Richard Wysocki

First Co-op Complete! I wish it was just my first co-op.   That was well over 25+ years ago, back in 1993.   What I did just complete was being the mentor to my first full term co-op, from the same school, Drexel University and I can say the program seems to still be extremely strong.   My co-op experience back in 1993 was so memorable to me. I can probably name everyone I worked with on that first co-op. As I reflect on these past six months and my first co-op student, I thought I would highlight a few topics so you can see why you might want to do this yourself and how we made our program unique.   Let’s review these four main items. ·         What is a Co-op Program? ·         Why might you want to participate in a co-op Program? ·         What did we do to make the co-op program special? ·         Some advice for co-op participants? What is a Co-op Program? From my own co-op perspective and from being a mentor, a Co-op program consists of providing a student r

Its  Performance Time ! Over the past 20+ years, I've both gotten performance reviews and given them in many of them too.  As a manager, it’s something you do once per year. Sure, you might do quarterly reviews or semi-annual reviews to make sure associates are on track but everyone cares about the annual review.  They are stressful for both the associate and the manager.  Everyone asks, why I didn't exceed my goals and/or how does this impact my merit increase. Managers have to make extremely tough decision to do what is best both for the organization as well as to meet the budget guidelines we are given. I’d first like to ask the question, do most people even like getting their performance review?  I suspect not.  I’m guessing most would just like to hear the merit increase and move forward. Why? It’s probably because most performance reviews are so poorly given. I admit, I’ve done it myself.  Most performance reviews seem to be rushed. We sum of a year’s review in under