Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it. (Stephen Hawking)   The Case for Hiring Workers (by Josh Bersin and Thomas Chamorro Premuzic, Harvard Business Review)   There’s a lot of talk about gender bias, racial bias, and culture bias at work, and each are important for many reasons. But perhaps one of the biggest and most problematic types of bias we face is the bias of age: we often evaluate people based on their age, and this is now becoming a major challenge in the workplace.   Several years ago, through our research for Deloitte, we asked around 10,000 companies, “Is age a competitive advantage or competitive disadvantage in your organization?”...

Does RI Have a Workers Comp Problem? (An Interview with Stephen Hickey, owner of Hickey Insurance)   Workers’ comp for RI state employees soars 54%, alarming officials - Target 12 Headline from Sept. 16   A recent headline story by one of Rhode Island's local news outlets has created quite a buzz in some circles. For perspective, I turned to Stephen Hickey, a Rhode Island Insurance agency who has been involved in the issue for over 35 years. His knowledge and experience is useful to understand the history of Workers Comp in Rhode Island, where we started and where we are now, and whether or not...

A Ruff Day At The Office? (from Business2community.com)   According to USA Today, a growing number of companies are allowing employees to bring their pets, typically dogs, into the workplace. And its not just companies related to the pet industry that are doing this (e.g., Purina, IAMS, Friskies).   Pets at Work, otherwise known as PAWs (get it?), may just be a way to differentiate employee culture, or to try to further blur the modern day distinctions between where you work and where you live. But some studies offer persuasive evidence that the presence of pets not only reduces workplace stress levels for the pet...

ASN - 2 YEARS RUNNING!     Twenty local companies have earned a spot on Providence Business News’ 2019 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies, and 14 organizations were named among the state’s most innovative for PBN’s 2019 Fastest Growing & Innovative Companies program.   Companies with the highest-percentage growth in revenue from 2016 to 2018 will be honored on Sept. 18 at the Omni Providence Hotel, along with the winners in the various innovative companies categories.   Five finalists for PBN’s Fastest Growing competition were named in each of four revenue categories: $250,000 to $5 million; $5 million to $25 million; $25 million to $75 million; and...

It's so much more than your logo     A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another. – Seth Godin       Marketing experts have a joke “what’s the difference between a logo and a brand? About a $1000.”   A little bit funny, but it tends to devalue the true worth of a good brand. Companies like Apple and Microsoft, or the NFL and MLB, have all the money and expertise required to build a powerful brand and to consistently “stay on brand”.   Small businesses often do not have the resources...