Survey Salary is more taboo than sex, marriage woes and STDs

Survey Salary is mora taboo than sex, marriage woes and STDsSurvey Salary is more taboo than sex, marriage woes and STDsDiscussing how much money you earn is still a taboo, even among your closest friends. A new survey from CreditLoan found out that we are more willing to bring up our messy marriages, conniving coworkers, and declining health before we bring up salaries with our closest friends.When CreditLoan surveyed 1,000 Americans, ansicht employees said they were more willing to share embarrassing personal details with their closest companions before they got real about their salaries. They were more likely to discuss their cheating partner, problems at work, sex life, marriage problems, physical and mental health issues, sexually transmitted diseases, student loan debt, and the state of their finances before they talked about salaries.In fact, less than half of men and women said they discussed their salary with friends. They were 29% more likely to discuss problems at work bef ore they talked about salaries. Across gendered lines, women were more likely than men to openlytalk to their friends about their relationship with their partners and their mental health, while menwere slightly more likely to talk about salary to their friends.Survey Salaries are still taboo to talk about with friendsTo find out how much you are being valued for your work, it helps to know what others around you are making. And that can only happen through open, sometimes uncomfortable conversations with your friends and colleagues about standards of pay. And for women, these conversations can be especially valuable, because the gender wage gap continues to persist in industries. Finding out youre underpaid begins with knowing what you should be paid. So why dont more women do it?There are no exact answers, but there are theories. They could be more aware of the professional penalties they face, and that makes them unable to let down their guard - even in their personal life among their closest confidantes. When women talk about salaries the way men do, they are more likely to face a backlash. Research has found that women who use the same salary negotiation tactics as men arenegatively perceivedas pushy or assertive.But when women do not talk about money, they lose the pay-transparency database that employees gain by talking to each other. Thats whatTechGirls Canada founder Saadia Muzaffar found out when a male colleague told her she was making 40% less than a colleague with less experience for the same role.When Muzaffar asked her male colleague how he knew how much she was being underpaid, he said it was because his network had told him what the standards of pay were. Hes like, Men talk about this all the time, she said, which she thinks is because men are discouraged less, threatened less, with breaking rules at work.

7 Ways to Retain Your Best Clients

7 Ways to Retain Your Best Clients 7 Ways to Retain Your Best Clients Without a doubt, it is much more expensive and time-consuming to seek out new business clients compared to generating new business with your existing clients. Thats why it is so important to your consulting practice to nurture your existing relationships and retain your best clients. By focusing on your best clients, youll increase the value of your tafelgeschirrs in the eyes of the client and ensure future projects will come your way.Here are a few simple rules of thumb to follow that will help retain your clients1. Understand your clients needs While you may have a wide range of skills and offer a variety of consulting services, it is fruchtwein likely that your client doesnt need them all. It is critical that you understand your clients goals and deliver only those services that will help achieve those goals. Never oversell. The client will soon realize that the ancillary services you may offer arent impacting t he bottom line and may ultimately jeopardize your relationship.2. Set expectations and layout deliverablesIn your proposal, be sure that you clearly describe your services and how they will be delivered. It is critical that you set expectations up front and the client understands exactly what and how you will provide your services. At the end of the day, it is imperative that the client sees progress towards the end goal. And, it is important that you document and report your progress. If there are tangible, measurable objectives, document the numbers.3. Never overpromise, over deliver insteadA bad mistake for a consultant is to make a promise and not keep it. Once youve created doubt in the mind of the client, it is difficult to regain that trust. Its best to keep your deliverables realistic and deliver more than expected. Your client will appreciate your effort to go above and beyond.4. Tie service to the bottom lineBusiness is all about profitability, and like yourself, your clie nt wants to see his/her profits grow. One way to increase profits is to reduce costs, and eliminating your consulting fee might be an approach your client may consider at some point. Thats why it is critical to document how your contribution is positively impacting the bottom line. If you can demonstrate how your service is helping to improve profitability, your client will be more likely to look at cost cutting measures elsewhere. Document and report whenever possible.5. Provide added valueAlways go out of your way to provide more value by going beyond your scope of service. Send a market report you ran across or an article that you know your client will be interested in, even if it pertains to your clients personal vs. business interests. Your efforts will be greatly appreciated and your client will feel he is getting a bigger bang for the buck.6. Build relationships with several employeesWhenever possible, build relationships with others who work with your client. If others can s ee the value you bring to the table, they are more likely to encourage your client to keep your services and perhaps even request your services as well. If your client changes position or leaves the company, youll have a better chance at keeping the business.7. No surprisesStay organized and focused on your plan. Let there be no surprises like missing a deadline or overrunning a budget. Be prepared for the unexpected, but the more you can keep chaos out of the picture, the more valuable you will be to your client.Tom Ricci is an independent writer.It is critical that you understand your clients goals and deliver only those services that will help achieve those goals.

You only need to get it right with your baby 50% of the time, according to science

You only need to get it right with your baby 50% of the time, according to scienceYou only need to get it right with your baby 50% of the time, according to scienceRelax, worried parents. You dont have to do everything perfectly with your baby. In fact, if you get things right about half of the time, according to research, your child will turn out fine.The study, led by Lehigh University researcher Susan S. Woodhouse, an expert on infant attachment, concerned caregivers response to babies when they cried. You only needed to get it right 50% of the time when responding to the babies need for attachment to have a positive impact on the baby, researchers found. The findings were published in the journal Child Development and co-authored with researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Maryland.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more50/50Securely-attached babies m eaning babies who feel safe are likely to do better as children or adults. Secure attachment is also linked to better mental health in both childhood and adulthood, as well as an increased readiness for starting school.The results were especially promising for low-income families, who researchers studied exclusively 83 mothers and infants in all.The study focused on the mothers responses to their crying baby when it cried to measure feelings of security. It also focused on the mothers status as a secure cousine when the baby was playing or exploring. Babies felt that their mother was a secure base if the responded and soothed their cries at least 50% of their time specifically, with close, snuggly contact until they were completely calm.Examples of getting it wrong in ways that lead to insecurity were scaring the baby, not handling the baby gently, yelling, or failing to protect the infant from another threatening child. Overparenting had the same effect. But the most important t hing you can do, the research found, is comfort your child as often as you can, even if you dont pick up the infant immediately.The findings provide evidence for the validity of a new way of conceptualizing the maternal caregiving quality that actually works for low-income families, Woodhouse said, in a release.Because low socioeconomic-status parents juggle multiple challenges associated with low socioeconomic status, it may be helpful for them to know that holding a crying infant until fully soothed, even 50% of the time, promotes security, the researchers said. Such a message could help parents increase positive caregiving without raising anxiety regarding perfect parenting or setting the bar so high as to make change unattainable in families that face multiple stressors.Ways of maintaining a calm connectedness and being a secure base for a baby throughout the day could include carrying the baby on the hip while the caregiver does tasks, researchers suggested, an act that could also encourage secure attachment.Tough cookieThese findings arent meant to rebel against attachment theory, Woodhouse said, but provide an attachment framework that is more accessible across race, culture, and socioeconomic class.What really matters is in the end, does the parent get the job done both when a baby needs to connect, and when a baby needs to explore Woodhouse said.Ultimately, she said, the research showed that babies were quite resilient.It really is a different way of looking at the quality of parenting The other part is that you dont have to do it 100 percent you have to get it right about half of the time, and babies are very forgiving and its never too late. Keep trying. You dont have to be perfect, you just have to be good enough.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your product ivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people