My assistant “Jane” has a reduced work week, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. I agreed to this when she was hired. However, two years later, I now need her to work more hours. I don’t need or want to hire an additional person — I just need her to work an 8-hour day. But she doesn’t want to. What can I legally do?

When an at-will termination is at issue, there are certain steps to take and considerations an employer should evaluate to minimize the risk of later becoming the target of a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Why is change so difficult? At its core, change is intrinsically personal. While organizations may collectively seek to change, the decision resides at the individual level. As we seek to change behaviors, we need to incorporate three actions to succeed:

I recently made an offer to a new director of communications for my company. However, I then found out this individual had posted to Facebook asking friends for feedback on two job offers — one for my company and another for a local competitor. I was horrified and I want to remove my offer. Any advice on how to tactfully prevent this from happening in the future?

Stop what you’re doing — which is probably a lot, all at once. As it turns out, experts say multitasking drains your brain power and dilutes the quality of your work.  Luckily there’s a solution: Start mono-focusing. 

What if we’re doing it all wrong? What if instead of trying to do 37 things at once, we just try and do one thing at a time — what some productivity experts call either “mono-tasking,” “mono-focus” or “uni-tasking”— and do the job well?

We have a female employee who reported sexual harassment from a male coworker. The woman didn’t want to come forward, but once the CEO found out, he felt he had an obligation to handle the claim. We currently are without an HR manager. What is the proper way to handle this? Should an investigation be made? 

What exactly is the difference between a leader and a manager? We often use these terms interchangeably, but the skills necessary to be effective in these roles are quite different. One involves looking beyond day-to-day needs to see the big picture, while the other means focusing on the details. Both require a service toward others.

According to numbers from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the region needs to be building an average of 12,000 homes per year to meet demand. Here are five projects in the works: