The New York Times-20080126-Same Office- Different Planets

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Same Office, Different Planets

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DO human resource executives know their employees?

When the professionals were asked to list the three things employees would say were the most important to them in deciding whether to stay with a company, the executives missed on all three, reports Workspan, a magazine that focuses on attracting, retaining and motivating employees.

Employees said benefits were most important. Compensation was second and growth and earning potential third.

The human resource executives guessed that the top three would be management climate, supervisor relationship and work environment. The executives predicted that compensation would come in seventh place, exactly where employees put supervisor relationship.

Perhaps the H.R. executives placed 'supervisor relationship' at No. 2 because they believe what is published and said so often: that people don't quit organizations or jobs, they quit their supervisors, wrote the magazine, published by WorldatWork, an international association of human resource professionals. But the data from the employees indicates that axiom might not be so rock solid.

The survey was conducted by Spherion, a recruiting and staffing company, and by the market research firm Harris Interactive. The results indicate the continuing resonance of the line from Cool Hand Luke: What we've got here is failure to communicate.

E-MAIL 101 E-mail is no longer a cutting-edge tool. But it is clear that some people still do not know how to use it effectively.

Writing in Black Enterprise, Tennille M. Robinson offers the following reminders:

E-mail is today's version of a business letter or interoffice memo; think accordingly. Make it look professional.

Think short. General guidelines state that you write one screen (25 lines) and stick with one subject.

Read it out loud for tone. If it sounds harsh to you, it probably is.

E-MAIL 102 For most people afflicted with e-mail overload, the problem isn't spam or unwanted newsletters, Inc. writes. The real problem lies with all those e-mails crying out for responses.

One simple solution is to place all those requests on your calendar or to-do list.

That move accomplishes two things: It keeps the e-mail from getting lost in the avalanche of messages you receive, and it can make you feel more in control. You don't have to make the decision instantly; you can handle it when it is more convenient.

By the way, if you are one of those people who complain about being unable to manage all the e-mail you receive, Inc. says that mastering e-mail is a subset of managing information. If you can't do that, it adds, your problems run much deeper than your in-box.

UNDO! UNDO! Writing in GQ, Cecil Donahue offers this useful advice to e-mail users: Never send anything you wouldn't be comfortable hearing read back to you in an entirely different context. Like your boss's office. Or a courtroom.

He coined a word that describes that sickening feeling you get immediately after having sent an ill-conceived e-mail: 'e-gret.'

To avoid e-grets, I'll type my rants without having put any names in the address field. Nine times out of 10, I delete the e-mail after I have vented, he writes. The other time, I'll send the e-mail to myself so I can read it over later -- and maybe I'll end up editing out some of the bile and sending the message along.

FINAL TAKE Some 48 percent of people surveyed said something key would be missing from their lives without the Web, Self magazine writes, reporting on a poll conducted by the ad agency JWT. Only 18 percent believe that they'd be fine living a week without it. PAUL B. BROWN

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