Like everyone else, bosses make up naughty and nice lists at this time of year—which column do you or your employees fall under?

Communication is the tool by which leaders, managers, and supervisors can create a work environment in which individuals feel valued, connected and actively engaged.

When a company decides to make a change, even when things are going well, employees get nervous. Acknowledging their concerns helps reinforce the feeling that youre all in this together, critical in reassuring people that you really do have their interests at heart.

For the fourth consecutive year, the annual Lab Manager Magazine - Kelly Scientific Resources® Salary & Employee Satisfaction Survey revealed valuable and interesting findings that can assist managers and their employees in improving efficiency and morale.

Done well and consistently, performance appraisals can be one of your most important tools in becoming an excellent manager. Accuracy, truthfulness, objectivity and courage are the keys to effective performance management through performance appraisals.

While technical ability is essential to becoming a successful laboratory manager, it is not sufficient. Many outstanding scientists or engineers have failed as lab managers. It takes more than just technical ability. What is this more that outstanding lab managers have?

Scientific communication researchers see a change in the prevailing mode of scientific communicationthe top-down deficit model to one in which being engaged with the public at some level is just part of what it means to be a scientist.

The mantra in your organization should be how each department can help every other department. Managers need to focus on how they can make it easy for customers to do business with their lab, and others need to focus on what they can do to make it easy for your lab to do business with them.