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It's hard to believe, but 2017 is right around the corner. This can be a great time to take stock and press the reset button, making positive resolutions for the future. These are often focused on personal improvement goals or hobbies, but could just as easily be a chance to buckle down, focus, and advance your career.

This year, consider tailoring your resolutions to maximize career success, making sure to choose realistic goals that you can meet in any given year, rather than having the same goals end up on your resolutions list year in and year out without anything coming of it. READ MORE AT RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

As we finish off one year and prepare to start the next, it’s a good time to think about how we want 2017 to be better, which for purposes of this column means a better career. Here are 10 ideas for new year’s resolutions to adopt for a stronger career in 2017:

1. I will stay in touch.

You can start the networking habit with a holiday mailing. You can continue by reaching out in the new year to ask about people’s holidays. READ MORE AT FORBES

Trump is on track to appoint the first cabinet in 28 years without a Hispanic. When President Ronald Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos in 1988 as the first Latino to serve in a presidential cabinet, he made history.

Today, President-elect Donald Trump is on the verge of making history too. With 16 cabinet-level officials and more than two dozen administration appointments announced, he is on track to appoint the first cabinet without a Latino in more than 28 years. For a president-elect who ran on restoring economic growth, ignoring U.S. Latinos makes little sense. Latinos are driving American economic growth, and they are at the core of what I call America’s New Mainstream Economy. READ MORE AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A new poll of holiday spending habits shows that Latinos are approaching the holiday season more conservatively this year than in the past.

According to an annual telephone and online poll conducted by Florida Atlantic University’s Business and Economics Polling Initiative (BEPI), more than one in five Hispanics don’t plan to do any Christmas and Hannukah shopping at all this year, up from one in 10 in 2015.

And those who do intend to go shopping are planning on waiting longer to start making purchases and hoping to spend less than they did last year — 41.9 percent of Latinos expect to spend less than $300 on holiday gifts this year, up 5 points from last year; and the proportion who plans to spend more than $1,000 dropped from 12.9 to 8.9 percent. READ MORE AT FOX NEWS

Hispanics living in the U.S., particularly those who hail from other countries, are approaching retirement with less than a third of the savings of their white counterparts.

A new study from the Urban Institute, an economic policy think tank in Washington, found that the rapidly growing ethnic group is facing an uphill battle to accumulating sufficient funds for their later years.

Hispanics numbered 55.3 million in the U.S. in 2014 — 17 percent of the total U.S. population, according to Pew Research Center.

The Urban Institute's study, which used Census data, found a wide gap between Hispanics and whites when it comes to wealth at ages 65 and over. READ MORE AT CNBC

Changing a habit is hard, and resolutions require that. But successful resolutions have a few characteristics in mind.

I don’t think any of us plan to work at our New Year’s resolutions for just a few months before giving up, but that’s exactly what many of us end up doing. Changing a habit is hard, and resolutions require that.

Here are three characteristics of successful resolutions. The examples deal with saving money, but this advice can apply to other financial goals or goals about fitness, being more conscientious, keeping in touch with friends and family, and other aspects of our lives. READ MORE AT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Forget those online postings. Here’s how to make real connections when looking for a job, while improving your chance of an offer letter.

First things first when you’re looking for a new job: Put down the computer. You’re not going to get hired by sending out your resume en masse to 100 LinkedIn and Monster postings.

“Assume that only 10% of everything available is actually posted online,” READ MORE AT BARRON'S NEXT

According toWilliam Almonte, an expert in professional training and hiring industry, everything from interior design change, lighting change and reorganizing the entire office can shift the mood of employees to a great extent. And how doesn't know a happy employee ensure happy clients and customer? Means the pleasant and convenient work environment your employees get in the office the more efficiently they look after your clients.

The initial step to create a successful business story a company must concentrate on accumulating all active factors from a proper workplace to providing all necessary amenities and to create a positive employee friendly environment. The last factor is the most important one. Creating an employee friendly atmosphere will enhance the work capabilities of your staffs.

Here in this post you will find some hot tips from professionals likeWilliam Almonte, on how to create the best in class work ambiance for your employees:

First start with hiring the right staff

You need to concentrate on quality, not quantity. The more appropriate employees you hire, the more, you create a positive environment for your other employees. As with like-minded people they can share more and they can learn more. By hiring right employees, you are creating the most positive atmosphere for other employees. So always try to hire professional employees to create a positive environment altogether.

Say goodbye to toxic employees

By bad employee, we mean people with a bad attitude towards your company. First, try talk to them one to one. Later if they persistently and openly bad mouth about the company's internal policies and work culture, you know what to do. But if some employee is making some constructive criticism and he has a valid point, consider his opinion and try to bring some positive change accordingly, which will build up your credibility factor and your employee will feel more ease while working in your company.

Keep the office premises clean, well decorated, and well lit:

Making your office clean and well lit can bring positive change in the working environment of your office. Decorate it with proper lights, don't use dim lights as dim lights don't suit with a workplace, and this can have some adverse physiological effects on your employees. Other than this you can change colors of the walls and add some graphics depending on the work culture of your office.

You can hang some inspirational pictures and banner on those walls. You can create separate wok station for your employees so that they feel valued. And the more you care for them, the more they care for your business, says William Almonte Mahwah, the expert trainer in hiring industry.

Be friendly

According to professionals of training industry like, William Almonte Mahwah, being a boss is easy, but being a leader isn’t. Thatswhy you need to mix up with your employees so that they don't feel alienated from you. Start your day with some friendly conversation with your employees. And don't restrict their movement around the office premises. Rules are ok and must be followed, but no one revisits their kinder garden schools when they are coming to work.

Behavior is the key

A good behavior and tackling situation in a diplomatic way can be very useful towards creating a positive atmosphere in your office. People like to work with individuals who know manners and behave in a respected way.  Try to portray the positive side of your nature in front of your employee to motivate them to do the same toward other and to you.

Ref:How to introduce better work ambiance for your employees?

Sure, parties are for fun, but they are also great for networking. So why not do both? Check out these party pointers.

It’s too true. While parties are events where people are meant to have fun, they are also primo networking territory. In fact, the winter holiday season, with its open houses, cookie exchanges, ugly sweater contests and company parties, is perhaps the most wonderful networking time of the year.

This does not mean you need to coldly calculate the potential business advantage of every social event. You should partake of and enjoy any and all festivities that come your way this month. ’Tis the season. READ MORE AT THE SEATTLE TIMES

The best workplaces for diversity show higher satisfaction for all employees—and bigger growth, too.
Diversity is an empty word in much of corporate America.

Many companies invest in diversity efforts and appoint chief diversity officers, yet are disappointed with the meager results. Over the last 30 years there has been progress, but most agree the full opportunity has not been realized. READ MORE AT FORTUNE

Three years ago, Daniel Trujillo's company, Tortilleria La Ranchera, was scrambling to meet his customers' demand for tortillas. He already had a 22,000-square-foot warehouse, but he needed more space. "People needed tortillas, and we didn't know where to shelve them," Trujillo says."

When he started La Ranchera in 1994, Trujillo had put together the money himself, but now, the business had grown beyond self-financing. It's the second-largest tortilla maker in Houston, Texas, America's fourth-largest city, with a Hispanic population that accounts for 44 percent of its 2.3 million people. READ MORE AT CHASE

Latinos are three times as likely as the general population to start their own businesses, but cultural and economic factors have hampered the growth of Latino-owned businesses at a cost of trillions of dollars.

A report by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI) found the lost growth amounted to a $1.38 trillion “opportunity gap” in 2012 alone.

Minority business advocates are scrambling to identify the causes and fill the void. Latinos tend to open businesses with “personal motivations” rather than as a result of identifying market opportunities. Because of this, Latinos are less likely to pursue capitalization opportunities that put full ownership at risk, limiting their prospects for growth. READ MORE AT THE HILL

By 2019, there will be more Hispanics in Texas than Anglos, according to Pablo Schneider, CEO of the Wider Net.

If you add up all the minorities — Hispanic, African American, Asian — they already make up a larger percentage of the population than white people in Texas, and a handful of other states. Schneider said by 2040 that will be true for the entire nation as the U.S. continues to become more of a multicultural society.

"So what?" said Schneider at the State of Hispanic Business in North Texas event Thursday after rattling off a bunch of statistics about the grown of the Hispanic population. "One of the 'So what's?' is, this is where the growth is. And, it's literally a multi-trillion dollar opportunity."

The hispanic business scene in Dallas is vibrant, given how many Hispanics live in North Texas. READ MORE AT DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL

According to William Almonte team leader needs to follow certain principles when handling the different programs. The team leader needs to be very professional and skillful when teaching the employees the various skills that they have to master to excel in the long run.

In every organization, the workforce plays a crucial role. It is the employees who form the main crux of the institution. To bring about further growth and progress of the organization, these employees need to be trained well so that they are updated with the present market situation.

The whole process of training these employees needs a lot of coordination, planning, programming, and focus. There has to be a team of professionals who shall be coming together to let the entire group of employees work towards their desired goals.

William Almonte Mahwah says just learning the skills will not be enough the employees should also know when and how to implement these skills so that they can stand out in the huge competition. Since any progression brings in a lot of competition and the rat race seems to continue through eternity it is imperative that employees are well aware of the market and its present status. The comparative study helps them in gaining an idea as to how to follow the later strategies that they have to implement when the time comes.

Some of the best ways to organize the employee training session are as follows:

• To set up seminars: The experts need to arrange for seminars and meetings that can benefit the employees. The rigorous training session should be engaging and should involve conversations and discussions where the employees get the opportunity to state their problems and difficulties that they face while carrying out the projects.
• To organize workshops: These workshops are very helpful for the employees as they get the chance to take up computer-based learning. The expert team of professionals organizes these workshops to handle the troubles shooting while the training takes place.

The events arranged to administer various activities through which learning becomes fun. The time frame, prioritizing the work list, providing the positive results at the end of a project are some of the basic things that the employee gets to learn in the initial stages of the seminar.

• Feedback forms: The feedback forms are very crucial when it comes to organizing these training sessions. These not only help the organizers to arrange for successful sessions but also to improvise on their drawbacks. The training is incomplete without the trainer being able to administer the setbacks of the employees who have joined the practice.
  
• Self-assessment can help: The training session does include the evaluation process where the employees are assessed by the trainers on their daily progress. They are made to participate in different kinds of projects that can help them assess their weaknesses and strength. This kind of self-assessment helps an individual grow in the long run. The statistical data and modules can help one in gaining a clear perspective of the training session.

Ref:Organize your large employee training

People who are unemployed often don’t even bother looking for work in December. They figure it’s pointless because some hiring managers are on vacation and offices are closed.

Big mistake, says Susan P. Joyce, publisher of Job-Hunt.org, who says the total number of jobs filled in December 2014 was greater than the number filled in January 2015. What’s more, Joyce notes, January is the toughest, most competitive and most crowded job market of the year — precisely because so many people stop job hunting during the holidays.

Why Holidays Are a Good Time to Job Hunt. READ MORE AT FORBES

Walker’s Legacy, a professional collective committed to the empowerment of women of color in business and entrepreneurship, recognizes Latina’s Equal Pay Day. This segment of women experiences the widest pay gap and earns significantly less than their White, non-Hispanic female and male counterparts. While nationally women earn 77 cents to every man’s dollar, Latinas earn just 55 cents.

In other words, if the pay gap were eliminated, on average a Latina working full-time, year-round would have 194 more weeks of food for her family or 27 more months of rent. These figures make clear the negative effects of race-and-gender-biased pay. READ MORE AT HUDSON VALLEY PRESS ONLINE

Even as there are signs that the economy is beginning to turn the corner for the better, the Hispanic community is lagging behind.

Hispanics have a higher than the national average unemployment rate and many more are living below the poverty line. Most gut-wrenching, nearly a third of all Latino children are living in poverty. The last eight years have failed to do much to ameliorate this situation despite well-intentioned government policies.

The incoming Trump administration has an opportunity to reverse this trend and work to ensure that Latinos are able to prosper and live out the American Dream. READ MORE AT THE HILL

Managers of an organization are peoples who train and monitor new recruits. Not only new hires they also monitor and supervise their subordinate employees. Startup companies or small businesses don't have different managers to train new hires. At MNCs or at large scale business enterprises employ a separate training and development managers to train new recruits.

Why do business organizations need to appoint Training manager?

These managers conduct and supervise training and development programs for employees. Increasingly more and more organizations are recognizing the fact that a training and development manager is crucial for the betterment of an organization.

The training and development industry is evolving day by day and training and developmental managers need to acquire so many skills to be top notch training managers, says William Almonte.

Here in this post, the readers will get to know so many aspects of how to be one of the best in class training and development manager.

Why do businesses need to think about employee training?

For the real advancement of an organization, it must be ensured that all the staff along with the new recruits continuously keeps practicing and learning new process. It must be ensured that they improve their skill sets, experience new aspects and they acquire new ability to contribute. And for this purpose, an organization needs a training and development manager.

Other than appointing training and developmental manager, directors or general managers of a business can take up these few steps to ensure a smooth flow of the internal communication of the organization.

Three points that a manager can hire employee for betterment in employee training

• The first thing as a director of a company you need to consider is getting to know your employee.

At the times of interview ask about their family background and try to call them by their first name. As per William Almonte Mahwah, expert entrepreneur of training industry, an overall knowledge about your employees can increase your employ engagement quotient of your company.

• Other than employee engagement you need to provide the necessary training to your recruit.

For this, you can employee any training manager or your internal managers can provide new hires on the job training.  For providing on the job training, you need to structure a proper training module. By providing on the job training, you are making your employees more aware of their responsibility and the respective changes in their job responsibilities. On job training also give your employees the confidence that they know their responsibility and they can render quality job.

• To develop the skill sets of every employee of yours, you need to encourage teamwork

Collaboration helps your every employee to develop their skill sets, so you need to encourage more group projects. When your employees feel that they are a part of a team and they need to render certain task for the overall improvement of the group, because of the feeling of belongingness, they start investing more time and energy to the assigned work. Teamwork fosters an ambiance of cooperation where employees get to experience a positive attitude and ensure efficient functioning.

The end of the year might seem like a terrible time to look for a new job. Half the time, it seems like everyone’s on vacation, and the other half the time, they’re dealing with year-end reviews.

December is anything but business as usual, but for that reason, it might actually be the perfect time to job search. Last year, Business Insider reported on an Adecco Survey in which 94 percent of hiring managers urged job seekers to keep looking during the holiday season.

Here’s why... READ MORE AT PAYSCALE

With a population of more than 55 million and estimated buying power of over $1.5 trillion, Hispanics in the United States are continuing to shape economic trends; however, as new research finds, they’re shaping digital trends as well.

This year’s Bank of America Trends in Consumer Mobility Report shows Hispanic consumers are increasingly reliant on mobile devices to navigate daily life. In fact, 35 percent of Hispanics say they are more likely to interact with their smartphone in an average day than anything or anyone else, including their significant other.

The survey, which explored mobile trends and banking behaviors among adults across the country, found this digital lifestyle also extends to how they manage their finances. More than three-quarters (78 percent) of Hispanic consumers use a mobile banking app and 69 percent cite digital as their primary method of banking. READ MORE AT THE SOUTHEAST SUN ENTERPRISE