The Increasing Value of Hands-On Workers   Manual Hands-On Labor is More Important Than Ever!   The industrial revolution started when businesses began using energy that wasn’t generated by people or animals. Although, historically, mankind has long used wind power (think windmills in Holland) as well as waterpower (the gristmill) for millennium, he mainly relied on human sweat to get things done.   With the advent of the steam engine, and soon after the discovery of electricity and its wide-spread use, the industrial revolution really took off. Automation was the catalyst. Electronics were the next major shift, followed swiftly by computing, robotics, and now, artificial intelligence...

Digital Data Can Be Misleading   Data is everywhere. Data is everything. Data can’t help but reveal the truth. Data lies. It’s all about the data. The opportunities for data collection are endless. The morality of collecting all this data can be questionable. The ethical use of this data is, unfortunately, in the eyes of the keeper of the data.   The latest Gallup survey in June of this year estimated that 34 million people worked in hybrid environments, a mix of office and home. Additionally, 36.5 million people in the U.S. worked remotely at least five days a week as of early August,...

Managing the Hybrid Office   Today’s office environment, in many ways, is hardly recognizable from that of just a few years ago. Although many have been talking about the “new normal,” no one yet knows what that will look like.   Supervisors are perplexed as to how to manage when some of their employees may be in the office, at least part-time, while others are working remotely. This turns the role of manager into something that they don’t recognize, nor have any experience with.   Traditionally, most employees aspired to become managers, seeking more money, more responsibility, a nice office, and the perks that go along...

Rise of the Pocket Office     There has been a lot written lately about the need for employees to return to working in the office. There are many reports of companies that have insisted that employees return. There are other reports about companies that are embracing the "pocket office,” and still others that are adopting a hybrid approach; some work from home mixed with time required in the office.     In 2007, there were, globally, 122 million smart phones circulating. By 2021, this had risen to 1,536 million. With the power of the smart phone, it's possible to almost literally have an office in...

Is Your Company the Next Hudson Hornet?   “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”.   We have all seen this warning on our car’s side-view mirror. Unfortunately, we don’t always take it as seriously as we should, which can have some rather nasty consequences.   Bringing this analogy to our businesses can be a healthy exercise. But before we go there, let’s examine the history of the Hudson Motor Company which, for several decades, was one of the leader automobile manufacturers in North America. Hudson was an American car company that was founded in 1909 by Joseph Hudson, a Detroit department store entrepreneur. They...