How to Deal With Bully Bosses

"Do you have a bad manager? Someone who makes your life miserable all week by criticizing your every move? Experts offer their tips on handling bully and toxic bosses...

According to a study by the Employment Law Alliance, almost half of all employees have been targeted by a bully boss.

The study also revealed the following:

• 81 percent of bullies are managers.
• 50 percent of bullies are women and 50 percent are men.
• 84 percent of targets are women.
• 82 percent of targets ultimately lost their job.
• 95 percent of bullying is witnessed."

Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation

via mashable.com: "Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online and CEO of online reputation monitoring tool Trackur...outlines ten tactics that could prevent your company suffering its own online reputation meltdown..."

Summary:

1. Know your achilles heel
2. Assume everything will make it’s way to the web
3. Create a great online impression; dress to impress!
4. Choose your blog voice carefully
5. Hangout at the right social network
6. Send blogger’s love letters, not PR pitches
7. Build your Google reputation now, not later
8. Monitor your online reputation as often as your email
9. Ostriches are not great role-models
10. Three words to remember

While definitely a promo for his book, this is an insightful article nonetheless.

How to Wake Up with Energy Each Morning

We dedicate this post to Daylight Saving Time. On to the article...

Apply the 80/20 Principle with The FreelanceSwitch Client Analyser

Freelance switch has just added a cool new online tool called the "Client Analyser". It is based on the 80/20 or Pareto Principle:

"The way it works is that you put in your clients, answer some questions about them and then it lines up the data into tables, showing you where the results are coming from so you can compare and contrast them. The more clients you add, the better it works.

You should note, it’s not meant to be a very serious tool, more just a lightweight look at some of your client list. If you put in the minimum 8 clients and just guess values you can go through in about 10 minutes or so, and longer for more clients and more precision..."

Freelancers can also use Coworkers.com Reviews to rate and compare their various client contacts. The more data that can be gathered about a client portfolio, the more meaningful the insight.

Coworkers.com Announces Improved Review Management Features

Coworkers.com has improved its review management capabilities by allowing users to more easily dispute and exclude unwanted reviews.



“One of the strengths of our review platform is that it allows for the creation of detailed, and optionally anonymous, reviews. While this offers our users the ability to give and receive unbiased feedback, it is also open to occasional misuse. Seeking to better address this, and in listening to feedback from our users, we have simplified the process for excluding such unwanted reviews from a users profile.” explains CEO Jonathan Clay. “Should a user receive a review that does not seem legitimate – for example an anonymous review that seems like ‘spam’, they can simply login and “dispute” the review with a single click. After the user enters a reason (for example, ‘erroneous’ or ‘excessive’), the review will be excluded from their profile, and its rating will no longer count toward their aggregate score. In addition, a user can report a disputed review to Coworkers.com if it appears to violate our TOS.”

Clay goes on to say “since our ‘soft launch’ (beta release) last year, we have been listening closely to our early adopters, as well as knowledgeable business advisors, trying to find the right balance between information freedom and protection against derogatory information in the delicate area of work reputation management. We believe that we now have a solution that is fair and effective for all parties concerned. By restricting disputed reviews to premium (paying) members, we are acknowledging the fact that abuse can occur and minimizing its impact, without sacrificing the principle that honest information about people’s work histories should be accessible.” Professional reviews are just one of the many workplace performance tools offered at Coworkers.com. Review a colleague, or request feedback today.

Projection: it ain't just for the movies!

Christine Hassler dispenses some excellent advice in this answer to "how do I deal with an irritating coworker?" As she points out, our temptation to lash out at a coworker often has as much to do with ourselves as with the other. Before giving them a piece of our mind, it's a good idea to look inside ourselves and think about what part psychological projection may be playing. And when we decide it is necessary to communicate our frustrations (i.e. with a Coworkers.com Review) we should keep in mind that it's in both persons' interest to keep it professional and constructive.