Every year, smoking kills 48,000 people in the United States and over the course of the past two decades, TV commercials and print advertisements have made it clear of the danger that comes from tobacco products.

Effective marketing has taken smoking from being cool to not so cool. Millennials were the first generation to grow up in the anti-tobacco times and that’s why it should come as no surprise that 83% of the “Me Generation” disapprove of smoking cigarettes. However, Millennials and now, Generation Z, have adopted an alternative method to cigarettes that has become the latest fad.

The workplace and general office environment, whether we are aware of it or not, is always changing. New policies come into vogue and both political and social movements force either welcome or unwelcome change upon employees and owners alike, and HR specialists need to adapt to the demands and requests of a constantly changing staff.

There are a lot of benefits to having a strong company culture. Employees who work well together and feel like a member of a trusted team tend to be more productive and engaged at work. Leadership skills within strong company cultures are more developed than in companies who lack this valuable asset. All of this culminates into better revenue for a business.

To create a great company culture, you need to hire the right people for your team. Somehow, this effort seems to be more easily said than done and hiring mistakes are made frequently. Here are some of the common hiring mistakes to avoid.

Over the course of three days at the Annual LeadingAge Meeting & Expo in Philadelphia, our Gurus met with other Gurus, exchanged ideas, learned more about the booming industry, and further confirmed our commitment to helping the Senior Care Industry improve people processes, mitigate compliance risk, and control labor costs. We also had the pleasure of handing out our “Relax, We Goat This” t-shirts, stuffed goats, (sorry, we left the real goats at home) and had the opportunity to visit with some of our awesome clients.

Navigating your way through the HR world can be a challenge, especially when you're new to the field. And, like any other job, sometimes you make a few mistakes along the way.

When you're in charge of hiring, a bad hire can do serious damage to your company – and your reputation.

A bad hire can be a big waste of time, money, and resources. It can hurt morale. And it's a poor reflection of the person who hired that employee in the first place.

Human resource managers need to know the signs of a bad hire so they can avoid facing issues down the line.

Keep reading to learn the 7 signs most HR managers miss that can indicate your new hire isn't a good fit.

We may be far from a Terminator/Skynet future, but developments in artificial intelligence have prompted the latest round of concern about how technology will put us all out of work. Which is why it’s refreshing to see a range of articles in the press – including The Guardian, Business Insider, and CNBC – stating that robots may take our jobs but they’ll also create new ones.

With the prevalence of technology in the workplace, it seems that with each passing year employees are logged into the online world more and more. With email communications, cloud sharing, and the other great advancements we’ve made, people can go days or even weeks without having to talk to someone.

While there are immense benefits to technology, it’s important for organizations to not let technology take away the humanity and culture of a workplace environment. Here are five ways to grow a more human workplace and make the office more pleasant for everyone.

Leadership transitions are tough for any company. No matter if it’s for good reasons or bad, this is going to be one of the biggest challenges you’ll ever face in HR.

Part of the issue is in keeping people motivated. Uncertainty about the future of the organization, or maybe even their jobs, tends to get people distracted, hurting productivity and the long- and short-term health of the company.

HR can be a very challenging, yet rewarding profession. HR Gurus have the ability to help their people reach their full potential through guidance, opportunities, support, and more while also helping an organization grow and succeed. However, there are many difficult and strategic business decisions that may need to take place in order to take an organization to the next level.

Whether it be on the business side or the people side, there are always obstacles to overcome and lessons to be learned. For this segment of Ask an HR Guru, we asked, what is the biggest HR challenge you’ve had to overcome?  

According to a Gallup study, an alarming 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work, costing U.S organizations between $450-$550 billion in lost productivity each year.