Proper workplace gift etiquette usually stipulates that gifts should be given downward to those you manage and not upward to those who manage you, writes Alison Green. You should also avoid overly personal gifts, and don't feel pressured to include yourself in collections for group gifts. U.S. News & World Report (12/5) 4 tips for long-term career planning Employees have to take charge of their career development, as managers are often too busy to do so. This article offers four ways to get started, beginning with setting aside time for strategic thinking. Harvard Business Review online (tiered subscription model) (12/6)
Earn your Penn State Online MBA Anytime, Anywhere Penn State's Online MBA helps you master critical and contemporary business skills. This AACSB-accredited MBA is flexible, customizable and reasonably priced. Led by internationally-ranked Smeal College of Business and backed by the world's most powerful alumni network. See what you can learn.
Professional networking events need not be excruciating experiences, Jenny Foss writes. She suggests checking online interest groups for networking opportunities, bringing an extroverted friend to networking events, setting up a social group with other professionals and using social media more. TheMuse.com (12/1)
Embrace Disruptive Innovation Traditional business is constantly being impacted by overwhelming and sudden shifts in the marketplace. This new normal is "disruptive innovation". Read this white paper to learn what disruptive innovation is and how your company can use cloud ERP to stay in the game. Download the white paper >
IKEA will provide up to four months of paid parental leave to US employees, regardless of how many hours they work. The move aims to foster a happier workforce with increased productivity and longer tenure, officials say. The Wall Street Journal (tiered subscription model) (12/6)
Get with the flow. How payment processing affects cash flow. Cash flow is the lubricant of business. Without a healthy cash flow, business dries up. It stops. It can't function. Which is why it is vital to keep the revenues coming in as the expenses go out. But there's one aspect of cash flow that many of us are not aware of. It is how managing credit cards and other such non-cash payments affect cash flow. Turns out it has a huge affect. Download the free guide today.
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SmartBrief Originals
Original news, insights, analysis and best practices from SmartBrief.com
Customize your resume for different opportunities You can easily customize your resume by emphasizing keywords that are important for specific industries, like "created" for copywriters or "managed" for supervisory positions. Make sure to note specific skills that apply to the position you're interested in that can be taken from previous experience, writes Erica Breuer. TheMuse.com (12/5)
Balancing Yourself
Simple tips for a better work-life balance Improve your work-life balance by remembering your responsibility to your employer is to be a professional, not a perfectionist. Try to learn from your mistakes instead of spending all of your energy attempting to avoid them completely, writes Crystal Alviela. Jobs&Hire (11/30)
The Water Cooler
The women of 1800s Harvard who mapped the stars Edward Charles Pickering's worldwide haul of photographed stars and other astronomical features required a team to analyze, and he generally hired women. Dava Sobel has written about these educated, professional women of the late 1800s, including Annie Jump Cannon, who devised a stellar classification approach still used. The Atlantic online (12/2)
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
