One challenge you may have to face early this year is how to retain, or replace, some of your best employees. Have you been taking advantage of your employees during the recent down market? Have you been expecting people to do two or three jobs just because the market was so bad they couldn't leave? Have you forgotten to even thank them for the extra effort? If so, you will probably lose many of your best employees. The new year brings new hiring budgets and your workers who have been quietly looking for other jobs may now find them.

The article Are Your Top People Ready To Leave You? looks at the warning signs and suggests employee satisfaction and retention strategies you can adopt. It's not too late, but you need to act now. The economy is starting to improve. The job market will start to improve soon too. Move quickly and you may be able to avoid losing too many of your top people to your competitors.

If one of your resolutions for the new year was to become a better manager bookmark this page. Management is a skill that can be learned so you can improve as a manager by working every day to get better.

Come back to this page every day for the next two weeks. Pick one item. Do it today. Pick another one for tomorrow. In two weeks you will be a better manager. And others will notice it too.

As we start the first full week of business of this new year you should be recovering by now from your hangover or your vacation inspired lethargy. You should be hard at work making things better - for yourself and for the people in your unit.

To start the year, I'm going to challenge you

• Challenge you to live up to the "potential" people have been telling you since the third grade that you have
• Challenge you to push yourself out of your comfort zone
• Challenge you to do more, much more, than you did last year

Make this the year that you really Take Ownership of Your Job. Don't just DO your job, OWN it. You will see the difference and so will your boss.

And if you want to get actively involved in the discussion of management, rather than just reading about it, come to our Management Forum and share your thoughts and opinions with your peers.

Just before Thanksgiving, in a story about the biggest business stories of the decade, a controversy arose about when the decade really ends. Here are the results of our unscientific, five-week poll.

Most voters who responded to our poll agree, by about two to one, that the decade isn't over yet. According to the poll, this decade won't end untl December 31, 2010.

You can still vote in the poll and add to or just read the comments here. Don't forget to cick the "Poll Results" link to see how others have voted.