Across the pond

One entrepreneur reveals his list of the most bizarre employee excuses for not making it into work.

Some 350,000 British employees were estimated to have called in sick to work on 1 February, the day dubbed by experts as National Sickie Day. The mass absence was expected to have cost businesses around £30m in lost revenue and productivity.

Clients say the funniest things…read our selection of the some of the farfetched tales given for failing to fill out those pesky tax returns on time.

There are all sorts of reasons people give for not being able to submit their tax returns on time, from the genuinely sensible to the truly ridiculous. Here are a few of our favorites from around the web*.

1.    “I suffer from late filing syndrome”

When bad things happen to good leaders

You’ve done all the right things. You’ve provided crystal clear direction to your organisation, rewarded courageous risk-taking, encouraged innovation, honored diversity, demanded personal accountability, put the customer first…but it all just went to hell in a hand basket. Your market just went south, a major product failed or your biggest customer went under. Your numbers are in the tank, your best people are leaving and you no longer know whom to trust on your management team.

• Supernanny offers lessons in business turnaround/performance management
• Her simple formula is observation/feedback/coach followed by recognition/reward/discipline
• Rather than leaping in with solutions, spend a day or more observing
• Supernanny is not afraid of having uncomfortable but courageous conversations
• Are your rewards relevant and meaningful for the individuals?

What can a reality TV personality tell us about leadership? Owen Smith argues that Supernanny could teach entrepreneurs a thing or two.

The 10 strategy tenets for developing a customer-driven workforce

Turning a customer service strategy into reality is a key challenge for organisations. Today, most senior managers realise that customer service is the competitive strategic weapon but achieving this is sometimes a major challenge. Organisations are their people, and developing a customer-driven workforce has to be the key role of customer service leaders and managers… so how can they do this?