This is because narcissists come across as being confident, and engaging when speaking. Narcissists are also able to promote themselves in the interview setting as well.

“This is one setting where it’s OK to say nice things about yourself and there are no ramifications. In fact, it’s expected,” Peter Harms, assistant professor of management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-author of the study, said. “Simply put, those who are comfortable doing this tend to do much better than those who aren’t.”

Narcissists were also highly rated because of their use of gestures and smiles. These gestures and actions were determined to further establish the likability and credibility of the interviewee in the eyes of the interviewer.

“This shows that what is getting (narcissists) the win is the delivery,” Harms said. “These results show just how hard it is to effectively interview, and how fallible we can be when making interview judgments. We don’t necessarily want to hire narcissists, but might end up doing so because they come off as being self-confident and capable.”

This trend, however, may lead to significant problems for chemistry within an organization down the road since narcissism can be a dividing force among co-workers.

“On the whole, we find very little evidence that narcissists are more or less effective workers,” Harms said. “But what we do know is that they can be very disruptive and destructive when dealing with other people on a regular basis. If everything else is equal, it probably is best to avoid hiring them.”

This research was published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Reach BusinessNewsDaily staff writer David Mielach at Dmielach@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @D_M89.

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The ultimate home office doesn’t have to be grand or expensive, but it does need a few essential elements. Experts say it starts with finding the right spot in your home and setting up the space to meet your needs. Here are four essential elements of the ultimate home office:

1. Location, location, location

The location of a home office is often constrained by the size and layout of a person’s home or apartment. Lisa Kanarek, founder of WorkingNaked.com, says today’s home offices range from stand-alone structures in backyards to the corners of living rooms.

For those who don’t have a dedicated room, Kanarek says a formal, infrequently used dining room can make a good option. Ideally, you’ll want to find an area of the home that will give you the most privacy and silence.

“Whatever you do, you don’t want to have a place with too much traffic. Avoid being near the kitchen and don’t use the bedroom because you’ll never escape your work,” says Kanarek.

2. Choosing the proper furniture and equipment

Jeff Zbar, founder of the website ChiefHomeOfficer.com, says furniture should be selected to fit the user. That could range from a simple tabletop desk to an L-shaped desk with drawers and a hutch. In most home offices, you’ll do best with a small, compact work station that meets your basic needs.

“The desk doesn’t have to be the place where you dump your money. It can be simple and small. You want to have the most functional layout and maximize your space,” says Zbar.

If there’s one place you should not scrimp, it’s the chair. Because most people who work in a home office spend endless hours sitting at their desk, an ergonomic chair with proper back support and armrests is essential.

“The biggest luxury in any home office is a good chair. You need to put a little money in it or you could be dealing with back and neck pain,” says Kanarek.

Kanarek says those in small spaces should “think vertically” by using bookcases to maximize space and storage. Zbar says feng shui and traditional design rules won’t often work in a home office because functionality needs to be the top priority in a small space.

Don’t be scared of odd desk placement if it’s functional.

“You need to be creative. Use what you can and whatever works for you. Try different setups to see what works,” he said.

3. Effective use of technology

Technology is the backbone of any business and it can make or break an effective home office setup. Jo Heinz, president and CEO of Staffelbach design firm in Dallas, says technology has made things smaller, better and more inexpensive. Bulk desktop computers and multiple devices for scanning, faxing and printing have now given way to inexpensive laptops and small combo units.

“You don’t need giant expensive equipment anymore. When space is limited you should capitalize on the type of equipment you can. Make everything wireless,” says Heinz.

Not all green home improvements make cents

At the very least, your home office should have high-speed Wi-Fi, a dedicated phone line, a high-powered laptop, a combo printer/scanner/fax unit, and an extra hard drive or two. Hands-free headsets can also be an asset for those who spend a lot of time on the phone.

Beyond the basics, Zbar recommends a large monitor or even multiple monitors. Heinz says backup power supplies and data redundancy is critical to ensure continued operation of your home office in a time of an emergency or power outage. Be sure to have your computer protected by an online backup service and a battery backup system.

4. Comforting design and decor

Whereas most corporate office setups are utilitarian in design, Kanarek says a home office is an extension of your home — the last thing you want is a bland corporate cubicle in your spare bedroom.

“You don’t want that boring corporate look in your office. Stay away from industrial desks and personalize the space,” she says.

Along with more homey furniture, Heinz says color is also important. While anything too outrageous can be distracting, anything too soothing and comforting can make you less attentive and productive. She said greens, whites, ivories, grays and tans are neutral colors that can invoke just the right amount of relaxation.

Finally, your home office décor shouldn’t be limited to a family photo on the desk. Heinz says to bring art, sculptures, curios or anything else into the office that helps make it your own. And if you have space, a recliner or love seat can add a nice touch.

“The ultimate home office is so personal. You might want a chair with an Ottoman too. When you’re in there all day, it’s nice to have something where you can move around and have multiple venues,” she said.

When future talking-monkey archaeologists sift through the detritus of postapocalyptic America, they would do well to ignore the usual cultural Rosetta Stones – the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, seven seasons and counting of “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”

They should focus instead on a single artifact: the AeroShot caffeine inhaler.

Sleek and plastic, the size of a lip balm tube, the AeroShot is the brainchild of David Edwards, a Harvard professor of biomedical engineering who also invented breathable chocolate. (Don’t ask.) The AeroShot contains a puff of lime-flavored caffeine powder; one squeeze, and it dispenses about 40 mg of the drug in your mouth, like an asthma inhaler.

A startup product recently released in the Boston area, the AeroShot already has drawn the ire of Sen. Charles E. Schumer. In December, the New York Democrat expressed concern that the inhaler would be used as a “party enhancer” and asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the safety and legality of selling it to children.

In doing so, Mr. Schumer overlooked the obvious: When it comes to the nation’s predilection for energy-boosting enhancement – at parties, at the office or anywhere in between, for young and old alike – the horse has long since left the barn, if only to lap up a double espresso at the neighboring Starbucks. (Speaking of which, the coffee bar chain briefly pilot-tested its own caffeine inhaler in 2006, one with mint flavor instead of lime.)

“At the time we came up with the AeroShot, we were looking at breathable coffee, breathable vitamins, the most high-value ingredient the product could have,” Mr. Edwards said. “We came up with energy. There is a big demand for energy in the United States.”

One nation under a buzz

America, the land of the free. America, home of the amped. From the 24-ounce Cafe Americano to the 64-ounce Mountain Dew Double Gulp, from ubiquitous coffee shops to the widespread use of the prescription drug Ritalin (read: legal speed) as a campus study aid, we are one nation under a buzz, indivisible from our next fix, with 5-Hour Energy shots and caffeine-spiked chewing gum for all.

To understand the depths of our perked-up desire, consider:

• The average American ingests as much as 300 mg of caffeine a day, equal to three No-Doz pills;

• From June 2010 to June 2011, amid ongoing economic malaise, energy drink sales rose a whopping 31.6 percent.

• At an Army lab in Natick, Mass., military scientists reportedly have taken time out from developing Global Positioning System-guided helicopters to test and develop … caffeinated meat.

Or, just visit a Starbucks.

Once upon a time – say, the 1950s – there was the standard, 5-ounce cup o’ Joe, containing about 70 mg to 100 mg of caffeine. Quaint. In the here and now, the standard16-ounce cup of regular Starbucks coffee contains 330 mg of the same substance.

“There are two dark, black liquids that run this country,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “Oil and coffee. Walk down the street in any major city at lunch hour. You just see coffee and cell phones.”

It has always been thus. The American Revolution began with the symbolic – and physical – dumping of English tea, which ultimately was usurped in the national diet by coffee, which means our Founding Fathers essentially traded one caffeinated drink for another, more strongly caffeinated drink.

According to historian David T. Courtwright, American per capita coffee consumption rose from three pounds per year in 1830 to eight pounds per year by 1859. Today, the National Coffee Association reports that the number of 18- to 39-year-olds who drink coffee daily jumped almost 10 percent year-over-year in 2011.

Remember, that’s in a country where about 90 percent of the adult population already ingests caffeine on a daily basis. A country where all of the coffee sold at our 10,000-plus Starbucks locations amounts to less than 4 percent of the domestic market for brewed coffee.

Is it any wonder that coffee is the world’s second-most valuable commodity, behind only oil?

Beyond java, we have caffeinated lip balm. Caffeinated sunflower seeds. Caffeinated soap. We have caffeine mixed with gobs of sugar – that tasty Frappuccino isn’t sweet on its own – and with all sorts of other chemicals, energy drink mystery ingredients like taurine, guarana and L-carnitine. We even have something called the “5150 Juice Syringe,” available online, which basically allows you to squirt an extra helping of liquid caffeine into whatever you’re already drinking.

The surest cultural signs our fair republic has become akin to a coffee-and-greenie-fueled Major League Baseball clubhouse, circa 1975?

(a) Vice-free, clean-living Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow endorses an energy drink.

(b) Elite Northwest Washington private school Sidwell Friends – where the Obama daughters go to school – has its own coffee bar.

(c) We don’t just drink vodka. We drink vodka mixed with the up-all-night energy drink Red Bull – because even our downers need uppers.

“In the 1960s, a lot of families, and mine was one of them, wouldn’t let their kids drink soft drinks before noon,” Mr. Thompson said. “I remember as a child being at a friend’s house for a sleepover. The next morning, he gets a Coke out of the fridge at 8:30 a.m. It seemed almost criminal. And now we have caffeine inhalers.”

The Big C

In the books “World of Caffeine” and “The Caffeine Advantage,” co-author Bennett Weinberg dubs the titular compound the “hallmark drug of our time.” Lauding caffeine’s ability to help us work harder, think more clearly and even feel a greater sense of well-being, he sounds a bit like pumped-up former baseball slugger Jose Canseco discussing anabolic steroids.

This is no coincidence.

Caffeine works in the body by blocking a chemical called adenosine, which signals tiredness to the brain. Less adenosine, less fatigue. Blocking adenosine also causes the body to release more adrenaline, producing the famed caffeine buzz.

In other words, the Big C is a performance-enhancing drug – albeit one that’s just as useful for office workers as professional athletes.

“Suppose you’re working in computer technology,” Mr. Weinberg said. “Caffeine ramps up spatial reasoning. It relieves boredom at repetitive tasks. It’s a mental booster, helping us accomplish the things that more and more are demanded of us in life.”

The history of caffeine consumption is more or less the history of the modern world, according to Mr. Weinberg and co-author Bonnie Bealer. Prior to the 1700s, Europeans drank copious amounts of beer – even for breakfast – because water was largely unsafe.

With the widespread adoption of coffee and tea, however, Western civilization swapped its daylong, semi-drunk alcoholic stupor for energy, alertness, attentiveness and sociability. One result? Intellectuals gathered in coffee shops, spawning (among other things) the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

“Visit churches in Europe, and the tour guides will constantly point out that so-and-so fell off the rafters,” Mr. Weinberg said. “The reason they fell off is that they were drunk all the time.

“When caffeine swept over Europe, it changed the nature of society. It gave people a way to control and harness their energies, helped to initiate the industrial economy. That requires a different kind of discipline and mental focus than agrarian work.”

As for today? We’re stressed and squeezed by economic turmoil in a hypercompetitive global economy that places a premium on knowledge and mental-task completion. We’re surrounded by round-the-clock entertainment, stimulated at every turn. We’re a nation of working fathers and mothers, strapped for family time. We’re an older generation of baby boomers who refuse to dodder into our golden years and a younger cohort of millennials who keep our smart phones bedside.

In short, we need caffeine – and other energy boosters – more than ever. The rise of Starbucks corresponds with the rise of the Internet.

“What’s really boosted this up in the past 20 years is that now everybody is connected to a portable transmission and reception device, expected and available to be working all the time,” Mr. Thompson said. “It used to be you went home at 5:30, then got into the office the next morning and had messages. Now, you’re constantly checking email. Our lifestyles need stimulants to keep up with things.”

Without caffeine, Mr. Weinberg argues, modern life would be slower. Sluggish. Altogether drearier. Collectively, we would drag a lot more and accomplish a lot less. And that, in turn, raises a question.

Are we hopelessly hooked?

Consider an executive X who gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day, proposes Mr. Thompson. “Could she or he not do their job without a certain dosage of caffeine a day? If the answer to that is no, that’s an interesting thing to consider.”

Upper madness?

In 2009, a man who claimed to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew can filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo, which owns the brand. As part of its defense, attorneys for the company recently argued that the soft drink – a favorite energy-booster among exam-cramming students and up-all-night video game players everywhere, a neon-green liquid countless Americans willingly and happily pour into their stomachs – would have dissolved the dead rodent’s carcass into a “jellylike substance.”

Yuck. Such is the downside of perking ourselves up.

A recent report from the White House Office of Drug Control expressed concern about college students illegally taking prescription stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin to remain awake and ultra-focused while studying. News reports anecdotally suggest that similar drug abuse is taking place among young professionals.

Moreover, too much caffeine can be bad for you. While every individual has a different tolerance for the drug, experts agree that ingesting more than 500 mg a day can result in anxiety, irritability, headaches, sleeplessness, diarrhea and other health problems. In some cases, it can cause abnormal heart rhythms, which can be dangerous for people with cardiac conditions.

According to Dr. Mary Claire O’Brien, an associate professor at Wake Forest’s Baptist Medical Center, the medical community is concerned about increasing caffeine consumption among children and adolescents, particularly via energy drinks. A report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that emergency room visits related to adverse reactions to energy drinks increased tenfold from 2005 to 2009. (A caveat: 44 percent of the visits involved patients combining energy drinks with drugs or alcohol.)

A 2011 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics said that energy drinks have “no place in the diet” of children.

“If you suggested putting an espresso machine in a middle school, people would think you are out of your mind,” said Dr. O’Brien, who is on the editorial board of the Journal of Caffeine Research. “But people don’t think twice about them consuming energy drinks and soft drinks.

“There is concern about caffeine being a stimulant, and that it’s not clear what the long-term effects of high levels of caffeine on the pediatric and adolescent brain will be. The human brain is not effectively hard-wired until the age of 25.”

Echoing Mr. Schumer’s concern about the AeroShot’s potential use as a party drug, the University of New Hampshire considered banning on-campus energy drink sales this year, fearing students were mixing the drinks with alcohol. In the face of student displeasure, however, school administrators backed down.

Mr. Weinberg said some things never change.

“There’s been a constant back and forth over this since the beginning, a moral panic,” he said. “It goes back to the beginning. When the first coffee shops opened in Yemen [in the early 1500s], they were banned. Right away. And then the Sultan of Cairo overturned that ban.”

Of course he did. Almost 500 years before the introduction of the caffeine inhaler, the sultan had something in common with contemporary Americans. He was a coffee drinker. He needed his fix.

Economists don’t expect loads of job growth, but there could be opportunities in areas such as health care, professional services, retail and some manufacturing, says Harry Holzer, a public-policy professor at Georgetown University. Also, continuing churn in the labor market means that even in areas with few new jobs, there will still be openings when workers move around.

Technical knowledge and experience will be required for certain spots. “For professional services you usually need a professional degree. In health you usually need some training,” Mr. Holzer says. “Manufacturing needs some occupational training. Retail is different. It doesn’t require specific occupational training, but it does often require some interpersonal skills.”

In addition to the standard prerequisites, employers will be looking for workers who are able to quickly adapt to new responsibilities as companies respond to changing economic and industry trends. So workers should highlight their creative skills to differentiate themselves, says Lawrence Katz, an economist at Harvard University.

“Firms have so many job seekers per opening. They are going to want candidates with clear credentials, but also a little extra shine in interactive skills and creativity,” Mr. Katz says. “They are less willing in a weak labor market to take chances.”

Here are other skills experts recommend workers should pick up and enhance.

Technical literacy. It’s important for workers at a variety of levels to be familiar with some of the technical, if mundane, processes that keep organizations running smoothly.

Take the health-care industry. Providers are bringing on more technology when it comes to record keeping and billing.

“A knowledge of electronic data handling is just a really big plus. That goes for receptionists to the doctors who are becoming employees of larger hospital systems,” says Warren Bobrow, president of All About Performance, a Los Angeles-based skills-assessment consultancy.

Workers also need to be good users of social media. There’s a fine line between letting interested parties know about the latest news and bombarding them with too much information. Still, individuals shouldn’t be afraid to use networking sites such as LinkedIn to make employment connections.

Business acumen. As companies remain concerned about demand for their products and services, a wide variety of employees need to think about sales, experts say. Even those outside of marketing should care about revenue, and making sure customers are happy.

Mr. Bobrow has clients in Colorado, an orthopedic practice with more than a dozen doctors, and those doctors don’t become partners until client-satisfaction surveys are reviewed and good results are found.

“They are in a competitive marketplace because so much of their work is based on referrals,” Mr. Bobrow says. “The doctors realize that their revenue depends on all of them bringing in more patients and having patients come back.”

Being savvy about pleasing customers isn’t about spin, says Ben Dattner, a New York-based organizational psychologist and author. Rather, workers need to illustrate the advantages of their products and services to please employers dealing with an ultra-competitive environment.

“Try to get to know your customer, the market and figure out how you can put things together in a package that adds value,” Mr. Dattner says. “Law firms are increasingly recruiting professionals who [bring clients with them]. The actual practice of law is becoming commoditized to some extent, but the ability to bring in customer relationships and be flexible is what companies are increasingly looking for.”

General proficiency. Companies are looking for workers who are flexible and can take on functions in various jobs as market demands change, says Greg Barnett, director of product development at Hogan Assessment Systems, a Tulsa, Okla.-based personality-assessment and consulting firm. That is, companies want workers who are “solid organizational citizens”—quick learners who are compliant, Mr. Barnett says.

“People are being asked to do more,” he says. “There are concerns when applicants are good workers, but not people who are able to learn and change direction and change their performance.”

Dan Ryan, principal at a Nashville, Tenn.-based executive search firm, stresses the importance of project management and communication skills, which also happen to be transferrable. “The ability of people at all levels to clearly communicate is not what it used to be,” he says. People “who can do that very well can differentiate themselves.”

Severance packages, accumulated sick leave, vacation and holiday pay are all taxable income. When you are terminated from your job, you may receive this additional pay and be surprised, like a friend of mine recently was, to find that it’s taxable. These amounts will have taxes deducted and will be declared on your W2.

Unemployment benefits are taxable income. I call this the “kick-you-while-you’re-down” legislation. Be ready to pay taxes on your unemployment checks.

You can ask the government to withhold 10% of the payments in order to prepay the resulting tax liability. Simply complete IRS Form W-4V and submit it to your state unemployment department, it will provide form 1099-G by Jan. 31 to show how much you received in benefits. The IRS will be looking for this number on your tax return.

Withdrawals from retirement plans and IRAs are generally taxable, and if you’re under age 59 ½ you may be subject to a 10% early-withdrawal penalty (your state may assess a penalty as well). There are some exceptions to this penalty, check out Publication 575 available at www.irs.gov.

If you roll over your retirement fund or pull money out for 60 days then redeposit the entire amount into a qualified retirement plan, you can escape the penalty.

Loans and gifts from family and friends are not taxable income. Bank loans or credit card cash advances are also not subject to tax. Money received from credit card company insurance carriers to cover your monthly payments while unemployed is not taxable income. Public assistance, welfare and food stamps, are not taxable income either.

Debt forgiveness may be subject to income tax. Because you are unemployed, you may not have the ability to repay existing debt. If a creditor writes off the balance owing or reduces your balance by forgiving some of the debt, you are liable for income taxes on the amounts forgiven. You will receive a Form 1099 by Jan. 31 indicating the amount that is taxable.

However, if you file bankruptcy none of the forgiven debt is taxable income. If you are insolvent, you may escape a tax liability to the extent of insolvency. To determine this, add up the value of all of your assets on the eve of the debt forgiveness. Then add up the value of all of your debt. Subtract the debt from the assets. If the result is a negative number, then you are insolvent to that extent.

For example, your assets total $100,000 and your debt is $120,000 resulting in insolvency of $20,000. The credit card company forgives a balance of $30,000. You would have to pay taxes on $10,000: the difference between your insolvency and the balance owing.

Tax Benefits. You may find additional tax benefits because you are unemployed. First of all, your decrease in income will likely throw you into a lower tax bracket. Because of this, you may enjoy a refund. If your earned income is low enough, you may qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the additional Child Tax Credit, which will result in an even bigger refund.

Also, do not forget to track job search expenses as they are deductible. If you go back to school, you may qualify for the American Opportunity Credit or an education deduction for college tuition, books, fees, and computer equipment.

And, if you are lucky enough to snag a new job and the job requires a move, you may be able to deduct moving expenses. Check out IRS Publication 521 to determine if you meet the time and distance requirements and to find out which expenses are deductible.

But don’t get excited thinking you can file your 2011 income tax return before the year is over to enjoy the refund. Not possible. First of all the forms aren’t even out yet, and secondly, the IRS wants you to wait. Who knows? You might land the job of your dreams and be getting another W2 or you may win the lotto.

If you have a tax liability from prior years and are on an installment plan, you will likely be able to put off repayment because you are unemployed. Call the IRS and let them know your situation. They can deem you “uncollectible,” giving you a year to pull it together before they begin collection efforts again. If another year passes and you are still unemployed, it will renew the “uncollectible” status. Penalties and interest will continue to accrue, but you will be relieved of the debt.

Workplace mentors used to be older and higher up the ranks than their mentees. Not anymore.

In an effort to school senior executives in technology, social media and the latest workplace trends, many businesses are pairing upper management with younger employees in a practice known as reverse mentoring. The trend is taking off at a range of companies, from tech to advertising.

Mentors are teaching their mentees about Facebook and Twitter.
The idea is that managers can learn a thing or two about life outside the corner office. But companies say another outcome is reduced turnover among younger employees, who not only gain a sense of purpose but also a rare glimpse into the world of management and access to top-level brass.

Reverse mentoring was championed by Jack Welch when he was chief executive of General Electric Co. He ordered 500 top-level executives to reach out to people below them to learn how to use the Internet. Mr. Welch himself was matched with an employee in her 20s who taught him how to surf the Web. The younger mentors “got visibility,” he says.

Fast forward a decade and mentors are teaching their mentees about Facebook and Twitter.

At Ogilvy & Mather, world-wide managing director Spencer Osborn, 42 years old, says his younger mentors have taught him how to jazz up his Twitter posts, which had a reputation for being “very boring,” and tell him what’s hip on playlists these days. He finds the knowledge valuable in the fast-moving business of advertising and says he believes the program has also helped boost morale and retention at the firm, with many young mentors saying they feel their voices are now being heard.

The younger mentors have learned how to ask candid questions of their mentees. One young mother asked Mr. Osborn for his input on balancing her career with motherhood and child care.

Ultimately, Mr. Osborn says he envisions making Ogilvy’s reverse mentoring program global, using Skype and videoconferencing to connect mentors and mentees at the firm’s more than 450 offices.

Technology and global thinking are changing so quickly that older executives want to catch up, says Lois Zachary, president of Leadership Development Services LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that helps companies implement mentoring programs. “But it also helps younger people get comfortable in a company. It promotes loyalty, it generates trust.”

That’s got younger employees at Hewlett-Packard Co. clamoring for reverse mentoring. While some workers there have already arranged their own informal reverse-mentoring relationships, the company’s Young Employee Network says it wants to formalize the process in the next few months, starting with the several thousand members who belong to the world-wide group. Logistics haven’t been ironed out yet, but they will likely involve virtual communication over the Web.

“This is a great avenue to speak with decision makers,” says Odile Kane, who sits on the network’s leadership board.

Andrew Graff, CEO of Allen & Gerritsen, a Watertown, Mass., ad agency, says he was one of the first to volunteer when his company launched a reverse mentoring program last year. Under the program, mentors and mentees meet every three weeks for 90 minutes over lunch or coffee.

The 47-year-old has since come to lean on his mentor, 23-year-old Eric Leist, for guidance on everything from the latest smartphone apps to the layout for a new office. Mr. Graff says the most important lesson he has learned is how to be flexible, including allowing employees to work unconventional hours and to check in from home or a coffee shop.

“There’s an assumption that if you’re senior, you have a lot to teach, and if you’re junior, you have a lot to learn, and I’m saying let’s challenge the status quo,” he says.

Mr. Leist says he was surprised when Mr. Graff began sharing management tips during their lunch sessions. “This allows me to take a step back and see what he sees,” says Mr. Leist.

When Cisco Systems Inc. started its Gen Y Reverse Mentoring Program nearly two years ago, “it became a badge of honor,” says Jeanette Gibson, director of social and digital marketing. “When the word got out that a few execs had a [junior] mentor, others wanted one, too,” she says.

Still, it’s not all smooth sailing. Many older workers bristle at the idea of being mentored by someone younger, especially since they usually have many more years of career experience, says Sanghamitra Chaudhuri, a senior lecturer at Ohio State University who recently co-wrote a research report on the topic.

“It’s a mind-set,” Ms. Chaudhuri says.

Watching the boss let a favored colleague head home early from the office, yet again, can be galling for those left behind. Also pretty annoying: the buddy-buddy chats by the water cooler.

If you’ve noticed that a co-worker is your boss’s pet, you’re not alone. Preferential treatment leads a list of types of misconduct observed by employees, according to new data from the Corporate Executive Board, an Arlington, Va.-based business research and advisory firm.

Among almost 69,000 U.S. employees surveyed in the first half of the year, 10.2% said they had observed preferential treatment within the past 12 months. That rate compares with 9% for inappropriate behavior and 7.6% for harassment, followed by other types of misconduct.

Of note, the data capture employee perceptions of this behavior, rather than substantiated reports. “That doesn’t mean these observations are unimportant,” according to the Corporate Executive Board. “Whether employees really saw preferential treatment or not, they believe that they saw it and that belief affects their behavior.”

Preferential treatment is a broad category, describing behavior that is unequally applied to workers and can inequitably benefit recipients. At times, preferential treatment is obvious. For instance, your superior has given yet another plum assignment to a junior associate from his alma mater. But some preferential treatment is difficult to detect.

While legal remedies exist when a law has been broken, experts say there are other strategies to deal with legal preferential treatment.

Focus on Your Work
When someone else receives preferential treatment, don’t get mad, get introspective, says Joel Garfinkle, an Oakland, Calif.-based executive coach.

“When preferential treatment occurs, it’s easy for people to get jealous or resentful,” he says. “But it’s important to evaluate yourself and how you are being perceived in the company.”

Mr. Garfinkle suggests examining your weaknesses and trying to figure out how to improve and positively influence co-workers’ perceptions of your work.

Workers should avoid “hiding themselves” at work, he says. “The more details you tell your boss about your accomplishments, the less chance someone else can take credit for your efforts. When you hide yourself, you make others stand out.”

Workers should document their performance, says Tim Reed, human-resources director for U.S. sales and organization development at Ricoh Production Print Solutions. “If somebody came to me and said that so-and-so is getting preferential treatment, I’d also ask them whether they are meeting or beating expectations as a way to focus on one’s own performance,” Mr. Reed says.

Get Political
Employees who are feeling neglected can work on their relationship with the boss.

“Someone who is willing to stay late, over time…will develop a loyalty and a sense of trust with a superior that other people simply don’t have. This is performance-based 99% of the time,” says Charles Wardell, chief executive of Oak Brook, Ill.-based Witt/Kieffer, which specializes in executive searches for health-care, education and nonprofit organizations.

Mr. Garfinkle recommends recruiting advocates to tout your accomplishments and value to the company. “You can ask people within the company who have some influence and are respected to share their thoughts about your accomplishments,” he says. “If someone really appreciates the work you have done, they won’t have an issue if you ask them to share that with your boss.”

It May Be Fair
Sometimes a lack of information can lead workers to misperceive that there’s preferential treatment, says Mr. Reed. “We don’t have the context to understand 100% how someone else is being treated. We’re not in the same room with the person all day. We just don’t always know what’s going on.”

Furthermore, not all preferential treatment is necessarily unfair, experts say. “Even if you find out somebody is paid less or more, there may be legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for the pay difference,” says Joseph Sellers, head of the civil rights and employment practice group at law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes, workers deserve extra perks like more flexible hours, says Thomas Anderson, an employee-relations panelist at the Society for Human Resource Management and human-resources director for Houston Community College System.

“If you have somebody who is working very diligently, very hard, maybe doing extra work on the weekend, then you would tend to give more flexibility to that person,” he says.

It’s a case of when, not if. At least, that is the market’s thinking on the Federal Reserve again buying more bonds to boost the economy.

But the unanswered question remains: Having failed so far to significantly reduce unemployment through previous extraordinary actions, can or should the Fed continue trying?

Certainly, revised economic projections released by the Fed following its two-day meeting, as well as comments from Chairman Ben Bernanke, seemed to lay the groundwork for further easing. The Fed now expects unemployment to be between 7.8% and 8.2% in 2013, compared with a forecast in June of 7% to 7.5%. It also released 2014 projections, which showed joblessness at 6.8% to 7.7%. Meanwhile, economic growth in 2012 is likely to come in between 2.5% to 2.9%, a far cry from the 3.3% to 3.7% expected in June.

So while inflation looks to be under control, things are “very unsatisfactory in terms of the rate of growth and unemployment,” Mr. Bernanke said. He also said that given that the moribund housing sector is “a big reason the economy is not recovering more quickly,” purchases of mortgage securities are a viable option for the Fed.

This prompted many to ask why the Fed didn’t just pull the trigger now. Indeed, Wednesday’s Fed statement saw one dove, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, dissent over a lack of such action.

But there were good reasons for the Fed to hold its fire. The economy is growing, albeit not at a rate the Fed would like, and deflation isn’t an imminent risk. As recently as August, the Fed took the unprecedented move of saying it would keep short-term interest rates zero-bound until mid-2013; in September it moved to bring down long-term rates by shifting its holdings of Treasurys to longer-dated securities. So it was time for a pause, to see what impact those unconventional moves have.

The Fed may have also wanted to keep its powder dry as it waits to see how Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis plays out. And as it watches the possibility that deficit battles in the U.S. could lead to spending cuts that act as economic drags.

A bigger reason for hesitancy may be that the Fed is uncertain as to how much extreme monetary policy can directly influence unemployment. True, the Fed’s prior actions appear to have staved off the threat of deflation and helped arrest the collapse of the housing market.

But even as the Fed has expanded its balance sheet to about $2.8 trillion through purchases of mortgage bonds and Treasurys, unemployment has remained stuck above 9%. And while the Fed has helped through its latest actions to bring mortgage rates down to about 4%, this isn’t yet proving a tonic for housing.

So for now, wait-and-see is warranted. Though the Fed’s trigger finger will remain itchy, especially if stock markets again swoon.

When salespeople get busy, the first thing thrown off their plate is prospecting. However, when salespeople stop prospecting, the pipeline eventually runs dry. The same principle holds true for sales leaders. When they stop prospecting for sales talent, they run with empty seats on their teams which means they have little chance of hitting the revenue goals.

Panicked, they rush to hire salespeople to fill seats instead of making smart choices. Further compounding the issue, once they hire the salespeople, they don’t have a plan in place to quickly get these new hires up to speed so they generate revenue fast. Some of the sales people make it, and others fail, leaving the cycle to repeat itself once again.

Not having a healthy sales candidate pipeline has a major impact on both the top and bottom-line of your business. Hold yourself accountable for maintaining a healthy sales talent pipeline just as you hold your salespeople accountable for keeping a strong prospect pipeline.