Companies can struggle to stay competitive when they have too many similar-minded employees. Yet a new BCG/EAPM survey shows that many companies still frame workforce diversity in terms of legal compliance. Tailored diversity measures should be employed for business reasons—to deliver better products, improve innovation, or make the organization more agile. Authors: Jean-Michel Caye, Caroline Teichmann, Rainer Strack, Pieter Haen, Stephanie Bird, Gerold Frick

Every corporate downsizing event has certain predictable outcomes such as feelings of betrayal, loss of trust, turf battles, and cynicism about the corporation’s future. This typically leads to a widespread lack of commitment throughout the organization. But downsizing can also bring significant opportunities for creating new energy and enthusiasm which often go unrecognized.

Despite years of cutbacks, many companies’ pay structures are still unbalanced. Here’s a dispassionate, logical way to realign them.

In this job market, you might expect that hiring new employees would be easy. But many entrepreneurs still struggle to find good people. To be sure, not every candidate is a rock star. But if you keep turning up dud after dud, the problem may not be the applicant pool. In a quest to find the best workers, entrepreneurs sometimes wind up adopting hiring practices that are actually detrimental to their companies. Here are the four most common problems that afflict interviewers.

Even experienced interviewers often make mistakes. Here are six of the most common mistakes interviewers make, and what to do instead.

Workers with new skills will leave if they don’t see a career path ahead.

Angela Baldonero of Return Path offers here thoughts on interviewing.

With fresh faces in organizations and new interns flooding offices, it's time to really think about what the first steps are for bringing a new employee onto your team.

The need to empower natural leaders isn’t an HR pipe dream, it’s a competitive imperative. But before you can empower them, you have to find them.

I don't claim to be good at hiring, but I do have a particular style that I learned from some advisors.

I never actually interview people. Ever.

Here are some ways to make it easier for you to select the best employees for your business.

When you decided to start a business, it probably wasn’t the fun of keeping up with the latest employment regulations, tax issues, and OSHA requirements that lit your fire. Nevertheless, if you have even a single employee, you’re stuck with all that and more. You’re not alone and fortunately, where there is opportunity there are generally entrepreneurs with a solution. Enter the world of professional employer organizations (PEOs).

According to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, while the industry is relatively young—less than 30 years old—there are more than 700 PEOs across the U.S. So how do you pick a good one? Here are some questions to get you started on your search.

Let’s begin with what you already know, at least intuitively: Employee engagement is good for your company.

Now let’s turn to what you may not know about employee engagement: everything else.

Experts say stock options are lousy incentive mechanisms for motivating rank-and-file employees to work hard. Why then do large companies continue to use stock options as incentives when they have no direct incentive effects? Paul Oyer, an assistant professor of economics who has studied stock options extensively and specializes in a growing area of HR management known as personnel economics, has tackled this question in his research.

In this issue of the American Management Association's MWorld's Leader's Edge Scott D. Anthony provides pointers for executives seeking to identify the hidden innovators within their companies and tips for how to develop the next generation of innovation talent.

Everyone wants to hire stars. But stars are very particular about the opportunities they take. After all, if you can be choosy, you should be.

So the question is, how do you get star performers if you aren’t hiring for a dream job? The answer is, you go for the people who don’t yet know they are stars. So, here are five ways to identify star performers at a stage in their career when they are easy to hire: the beginning.

To improve results from training programs, executives must focus on what happens in the workplace before and after employees go to class.

The main reason training fails is because it isn’t training that is needed. If you want improvement, it is easy to assume the first thing your employee needs is more training but in most cases, you would be wrong. And when you are wrong, the training you provide will likely be a complete waste. Even when you are right, there are myriad reasons why training has no apparent effect. Training develops skills. While skills are obviously important, skill alone does not allow an employee to succeed.

Research shows that many more employees would opt for flexible work models if the offerings better met their needs and if they saw visible success stories. For employers, the rewards can be huge: increased employee satisfaction, loyalty and retention. This Bain study investigates how to get this virtuous flywheel going.

Tough times don’t mean that you should just forget about rewarding your employees. There are many ways that you can reward employees without handing them money, and many of these are things you can do right now, with very little effort. Here are a whopping 51 things you can give your employees that don’t include cutting them a check

Startups. We know the mantra: Team matters. Is this philosophy exaggerated? Overrated? Cliché? No. Team is the only thing that matters. So how exactly do you assemble such a team?

In the market to hire someone? If you are like most others in business, you place a high priority on the amount of experience that an applicant has. Everyone looking for their next hire seems to look for the “best” employee, as defined by the applicant's experience. Obviously, someone with 10 years of experience is better than someone with two years, right? Not so quick.

Development of a transparent employment process that results in not only the best person for the position being appointed but also keeps that person by making the company accountable for all promises and, or perceptions made or implied during the process.

Hiring and training new employees is not only time-consuming, it’s also costly. That’s why, when you bring someone aboard, you should be doing all you can to make it a great start. First impressions go a long way, and if you can get that new hire off to a great start, you will have a much greater chance of having them stick around. Here are some ways that can help you get your new employees off to a great start.

Why are some companies able, or not able, to retain top talent? Knowing the answer is critical because high performance requires a knack for attracting, developing and keeping great people. Accenture discusses how top companies consistently recognize, nurture and hold on to the best of the best.