Riia O'Donnell
With over 20 years of hands-on experience, Riia O’Donnell has worked in every discipline of the human resources function: recruitment, training and development, benefits administration, compensation, and management. Her writing has been featured on numerous EEO compliance, training, and management development websites.
Want to Reduce Employee Turnover? Focus on Management
Turnover is costly, turnover is expensive. We hear it over and over. We look for solutions: hire smarter, not faster. Onboard new hires to ensure they stay with the company. Some of these strategies work, others do not. To reduce employee turnover, you need executive-level buy-in to mitigate the human losses that translate into losses in production,…
15 June 2016
Employee Onboarding 101: From Day 0 to Day 90 and Beyond
Employee onboarding is one of the hottest topics in the HR community, and for good reason. Hiring staff is costly and time consuming. There’s nothing more satisfying to an HR pro than filling that spot and creating a brand spanking new employee file. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to do it all over again,…
02 June 2016
When (and How) to Fire an Employee: 7 Signs it's Time to Terminate
No one should ever be surprised to be fired. Unless your company has fallen victim to a pirate-worthy hostile takeover, or a 60 Minutes exposé that brings the villagers with torches and pitchforks, getting fired should never come out of the blue for any employee. Every employee who is terminated should know it’s coming and…
18 May 2016
How Negative Employee Reviews Hurt Your Employer Brand – and How to Stop Them
We love to talk about ourselves and our lives: the things we eat, see, love, and especially what we hate. We watch what others watch, avoid what others dislike, spot trends, learn new lingo, and see the world through fresh eyes. Nothing is too mundane or sublime to post – from how the barista misspelled…
05 April 2016
Why Use a Recruitment Agency? Benefits, Fees and Everything You Need to Know When Using These Companies
When you’re looking to put workers in chairs, you might consider using a recruitment agency or service to get the job done. There are a variety of services available, but should you use them, and how do you get the most for your money? The cost of hiring can exceed $40,000 per employee. Some of…
08 March 2016
Freelance vs. Full-time: The Pros and Cons of Hiring an Independent Contractor
Over the last decade the gig economy has transformed the way we work and do business in America. Access to remote work has changed the definition of work and workplace dramatically. More and more people are working from home or off-site, and more and more people are working as consultants or contractors. A recent study…
23 February 2016
10 HR Trends Shaking Up Small Business in 2016
HR trends come and go. Some are fleeting and some are keepers. We’ve stopped calling everything a “paradigm” and quit trying to create “synergy” (thankfully), but there are a lot of trends that come down the pike worth keeping. As the year progresses, here are some of the top HR trends in 2016 for small businesses to…
09 February 2016
Beat the Clock With These 14 Easy Time Management Tips
“Time management” may be the biggest misnomer in the world. Who can really manage time? Time travel isn’t possible yet, and neither are Zack Morris-style time-outs. So since we can’t really manage time, we need to consider managing ourselves. Time is moving forward whether we’re on the bus or not. We do, however, have control…
27 January 2016
10 Top Interview Questions to Ask Candidates
You’ve got your candidates lined up and ready to interview. You’ve recruited smart and you’ve got a wealth of applicants who, on paper, can do the job. Now you just need to figure out which one to hire – easy, right? The interview process will seal the deal, but how do you get better insight…
19 January 2016
Year-End Housekeeping: A 10-point HR Checklist
Open enrollment. Few words spark fear in the hearts of HR professionals more than these. Those 45 days when everyone turns in endless amounts of paperwork, ask endless questions, and is reminded, endlessly, that there isn’t much time to get it all done. Open enrollment can be a frustrating dance of tracking down vacationers, leavers,…
09 December 2015
