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Whether a small employer offers health care insurance, research out of the Mayo Clinic shows that offering your employees discounted memberships in wellness centers can cut both your and your employees health care costs with an added benefit of weight loss.  According to a new Mayo Clinic study, starting a employee well center or partnering with a health club is an effective and relatively low cost way to help control the costs of health care by encouraging a healthy lifestyle among your workforce. Boost Employee Health and Wellness : Getting to the Heart of the Matter by Carol A. Vance, Ph.D. Click on image for more information Significant weight loss and health care savings Research published this month in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine shows that members of Mayo Clinic's employee wellness center, the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center (DAHLC), who regularly participated in wellness activities, experienced significant wei...

Looking for happiness in all the wrong places? Everyone knows that money can’t buy happiness – yet some men and women invest a lifetime of effort trying to buy their way into a satisfying life despite research and experience clearly showing that people who are materialistic are less satisfied with their standards of living, their relationships and their lives as a whole. You might ask why pursue a goal that won't make you happy in either the short or the long term?  With that being the case, James A. Roberts of Baylor University and two colleagues set out to explore the relationship between materialism -- making acquisition of material possessions a central focus of one's life -- and life satisfaction. They wondered if anything could make materialistic people more satisfied with their lot. Grateful individuals are more satisfied with their lives They chose to test how gratitude, a positive emotion experiences when someone feels another...

The bad news? Research out of Washington University in St. Louis shows you'll only stay in the top 1% of earners for a year or so. According to new research, there's a 1 in 9 chance that the typical American (you) will hit the jackpot and join the wealthiest 1 percent for at least one year in her or his working life. Only an elite few get to stay in that economic stratosphere -- and  nonwhite workers remain among those who face far longer odds. Click on image to order your copy. This, according to Mark Rank, PhD, the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the Brown School and co-author of the influential book 'Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes.' According to the authors, "Education, marriage and race are among the strongest predictors of top-level income, and in particular the race effect suggests persistent patterns of social inequality." Relying on data collected regularly since 1968 as part of the University of Mic...

An interesting post by Srini Pillay on a blog at the Harvard Business Review that I recommend you read and think about.  As the author points out: People often prepare for failure, but rarely prepare for what they will do when they succeed.  And this can cause you unexpected problems. Here is the gist of the article, with a link to the original. "Don’t do victory laps. "Focus on the value you bring, not on winning per se. "Stay in the “here and now”. "Reach higher. "People often prepare for failure, but rarely prepare for what they will do when they succeed. Even when we consciously want to be successful, enjoying that success can be a challenge. By following the suggestions above, you can create a framework for managing success so that you can more reliably sustain your success when it occurs. If you are conscious about these factors, you will create far more opportunities to sustain your success over time." Click here to read the full HBR article: The Un...

next-invest.ru One facet of the mythology about today's entrepreneurs is that they are major risk takers.  But are they?  This study goes against this stereotype, pointing out that many entrepreneurs take very reasonable risks after considering the costs to their lives. Over the years I've read studies that point out that many true entrepreneurs are cautious about their decisions to go into business, often working full and part time jobs for the first year or two of their enterprise. Here's the report on the study: Entrepreneurs Are Not Overconfident Gamblers L eaving one's job to become an entrepreneur is inarguably risky. But it may not be the fear of risk that makes entrepreneurs more determined to succeed. A new study finds entrepreneurs are also concerned about what they might lose in the transition from steady employment to startup. Suggested reading click on image In "Entrepreneurship and Loss-Aversion in a Winner-Take-All Society," Professor John Morga...

Source: mpiweb.org T hose business owners or managers who are more critical of their own leadership style than their employees have the greatest success.  Why?  Leaders with self-insight, who are humble and act as credible role models, are rewarded with committed and service-minded employees. This is the conclusion in a study conducted among 1500 leaders and their employees. The leaders were asked to assess their own leadership style, while their employees were asked to assess the same style. The eye of the beholder is in fact important for a leader's ability to create job commitment and a good service climate. The organisation researchers compared the employees' assessments and the leader's assessments of his or her leadership style, and found that the responses were by no means identical -- rather the opposite. Suggested reading click on image The employees decide Leaders can think whatever they like about their own leadership style. The study shows that leaders' asse...

  " Customers are more likely to forgive firms when service failures are associated with religion, no matter what religion was used in the scenarios: Christianity, Judaism or Islam." W hile companies like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A are at the forefront of debate over the religious rights of employers, a new study by a Grand Valley State University researcher shows religious affiliation can safeguard companies against negative reactions to store policies.  Kelly Cowart , Assistant professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University The research, led by Kelly Cowart, assistant professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University, examines the effect of a firm's religious association on customer perceptions of the firm, especially when a service failure occurs. A service failure is defined as limited hours of operation or a temporary store closing.   Cowart said the current findings indicate that religious affiliations may buffer against some of the negative fallou...

Credit: © diego cervo / Fotolia New research shows that many people seen by others as under- assertive or over-assertive think they're appropriately assertive .   N ew research shows that many people seen by others as under-assertive or over-assertive think they're appropriately assertive. The study also reveals that people seen as getting assertiveness right often mistakenly think they've gotten it wrong.   Jill Abramson was recently ousted from her position as the executive editor of The New York Times for being, among other things, too "pushy." But did Abramson -- who has also been described by the media as "polarizing" and "brusque" -- know during the course of her tenure that others viewed her as being overly assertive? A new study from the Columbia Business School suggests that there's a great chance she didn't. "Finding the middle ground between being pushy and being a pushover is a basic challenge in social life and the wor...

Photo: BodyLanguageProjectCom Approach Avoidance: She subtly moves away from him as he leans  toward her; she is following her natural instinct to move away.     W e probably all had the experience of having a sales person get right into our face as they try to pressure us into buying.  It's not comfortable, and now we know why.  It's called "Approach Avoidance."  This is something I learned long ago during on-the-job sales training from a wily old sales dog - and now I now what it's called, and why it works. We, the human animal, learned over our millions of year of existence to fear something that was approaching.  As Chicago Booth School of Business professor Christopher K. Hsee, explains in his recent paper, "In our long struggle for survival, we humans learned that something approaching us is far more of a threat than something that is moving away. This makes sense, since a tiger bounding toward a person is certainly more of a threat than one that...

Source: becauseirocklikehell.tumblr.com R unning a small business is time consuming.  There's so much to do and often so little time in which to do it.  Consider the possibility of your business experiencing computer fraud.  Suppose an employee either deliberately or accidently misusing the information on your computer system.  How much time would it take you to clean up the mess?  Could it even put you out of business? Fortunately, Shalini Kesar, a computer scientist at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, has devised an anti-fraud strategy for business that is straight forward and effective. Suggested reading click on image "Computer fraud can result from incompetence, ignorance, negligence in the use of Information Technology or deliberate misappropriation by individuals," says Kesar. This results in the destruction of not only the main information systems but also backup systems, causing damages up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. Kesar points o...

I f you've considered starting a business but haven't because you've told yourself, "I'm just not smart enough," here is a study that concludes: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to accumulate wealth.   In fact, the study concludes that people of average IQ are just as likely to be rich as a person with a high IQ.  To go further, the study discovered that people of below average intelligence were, overall, just about as wealthy as those in similar circumstances but with higher scores on an IQ test. There are two things you can take from this study: You don't have to be smart or a genius to become rich People of high intelligence are just as likely to make poor financial decisions and get themselves into money trouble, even bankruptcy. Suggested reading Click on image “Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth. And being very smart does not protect you from getting into financial difficulty,” say J. Zagorsky, a research scientist at Ohio State ...

The corner of Dyckman Street and Broadway in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood before and after the arrival of Starbucks R unning a business is about getting the best return you can on your invested time and money.  Okay, sure, there are life-style businesses that attract entrepreneurs for reasons other than making money, but even then it's smart to keep an eye on return on investment. "Relatively low-priced houses sometimes appreciates more quickly than those in expensive neighborhoods." I think most of us are well aware of the recent "gentrification" of older, shabbier neighborhoods that suddenly, seemingly overnight, become magnets to investment and a higher-income population.  According to research published last year from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, run-down urban neighborhoods generally offer the best return on investment for real estate investors - which implies that the same neighborhoods should be considered for locating a business...

T his research confirms something anyone in retail already knows: Snobby, rude sales people are better at selling luxury items.  Who'd a thunk?  But, really, it's reassuring when a scientifically vetted study confirms what we already know. So it's true.  At least when it comes to luxury brands, the ruder the sales staff the better the sales. The study reveals that consumers who get the brush-off at a high-end retailer can become more willing to purchase and wear pricey togs. Hire effete snobs in your high-end shop Suggested reading Click on image "It appears that snobbiness might actually be a qualification worth considering for luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Gucci," says one marketing professor. "Our research indicates they can end up having a similar effect to an 'in-group' in high school that others aspire to join." For the study, participants imagined or had interactions with sales representatives -- rude or not. They then rated their fe...

If you own a restaurant or are thinking of starting one, consider how much the prices you charge effect the ratings your food earns.  Here's a fact of life confirmed by new research: Taste perception can be manipulated by price alone. C ustomers paying more at a restaurant buffet perceive the food as tastier than the same food offered at a lower price, suggesting taste perception can be manipulated by price alone. Researchers in nutrition, economics and consumer behavior often assume that taste is a given -- a person naturally either likes or dislikes a food. But a new study suggests taste perception, as well as feelings of overeating and guilt, can be manipulated by price alone. Suggested reading click on image "We were fascinated to find that pricing has little impact on how much one eats, but a huge impact on how you interpret the experience," said Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University who oversa...

I f you currently operate a store or website that sells wedding gifts, you’ve probably noticed a pattern in the gift selection your customers make. If you’re thinking of opening a retail store or site and considering offering gifts, there is a pattern in the purchases people make of which you should be aware. According to research published in 2013 in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, how you select stock price points effects your overall success.  If you think, "I'll offer both expensive and inexpensive gifts," you're on the right track, but you should consider how people purchasing off of gift registries behave.  It's a little more complex than just expensive and cheap. According to a statistical analysis of the gift "fulfillments" at 500 online wedding gift registries, “wedding guests are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to buying an appropriate gift for the happy couple.” The rock is the desire of so...

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the...

" Elite job prospects likely steer clear of potential employers they don't trust ." I t's a common practice for employers, from the very large to the very small, to screen the Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites of job prospects as part of the hiring process. Research from North Carolina State University is clear that this practice is likely to backfire by alienating the very prospects you most want to staff your business. In some cases, social media screening even increases the likelihood that you could find yourself in court, defending yourself. "The recruiting and selection process is your first indication of how you'll be treated by a prospective employer," says Will Stoughton, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research. "If elite job prospects feel their privacy has been compromised, it puts the hiring company at a competitive disadvantage." The results of two studies In the first study, 175 p...

W orking with prospective entrepreneurs that lack management training or experience has its joys, one of which is helping them develop a mindset that can lead them and their businesses to success. Mindset includes, to my way of thinking, learning to think like a business owner, keeping a rough P&L and Balance Sheet running in the mind, learning to think about their business as do their customers and prospective customers, learning to evaluate opportunity, how to capture it and use it to build their business without wasting time over analyzing the situation. Mindset involves attitude as well as skills, so in the workshops I lead, students spend time learning simple but useful attitude management practices based on the latest science. According to researchers PhD student John-Erik Mathisen and Associate Professor Jan Ketil Arnulf at BI Norwegian Business School, increased formal competence (business education) affects the mindset of people who are interested in becoming an entreprene...