If you look at the numbers, every ten to twenty years (we’ll split the difference and call it fifteen), a major corporation decides to “restructure” its operation which, in laymen’s terms, means terminating the services of a ginormous number of workers. Rumors abound lately that IBM is set to fire over 100,000 employees (that’s dismiss, discharge, lay off, let go, give notice to, get rid of, ax, or sack depending on where you are at the moment) in what could turn out to be the largest layoff in history. While IBM may be the first to tread into the six-figure domain, the business world is certainly no stranger to mass layoffs in the five-figure range. Let’s take a look at the top sixteen mass layoffs.

Every company seeks the best employees, those who are reliable, innovative, team-oriented yet able to work well independently. The difficulty can be in locating them. That’s why, once such stellar employees are recruited, retaining them becomes paramount. Fortunately, this is an arena in which a sharp Human Resources Department (HR) can be invaluable. Assisting in supporting and retaining your best employees, HR helps to ensure that employees are content within your company, bolstering morale and guarding against early departures. Here are seven key ways HR can help to retain your best employees: 

Periodically playing games with your employees (no, we’re not talking mind games) is a great way to build camaraderie and provide a much-needed break from the stresses of a workday (or workweek). For some easy and fun employee engagement ideas, see our post here or make up your own team-building game. As good as these (and your) ideas are, sometimes you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to team-building and stress release. Never fear! Save the longer games for once a week (or every other week), and try these one-minute game ideas for a quick bit of fun that everyone is sure to enjoy.

According to the United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration, workplace accidents are more expensive than most companies realize. This is because workplace accidents and their aftermath are composed of two types of costs: direct and indirect

While many might assume that all responsibilities for childcare and child-rearing end long before becoming a grandparent, the truth is that many grandparents are actively involved in their grandchildren’s lives. From serving as caretakers while parents work to undertaking the full-time role of parent in the absence of their grandchildren’s parents for a wide range of reasons, grandparents today often spend a good deal of time interacting with their grandchildren. The result is that, much like parents, they often need time off from work to tend to their grandchildren’s needs. Whether it is pediatrician appointments, football practice or conferences with their grandchildren’s teachers, among other events, these responsibilities frequently coincide with work hours...

Managing today’s multi-generational workforce can indeed be a challenge. There are marked differences in the worldviews, work ethics and behaviors of these different generations, and if you don’t become sensitive to their differing needs by coming to understand the forces that shaped them, you have little chance of successfully providing the right degree and quality of stimulation they require to become outstanding employees, nor the types of rewards they will appreciate when they do. Your main aim in all of this should be one of developing a collaborative atmosphere in your organization, whether you are approaching it at the team level or at the macro level of the entire organization. It used to be that the workplace consisted of only one or two generations, and everyone came from the same frame of reference – the same experiences had shaped them all. But now there are an unprecedented four generations in the workplace at the same time, and they all come from sociological profiles that are vastly different.

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Click on Read more to read the full blog post