMurry, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based full-service marketing communications company, acquired a second site, leaders were faced with how to adapt their annual employee awards event in order to promote fairness. The company’s leaders doubled up, dividing the event into two presentations — one at each site held in successive weeks. The events were coordinated so that when one location held its event, a simultaneous celebration was held in the other.

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Fairness in Workplace Key to Employee, Organizational Health

If you spend most of your workday contemplating the behavior of your boss, your boss’ boss, or your beloved co-workers, rest assured you’re not alone. So does Deborah Rupp—that’s her job. Rupp is an industrial-organizational psychologist, a scientist who studies human behavior in the workplace with the aim of understanding the employee-employer interface.

Rupp is particularly interested in organizational justice. “Organizational justice explores the psychological process by which employees come to judge their workplace as fair or unfair,” says Rupp. The field explores how workers experience emotions, their behavioral reactions to these emotions, and how attitudes and perceptions of an organization change.

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