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Monthly Archives: June 2020

Four Ways to Harness Your HR Analytics

For all medium to large-sized companies, an effective HR department is crucial. It provides the backbone of your organization, and connects to all other parts of your enterprise – from the sales team through to the executives. But HR are more than just the payroll facilitators and the friendly face of you internal messaging – it’s also the part of your business where you’re able to reap the most through analytics. This article takes a look at your HR analytics, showing you how to harness their potential in 2020.

Remote Working

One of the major upheavals that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about is in the locations at which we work. More than ever before, staff have been connecting to the workplace through digital software and cloud-based file databases, which they can access from anywhere in the world. This is tremendously exciting, but it requires coordination on the part of your HR team. Not only will you need to contact staff more regularly with updates across the business they might not be party to; you’ll also need to use analytics to monitor productivity and absences from each and every member of staff working remotely.

Cloud Activity

Next up is the way in which your business uses the cloud. Now, this is of course linked to remote working: without the cloud, you’ll not be able to share documents and data with your staff in disparate locations. But you’ll have had cloud-based software long before the pandemic hit, and your HR team’s software ought to be positioned there, too. To find the right HR software cloud, you need to look into which program will allow you to best analyze your staff’s cloud-based activity. These HR programs are themselves on the cloud, harnessing the very same technology that they’ll be analyzing throughout your organization.

Skills Gaps

Many businesses lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year through skills shortages and misallocation of workers in roles they cannot perform well in. This is especially true in larger organizations, which tend to be less flexible in terms of who works where. With the right analytics software, though, you’ll be able to make subtle changes to your teams by monitoring their workloads, seeing where they’re quick and where they’re slow, and listing the key skills that they have to give to other teams in your business. By doing so, you’ll balance out the skills gaps within your business.

Hiring

Finally, HR teams aren’t only concerned with internal processes; they’re also deeply interested in talent from outside. It’s your HR team that will ordinarily process applications for jobs at your organization – and there are plenty of analytical software packages which can help your team quickly sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to applicants for a particular position. From machine learning resume readers through to automated tests which you’ll send out to applicants, using software to help you in the hiring process can save your HR teams dozens of hours and plenty of headaches.

There you have it: four ways in which you can truly harness the power of HR analytics software this year.

 

How Businesses Can Find Great Corporate Housing Companies

As a large business there is a wealth of contacts which are worth having and one of which is a corporate housing company. Whenever guests, members of the management team or perhaps even short term employees come to work with the business, having a company to call on who can give access to corporate properties is a wonderful thing to have on your side. This ensures that your guests and members of staff have a home away from home to stay in, that they can avoid a hotel and that they feel comfortable during their time with you.

In order to find a corporate housing company which will work well, here is what you need to do.

Internet Search

There isn’t always a secret way in which you can find a great company and you will find that a simple internet search for ‘corporate housing near me’ will yield some very positive results. Not only will you be able to find local agencies in the area who can support you with this, but looking online also carries with it additional benefits. The biggest of these benefits is that you will also be able to look for reviews which people have left, both businesses and residents, about the service and the quality of the properties. Using this information you can start to call around, without wasting time on some of the more unfavorable companies.

Networking

Engaging with other businesses may also prove to be fruitful if they have had experiences with cooperate housing companies in the area. Many companies will work in the same buildings as others, and sharing such information is not exactly going to be something that a business would avoid, through fear of giving up secrets, after all it is just accommodation. Networking like this can also help to forge bonds between your business and another.

Recommendations

Speaking to people in your team may also yield some positive results around which corporate housing service to use, especially if they stayed somewhere prior to working for you. Getting this kind of information from your team is very easy and basing your decision on their experience will ensure that you can deliver a high-quality option for anyone who happens to require such accommodation options.

List and Review

Ultimately the aim here is to gather a list of potential candidates and then review them based on strict requirements which you have. Through the use the methods above you should be able to get a good 3 or 4 potential targets, which you can then begin to vet. When deciding on a particular business ensure that you are looking for professionalism, good pricing and great properties which are well located and feature many amenities. Once you have a shortened list, it will be far easier to make your selection as to which corporate housing company to use.

Invest time on this and seek to create solid relationships with the housing company, this will bear fruit in the future.

 

Tips on How to Grow Your Small Business

Whilst there are many small or medium sized businesses who are happy to stay at that size, there are just as many, if not more, who wish to solidify their position and then move on to bigger and better things. The question therefore is how to grow your small business when you feel that the time is right to expand? And we have some tips on how to do exactly that. Growth is just as tricky as launching a business, and failure could see a lot of that great work in the past go to waste, get it right however, and you’ll be very much on the pathway to success.

Marketing

Marketing is often overlooked when businesses look to grow, and this is for a number of reasons. The first is that most companies recognize that it is time to grow once the demand for their products and services begins to get overwhelming, the assumption therefore is that further marketing isn’t required at this stage. The second reason is cost, a business is already spending money on the growth plans, so marketing is an easy spend to chalk off. It is however absolutely essential that a business keeps driving new customers in order to make that growth worthwhile, and whilst that may mean some hard working months ahead, it will be better for the general health of the business.

All Areas

When you scale up it is important that you recognize that all aspects of the business must be increased, and improved. Many fall into the trap of thinking that a bigger space and a few more staff is all that is needed, but there is much more to it than that. From logistics to manufacturing, supply to sales, everything in the business must be scaled up. The key to doing this will be slowly but surely, there is no scale up button which sees the business expand, growth will always be a slow and systematic process. Prioritize which areas need it first, then scale up gradually.

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Another common mistake which many small businesses make when they implement plans for growth is to go too far, which is going to end up being costly, dangerously so in fact. This is why businesses should always grow based on the numbers that they are seeing. Let’s say you have a clothing business which is able to make and sell 100 units per week, but orders are coming in at 150-200 units per week, looking to get a premises, staff and materials for 400 units per week will make little sense. There should always be some flexibility for future growth so opting for an infrastructure which can cope with 250-300 units per week would be the smartest move here. This will ensure both growth and risk aversion, should things take a downturn for any reason.

This is a complex plan and one which should be thought out very carefully before enacting.

 

How to Buy Bitcoin Online with Credit Card

In order to buy Bitcoin online with credit card, you’re going to need a Bitcoin wallet. As Bitcoin is a digitalized, decentralized currency, this means that no government or financial institutions rules them. Hence, you don’t need a lot of information to start a bitcoin wallet, which is essentially the same as a bank account.

How to Create a Bitcoin Wallet

You can get a Bitcoin wallet through any of the good Bitcoin brokers. Make sure they are fully certified, however. Once you open your wallet, you will be provided with an address, expressed in letters and numbers. You will also receive a private key, which will be your password.

Using Bitcoin to Process Payments Anonymously

Bitcoins can be used for three things:

  1. To buy things.
  2. To send money to someone else anonymously.
  3. To use as an investment.

Bitcoin is becoming a commonly accepted form of payment. When you use it, you buy anonymously, because the recipient can only see the number of your Bitcoin wallet. This means you can also send money to others anonymously.

Using Bitcoin as an Investment

While Bitcoins are decentralized, their price does fluctuate. For instance, at the start of 2013, a bitcoin was worth around $400. By the end that year, the price was around $1,000. This means that, on a single bitcoin, someone could have made $600. However, the prices do go up and down, although that is true for any type of investment.

Gambling with Bitcoin

Because Bitcoin is anonymous, the gambling industry quite likes it as a form of payment. Hence, there are now numerous online casinos and poker websites where Bitcoins are accepted. Here, players are encouraged to deposit their Bitcoin and use it to play various games. Because these games are online, the player allows the casino to link directly to their Bitcoin wallet. This means that there is very little, if any, government control or taxes.

How to Send Bitcoin

If you want to pay for anything using Bitcoin, or send some Bitcoins to a friend, you need three specific things:

  1. The address of your bitcoin wallet. (Input)
  2. The address of the bitcoin wallet of the person you are sending it to. (Output)
  3. Your private key.

Besides input and output, balance is also very important, which is the amount that has to be transferred through your wallet to that of someone else.

It is very important that you gain a greater understanding of what Bitcoins are, how they work, and what the pros and cons of different wallets are. While the money is digital and decentralized, as well as being anonymous, it is still real money.

Use Botox in Chicago to Find Your Youth Again

We all know that we have to engage in a healthy, active lifestyle and eat a balanced, nutritious diet in order to live long. However, even if we do all of that, as well as stay out of the sun, we still find that time catches up with us, and we start to develop wrinkles. Growing old gracefully is a lovely saying, if you are an airbrushed model on the front page of a magazine. For the rest of us, however, we need to resort to cosmetic procedures. Thankfully, you can go for Botox in Chicago.

Botox Treatments

Botox is one of the most popular forms of cosmetic augmentations on the market. All it requires is for a few chemicals to be injected into the wrinkles and the muscles get frozen so that skin looks beautiful and youthful once again. Botox has been around for quite some time now, which means the technology has developed so that there is now a type of Botox available for every type of skin and body type. No more horror stories of years gone by of frozen faces, therefore. The procedure is quick, almost entirely painless and the results can be seen in no time whatsoever without lengthy recovery periods.

It doesn’t matter where in the country you are, it is likely that you will be able to find a clinic where you can have Botox completed. However, it is known that Chicago is one of the Botox capitals of our country, which means the prices are affordable but the quality is high. That is exactly what you need, because Botox should only be handled by experienced and properly trained physicians.

How to Find a Good Botox Clinic

The best Botox clinics are those that are operated by true plastic surgeons. Try to avoid beauty spas where you go for your hair, makeup and a massage. While they may offer Botox and are often even licensed to perform the procedure, they simply do not have the medical training to truly understand the inner workings of a person’s facial muscles. Since you are looking for a treatment facility in Chicago, you will find that going to a registered plastic surgery clinic won’t cost much more either, because treatment is so affordable there. Do also trust your gut instinct. You need to feel comfortable in the hands of the physician who will be treating you.

A final thing to remember is that Botox is not a permanent solution. The effects last for a few months and you will find that, as time progresses, you will need treatment less and less frequently. However, we all grow older at some point, even the airbrushed models on the glossy magazines.

Benefits of a Small Business Answering Service

A small business answering service is essentially the same as having a receptionist, except nobody is actually needed in-house – and that comes with it benefits. Of course, there are pros and cons of not having a receptionist, but the many benefits of an answering service far outweigh any downsides.

In the vast majority of cases, a business answering service is a far better option than having an employed receptionist. Ultimately, though, it is your decision to make – so here is some information to help you make the right decision:

How does a small business answering service work?

When you opt for a business answering service, you will still have someone answering your phones just like you would with a receptionist, except this person will be in a remote location not your office building. You’ll still have complete access to them, as you would with a receptionist in your office though.

Who will answer the phone?

Generally, there will be a team of people assigned to your business. They will have received training about your company, how it operates, and how to offer the best customer service for your customers. Having a team of people means that you don’t have to worry about your employees’ holidays or sick days – there will always be someone available to answer the phones.

How much will it cost?

Since every answering service will differ in cost, it’s hard to put an exact figure on this. However, you can be certain that a small business answering service will cost much less than having a receptionist as one of your employees. Consider how much would you be paying your receptionist each year. Then on top of that, consider the other costly aspects of having an employee, such as health benefits and other necessary compensation. Then there’s things like providing an office space, a desk, phones, supplies…etc.

With a small business answering service, you get all the benefits of a receptionist (and more), without any of the hassle. What are you waiting for? Go and check out the services available to you today!

 

Tools Of A Great Digital Marketing Campaign

Building a great digital marketing campaign for your business is key when you’re seeking out success online. The tricks of the trade are many, but there’s plenty of information scattered about to build your own pool of knowledge.

There’s no better time to start learning than right now. Take a moment to read through this brief ensemble of a few tools of a great digital marketing campaign, and get started today.

Social media

Every excellent digital marketing effort includes a social media presence. Your business can make a name for itself on social media, no matter the industry of your operation.

Everyone spends time carousing the pages of social media, so there’s always a place for your business. Take the opportunities social media presents to clearly target users who will most benefit from your services.

Blogging for business

Adding a blog to your digital marketing campaign will give your business more content to present to potential customers. The more you can connect and build rapport with web users, the more likely it is that they will become customers.

Your business blog can easily be linked to your business website for maximum exposure. This blog featuring business tips is well-suited to the business it represents. Write about what your business specializes in doing.

Mobile optimization

When you do start working on your operation’s digital marketing plans, you need to be focused on building a presence that is mobile friendly. Mobile web use is at an all-time high, and your marketing content should be built to please the majority of users online at any given time.

Design your digital content for a smaller display screen. Make the buttons on your pages a little bigger so the clumsy thumbs can still differentiate between the various options available.

A strong business website

Your business website can always be improved upon. The specifics of what digital design requires shifts so often, that you need to keep a constant eye out for changes.

Your business website should always contain fresh information and content to keep users interested in what’s next. It’s preferable that you hire someone specifically for the purpose of developing your operation’s web presence.

Reach out through email

Email marketing is another stem of your digital marketing efforts that will help your business build a relationship with web users. Use your business website and your ecommerce platform to gather email connections from consumers, and then stay in touch with them.

You can even work to develop a regular newsletter release to keep email connections fresh. Your business will never be a last thought in the minds of users when you continue to regularly place your brand at the forefront.

5 Tips for Improving Hygiene in the Workplace

In this day and age, hygiene is more important than ever in the workplace. COVID-19 has led to people becoming much more aware about the use of hand sanitizers, face masks, and so on. Plus, with the pandemic still going on, your employees may feel uncomfortable coming into work right now and interacting with others.

Yet even aside from COVID-19, a business should always strive to provide the best possible hygiene standards in the workplace. The last thing you want is for an employee to fall ill under your watch – and the cause of their illness be down to a lack of hygiene.

With these points in mind, your focus should be on enhancing cleanliness levels when necessary. As a starting point, consider these five tips for improving hygiene in the workplace.

1. Promote regularly washing hands

Before they sit down for work, every employee should be made to wash their hands. This is a simple yet effective way to stop germs from entering the workspace, where they can quickly spread due to populating everything from keyboards to documents. When it comes to the washing part, encourage employees to use disinfecting hand wipes.

When it comes to the washing part, encourage employees to use soap and hand sanitizer. Also, instruct them to spend a minimum of 20 seconds washing their hands.

2. Clean desks

Along with their hands, you should also encourage employees to regularly clean their desks. Certain items on a desk are a breeding ground for bacteria. For instance, research suggests the average computer keyboard is 20,000 times dirtier than the average toilet seat.

To help with the cleaning process, ensure all employees have access to hand sanitizing gels and anti-bacterial wipes. Also, give them reminders not to skip on the desk cleaning.

3. Use a ULV Fogger

If you want to disinfect the entire workplace with ease, look no further than the ULV Fogger Sanitiser. This ultra-low volume fogging machine can be utilized in various different ways. In the workplace, however, it helps to disinfect and/or sterilize the environment.

For more details, Fanmaster is the leading distributor of the ULV Fogger.

4. Avoid sharing

There’s another type of place where bacteria love to reside: shared items.

For example, dish towels, which are used by multiple people and stored in the communal kitchen, can pick up a large amount of bacteria. This is often due to such items not being cleaned on a regular basis. There is an alternative. Instead of a towel, you could instead use disposable tissue paper, for example.

While there isn’t always a solution to a shared item, try and limit the office’s use of such products.

5. Stop the spread early

If you’re suffering with an illness that can be spread to others, how do you stop it from doing just that? There’s one easy solution: stay at home!

If you feel you’re infected with any form of virus or some other stomach bug, simply remain at home and give it 48 hours after the final symptoms have vanished before you return to work. This is a rule that all of your employees should follow.

By doing this, you can avoid a virus from temporarily wiping out your workforce and slowing down business production.

 

4 Things Small Businesses Need to do to Comply with Employment Laws

Small businesses have it tough. They are up against the corporate giants and it can be harder for them to recruit and retain the right talent. One of the toughest parts of running a small business is ensuring you’re compliant with employment laws. While big companies have HR departments and legal advisors, small businesses must figure things out for themselves. When it comes to hiring employees, here are a few things that small businesses need to make sure they do.

1. Get the right paperwork

When you hire someone, by law, you need to obtain several different types of paperwork. This ensures that the person you’re hiring has the right to live and work in the country and also means you have records for legal purposes. Many small businesses use specialist HR software to store sensitive documents from copies of passports to bank details, so it’s easy to access them if they need to check something or are asked to prove they obtained the right documents.

2. Ensure you follow rules for paid time off and work hours

Small businesses often have employees who work long hours to keep up with deadlines and to finish big projects. While there are no laws about how many hours an employee can work in most states, anything over 40 hours needs to be paid as overtime, and consistent, long working hours are often discouraged, as it can lead to burnout.

There’s no legal requirement to offer paid vacation time, but again, it can be good for employee’s mental health to offer something to them.

Many employers offer a package that includes:

  • 10 paid vacation days a year
  • Parental leave – while you aren’t obliged to offer paid time off to new parents, it can benefit your business to do so
  • Sick leave – this is usually accumulated depending on how long the employee has been with you
  • Paid leave for bereavements and personal days – this is usually just a couple of days off, but it can be very helpful for employees going through a difficult time

Some employers also allow workers to take unpaid leave when they have caring responsibilities and other emergency situations. You should make sure you know the difference between leave that can be taken unpaid, and things you’re legally obliged to pay for.

3. Know the laws around pay

You should also do some research into the laws around minimum wage and ensure that the amount you’re paying your employees doesn’t bring your employee’s hourly rate under the federal minimum wage level of $7.25 per hour.

If you’re in a state that has its own minimum wage laws, then you need to compare state and federal rates, and pay the higher of the two. For example, Colorado has a state minimum wage of $12 an hour.

4. Following OSHA laws

Most private sector businesses, no matter what their size, must comply with OSHA regulations and laws. Violating OSHA standards can lead to a hefty fine, so even if your business is small and low risk, you should pay close attention to the regulations and ensure you aren’t in breach of any of them, otherwise, you could find yourself in legal trouble.

As a small business owner, it’s important to research both state and federal employment laws so you can ensure employees are kept safe and protected, and you aren’t hit with a large fine.

 

Seven Tips To Save Money In 2020

Your finances are an area of life you can’t ignore and the more informed you are the easier it is to make important decisions. However, even with good planning money can be limited and in 2020 everyone is looking for ways to save money and cut expenses. Luckily, saving money is not reliant on one solution and there are several different ways to bring down costs and improve your finances.

Saving money can involve a lot of different approaches, techniques, and changes to your lifestyle. With so many options and a high degree of flexibility, it can be hard knowing where to start. Here are some tips for saving money this year that should take some of the mystery out of improving your finances.

Seven Tips For Saving Money In 2020

  1. Budgeting: a well thought out though budget is the first step to getting your finances organized and saving money. It’s hard to save money without knowing what your expenses even are and where your money is going. A budget not only gives you a very useful overview it also allows you to see areas where spending can be cut.
  2. Plan Your Meals: a lot of needless spending comes from a lack of planning and related impulse buying as it relates to food. By planning your meals in advance you can take advantage of money-saving strategies such as bulk buying, sales, and coupons.
  3. Eat Out Less: related to meal planning is cutting back on fast food as it quickly adds up. While you certainly don’t have to give up takeout entirely random trips to the drive-through can be cut down. This is especially true for coffee as a lot of money can be saved by making your own coffee at home as opposed to buying it at a large chain or local coffee shop.
  4. Memberships And Subscriptions: while subscription services can greatly improve the quality of your life they can also be a source of wasted money. They are very easy to set and forget and you may be paying for services you never use. Review your monthly subscription costs and cancel the ones that you don’t use or don’t use enough to justify the cost.
  5. Cable: one of the most cited areas where people save money is with their cable bill. If you’ve looked at your cable bill recently you know it can be an expensive service. Like with a subscription you should make sure your investment is worth it based on how you use it. You don’t have to get rid of cable entirely, downgrading is certainly an option and many cable companies offer deals if you call them and talk it over.
  6. Your Cell Phone: much like with cable your cell phone plan is another area where you can easily overpay. A key area of cell phone expense is the data plan and while it’s certainly convenient unlimited data is expensive and sometimes unnecessary. Depending on how much cellular data you use (and how often you’re on WiFi) downgrading to a lower data amount can be a way to save money. Many cellular phones and apps allow you to track your data usage so you can get an idea of how much you really need.
  7. Organizing Your Home: taking stock of your possessions can help you save money in two ways. First, any items you no longer need can be sold at a yard sale or one of many online marketplaces for a small profit. Two, possessions that you no longer use often do have a related cost of ownership expense, this can be the space it takes up, upkeep expenses, storage fees, and related moving costs when you get a new home or apartment.

Final Thoughts

As the above list shows there are many different areas of your life where you can cut costs. Also, the above is only a few of the many different ways you can save money. In 2020 there are numerous lists and entire books devoted to the subject, many of which you can apply right now in your own life. So don’t be afraid to sit down, start looking at where your money truly goes, and see how you can cut down on those unneeded expenses.