If you ask most of his employees, Doug is the ideal manager. He rewards hard work by offering his staff days off, is often heard telling people they’ve done a great job when passing them in the hallways, and will stop to help his team anytime they ask.

While Doug feels he’s on the right track with almost all of his employees, he can never seem to get on the same page with Carrie. During their monthly group meetings she’s very quiet, his gifts for her hard work seem underappreciated, and when he tells the team they’ve all done a good job, it doesn’t seem like she really hears him.

Does any of this make Doug a bad manager or Carrie a troublesome employee? No. The issue is that Doug, like many good managers, isn’t speaking the same language as all of his employees.

Forming a solid relationship, or bettering the ones you already have with your employees, is crucial for employees to reach their full potential. According to a recent  Virgin Pulse survey, 60 percent of respondents said their relationship with their employer positively impacts their focus or productivity at work and 44 percent said it positively impacts their stress levels.

Nurturing positive working relationships with every single employee is a manager’s dream, but how can that be possible with so many different personality types? The key is understanding your employees’ languages.

The popular relationship book, The 5 Love Languages, points out we all need to be aware of what languages those around us are speaking in order to fully develop our relationships.

Here’s how you can take four of those languages and begin speaking to your employees in a way they’ll understand:

Buying gifts, worrying about money to buy those gifts, spending time with family, not having time to spend with that family — even without added work pressure, your employees are already extra stressed during the holidays.

Virgin Pulse’s December 2014 survey of 1,000 participants, ‘Tis The Season For Stress, found 70 percent of employees have significantly raised stress levels during the holidays. Of those respondents, more than 10 percent said they feel an overwhelming 60 to 100 percent more stressed during this time of the year.

It turns out, the packed on stress during the holiday season isn’t just hurting your employees. In fact, Tis The Season For Stress reported 64 percent of employees say holiday-related stress causes them to be distracted at work, which in turn drives 30 percent more anxiety — diminishing their quality of work by the same amount. With so many employees feeling the effects of holiday stress, that’s a number employers can’t afford.

It’s time to leave the bottle of wine on the shelf and back away from the cinnamon scented candles. Your employees deserve long-term changes in the workplace that will help them de-stress and grow all year long. Here are three things your employees really want this holiday season:

This post was updated to bring you the most up-to-date tips, October 2020.

Journeying to Stars Hollow has taught us many lessons on love, friendships, and life over the years. The Gilmore Girls’ multitude of personalities has given everyone someone to relate to — but managers have the challenging task of connecting with every personality type in the office without the drama. 

Leaders must connect with employees, but it’s challenging with so many different workplace personalities in the office. In fact, a 2017 study by Ultimate Software found that for 93% of employees, trust in their direct boss is essential to staying satisfied at work. More than half of employees surveyed say if they aren’t satisfied at work, they can’t put forth their best effort.

Gilmore Girls has provided perfect examples of varying workplace personalities — here’s a look at how to create a relationship with each one:

Interviews can set a naturally anxious person over the edge. Putting these personality types into a stressful situation, where self-doubt kicks in, makes it extra difficult for them to have a successful interview.

A June CareerBuilder survey, How To Rethink The Candidate Experience And Make Better Hires, of 4,505 job seekers says over 50 percent of job applicants wonder if the hiring manager is looking for someone like them. That’s a lot of pressure for anyone, but especially for those with high anxiety.

In addition to this, CareerArc surveyed 1,200 job seekers in The State Of The Candidate Experience, and found 60 percent of candidates have had a poor hiring experience. No one likes to be put back into a negative situation. This alone can create anxiety.

Inside an anxious job seeker’s mind

People with high anxiety are often stereotyped as those who are quiet, can’t stop fidgeting, or have trouble looking others in the eyes. This isn’t always the case; sometimes people who are really anxious have no outward nervous tendencies or entirely unexpected ones.

One thing they typically have in common is, job seekers with anxious impulses have fears that they’re not good enough for the job — or any job. This hit to the confidence can make anyone feel nervous in an interview, so applicants who are susceptible to high anxiety feel even more stress towards the process.

How to coach them through their anxiety

Even the greatest of therapists would tell you to never attempt to help someone with anxiety get over their fears. Rather, it’s important to coach them on how to deal with these anxieties during stressful situations — like an interview. Use these tips to help your anxious job seekers work through their next interview with confidence and ease:

It’s time to spice up your job-hunting strategy. You know the external routes to getting hired by heart: CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, Indeed, and all the other search engines and job boards out there. But that ignores one very effective method to use in the job search: the employee referral. 

In SilkRoad’s 2017 Sources of Hire research, they found that hiring professionals prefer internal hiring more than external because it’s easier to find the right hire. And 45% of internal hires result from employee referrals. 

So, while Indeed does create the most interview opportunities, it’s employee referrals that remain the top source of hires. 

Of course, that begs the question, “Why isn’t everyone going wild over the greatness of referrals?” 

The main issue for job seekers is that they have no idea how to even receive an employee referral. After all, there aren’t job boards out there that just list opportunities at your friends’ companies. So you feel like to get referred for a job you have to sit and wait for someone to think of you. It gives you less control over your job hunt.

But in reality, there’s a lot you can do to move the process along and up your chances of getting an employee referral. You just have to know how to go about it. 

Here are three ways to get referred for a great job:

(This post was updated on 7/6/2020)

Going green. It’s a topic many people are concerned about nowadays. With so many people working remotely this year, we’ve had even more time to consider our environmental impact in both our home and work lives. So, how can we carry that mentality into the workplace once we go back to the office?

The chances are that even if you make an effort to incorporate environmental sustainability into your personal life, it might not be a big part of your professional life.

That means many employers are missing a huge opportunity to improve their employer branding. Even if you’re not overly going into the eco-friendly movement, there are a lot of benefits you can reap by incorporating environmental sustainability into your business model.

Here are three employer branding benefits that come along with being a greener company:

You spend hours crafting the perfect resume for each job you apply for. Careful thought goes into the words you choose to show that you are a professional and the right person for the position. But then you never hear back from employers.

Does this sound familiar? Chances are, you might be going about resume writing the wrong way. Job seekers and hiring managers have very different perspectives on certain words. A phrase that might seem perfect to you, could be meaningless to the person reading your resume, or worse, a deterrent from reading any farther.

Up your chances of getting your resume noticed by avoiding words that hiring managers and employers dislike. Here are four types of words you shouldn’t use in your resume writing:

There’s great news for job seekers: employers want to hire you! And in order to peak your interest about their company, many employers are starting to offer some creative and awesome benefit packages.

A 2016 Society of Human Resource Management survey found that between 2015 and 2016, 33 percent of companies increased the number of benefits they offered. And in many cases, those new benefits are more than the traditional health insurance and vacation policies

With so many great perks to choose from, it can be easy for a job seeker to get distracted. But it’s important to remember a job should offer you more than its benefits package. Avoid being mesmerized by the extras by knowing which ones will actually fit your needs or lifestyle.

Here are five trendy employee benefits and what they can tell you about the company offering them: