When clients first come to me, I often hear these senior leaders talk about the lack of sleep at night. More often than not, they describe being fearful of what they don’t know when it comes to Human Resources compliance or an employee relations issue they fear may lead to a lawsuit. While we certainly alleviate their concerns by getting their HR department into shape, what I actually get excited to hear more is when a leader is worried about not doing enough to attract and retain top talent. They want to learn how to engage employees and develop them beyond the skills they have today to make a bigger impact.

Fairfax Chamber Announces 2014 Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Awards Winners Honors Community Leaders for Dedication & Vision that Created Vibrant Northern Virginia

With the dawn of health care reform and the increased focus on regulation and cost control, it has never been more important for employers to have a good insurance broker to help navigate the logistics and best practices surrounding benefits administration. But, not all brokers are created equal.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) turned 20 last year, celebrating two decades of providing employees with much needed job protection. For employers, the story is a little more complicated as many still struggle to understand the ever-evolving regulations and stay on top of court precedents. Compliance in small businesses can be particularly challenging as companies lack the internal expertise to interpret and comply with the law. And even when the employer does everything right, sometimes the employee still fails to meet his or her responsibilities.

Things are a bit different in the 21st century around the workplace with laptops, cellphones, and even tablets as the norm for technology issued when a new hire begins. Although employees are provided with different tools to communicate from any and everywhere, leaders sometimes fail to effectively engage their virtual workforce. While of course this is not on purpose, but we see it occur due to the old saying, "out of sight, out of mind".

The job market is slowly but surely recovering from the 2007-2009 recession. As hiring increases across the United States, more and more people are leaving their jobs voluntarily. In fact, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, since the recession, the number of voluntary separations has increased by 49 percent. So, how can you as an employer stop or reduce this significantly increasing voluntary turnover? One answer is by analyzing the reasons that employees are leaving. This can be done through an exit interview, ensuring that there is a conversation and not just an automated questionnaire. The difficult part once you have found out why employees are leaving, is to address the issues and come up with long-term solutions.