Category: Leadership

As a small business owner, you quickly learn what your limitations are when it comes to making investments in your business. It’s not that you don’t want to make them. You just don’t want to spend the money, only to find the solution that is not adaptable to your business and you lose money on it.

That said, you are unlikely to go wrong investing in an IT service as a small business owner. Increasingly, services are being computerized and automated and you don’t want your business to be left behind.

What are IT services?

According to the Gartner IT Glossary, IT services are “the application of business and technical expertise to enable organizations in the creation, management, and optimization of or access to information and business processes.”

That’s quite a mouthful. Breaking this down means that IT services are goods or services that help users optimize their business or service offerings. You read that right. An IT service can actually help you make your product or service delivery better for you and your customers.

There are different types of IT services depending on whether you want to build or design a system or install software for your business. Some common IT services are:

• Backup services

• Cloud services

• Network security

• Help desk services

• Consultancy

• Training

6 ways your business can benefit from using more IT services

1.You can save on new equipment and software

As a small business owner, every penny counts. As much as you’d like to, you can’t afford to spend money on purchasing expensive specialist hardware or software for your business. 

“Cloud” based software services are the latest technological innovation to come to your rescue. This is essentially a service that can be accessed from anywhere over the Internet, like this cloud based veterinary software, which helps organize the practice’s information in a form that is easily accessible to vet and staff alike.

When you have a cloud based service, you are also freed from storing and backing up your information as well as updating your security. A cloud service will do all of this for you.

2.You don’t have to hire a separate IT department

When you are a small business owner, you wear many hats. The primary reason you double up is you can’t always afford to hire the specific skillset that you need.

IT is a very specific set of specialist skills. This is not a hat it’s advised you wear because of the kind of damage that could be done to your system from the outside, or even your own well-meaning efforts. 

When you hire an IT service to pick up one or more functions that an in-house IT department would normally do, you pay one flat monthly fee. You have access to the service and supporting advice as needed.

3.You can easily recover lost information

There are various scenarios a business owner can lose data in, all of the potential nightmares. There could be a natural disaster in your area which damages your computers. You could be attacked by a hacker, virus, or malware. Or, in one of those things that just happens, your computer just stops working.

If you’ve contracted an IT service provider, your information is safe and backed up for your use on one of their servers. No need to worry about your precious business data.

4.They can tell you how to set up your infrastructure

If you’re thinking of expanding your business, probably hiring a few new employees or offering customers a new service, have you ever thought about what is required for a successful office network? Or if you’re a remote business, what would it take to keep everyone communicating and give them access to the necessary company data?

It’s a lot. First, you’d have to decide what hardware components you’d buy, then you’d have to decide what software was necessary and best for your needs and install that. You’d have to figure out where your data was going to be stored, on your own servers or externally. You’d have to figure out how to network all of this. And then you’d have to keep this network running properly.

Perhaps most importantly, you’d have to worry about how to keep all of it secure.

You read that and your head is probably swimming. This is why it’s better to hire an IT service to provide any or all of these services for you.

5. They can do your training for you.

Your small business takes up much of your time. You certainly don’t have time to get new employees set up in the system,  or to train older ones to use new software.

You can get an IT service to do this for you as well. One of the hallmarks of a good training program is that they are led by people who know the hardware or software components. You can’t train anyone if you are becoming familiar with the components or software yourself.

You can also leave the IT aspect of your new employee orientation to them. You can have an IT service prepare a prepackaged video that can get all new employees set up on your network, including setting up their passwords and emails. 

They can also give your business packaged literature to troubleshoot common problems or set up a hotline for employees to call when they have issues with hardware or software. 

6. Improve employee productivity and retention

You are not the only person that needs to focus to keep your business afloat. Your employees also need to keep on top of their duties and you do them a disservice if they have to worry about the network going down, or the printer jamming at the most inopportune times. Worse if they are the ones who have to troubleshoot the issues themselves once they happen.

This can eventually cost you big in two ways. Your productivity is decreased because your employees’ attention is divided and you may have trouble keeping staff as they become frustrated with a job environment where nothing works.

Solve both problems by outsourcing to an IT service.

Look at the kinds of problems an IT service can solve for your business. Hiring an IT service is therefore a solid investment that can take your business forward.

A few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs. Some had to work from home taking home only a portion of what they usually make. This was understandable because the entire globe was dealing with a similar challenge as an impact of the measure put in place to put the spread of the virus in check.

However, people lose their jobs every day in the normal world. Some employees are discriminated against by their colleagues and seniors based on race, color, gender, background, or even fitness levels. Bullying is also not unheard of in the standard workplace. Still, some people work under extremely harsh and hazardous conditions with zero concern about their safety from the employer. While you need the money to put groceries on the table, you are not a slave or a robot. You are also human and your rights should be respected. To get an extra pinch on this, the following pointers should paint the picture of why employees should know their rights. 

1. Workplace Safety and Health

At the federal level, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is the entity tasked with the responsibility to regulate workplace safety in the United States. The organization works tirelessly to ensure workers have safe working conditions. OSHA ensures manufacturing facilities are inspected and won’t hesitate to levy large fines to any employer subjecting their workers to unsafe working conditions.

This goes a long way in preventing workplace injuries and work-related health issues. When injured in a workplace accident, the folks at joyelawfirm.com/north-charleston/workers-compensation-attorney/ say that worker’s comp should cover your medical expenses and a significant portion of your lost wages. With the guidance of an experienced attorney and perhaps some help from OSHA, dodgy employees can be brought to book as you recover your deserved financial damages. In a nutshell, below are a few examples of unsafe work conditions:

• Exposing workers to hazardous or infectious material without proper safety gear
• Lack of safeguard on dangerous machinery
• Exposure to toxic or corrosive chemicals without protective clothing  
• Slippery floors and oil spills out of negligence
• And much more

2. Employment Laws against Discrimination

Every worker needs to know and understand his/her rights to stay safe from any form of work-related discrimination. According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, every worker is protected from any form of workplace discrimination whether based on color, creed, nation of origin, gender, age, or religion. Some states have also provided workers with protection against workplace discrimination based on their sexual orientation, disability, marital status, and pregnancy-even though the federal law is yet to adopt these protection rights. Moreover, employers are not supposed to deny you a job opportunity or promotion based on any protected classifications mentioned whether under federal or state law.

Workplace discrimination laws are applicable in a wide range of areas, including:

• Hiring
• Firing and layoffs
• Job promotion
• Task allocation
• Training and career development

It can sometimes be quite difficult to pinpoint unless the victim comes forward. It can sometimes even manifest in the form of sexual harassment where senior members of staff take advantage of fresh-out-of-college staff or ask for sexual advances from a staff member from an “inferior race or gender” in return for favors at the workplace. Nonetheless, it is easier to seek help if you know and understand your employment rights like the palm of your hand.

3. Workers Deserve To Be Paid A Fair Wage

Workers have the right to be paid a fair wage for the work they perform. However, some employers will always try to cut corners when it comes to rewarding their workers for the work done. That’s why every employee needs to know and understand the amount of payment they deserve after working for a given number of hours. In the US, the federal government and states have an established law that dictates the minimum wage for different categories of workers.

Alongside a ton of scientific research out there, multiple arguments have also been raised regarding why employees should take home more than the minimum wage. This is because, in most cases, the minimum wage is set based on assumptions that anyone can survive comfortably when earning such a wage weekly or monthly.

Also, the law tends to have a few loopholes regarding compensation. An employer may choose to pay their workers in commissions as is usually witnessed in many sales and marketing departments. This commission may or may not be in addition to a salary, usually called a retainer. Sometimes you may lose even the retainer salary in case you fail to achieve certain targets. Before taking such a job, the employee needs to carefully scrutinize the contract and ascertain whether they can cope without a guaranteed minimum wage.

4. Workers must be Paid for Overtime Hours

The federal law requires every employer to pay their workers for the extended time working. Every worker is eligible for bonus pay, usually, a 50% increase for every hour worked over forty hours in a week. States such as California mandate overtime pay if a worker works for more than 8 hours in one workday. Note – extra overtime compensation is always not optional but mandatory. Therefore, any employer who denies workers overtime pay risks being at loggerheads with the state or federal employment laws. Additionally, an employer is not supposed to release a worker from employment while sorting out their increased wages.

5. Right to Family Leave

According to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, workers are provided with job security and time off when there is a need to take care of, say, a seriously ill family member, newborn, or an adopted baby. Factually, the employer is not only mandated to provide workers with up to 12 weeks off but also with guaranteed job protection. Even if the time off is unpaid, as a worker you won’t lose your position at work.

In conclusion, understanding your rights as an employee can have numerous benefits. It can give you the peace of mind to stay productive and prosper in your career. The chances of hating your job are also greatly minimized. The next time you drop a successful job application at company A or B, make sure they are compliant with employment laws and regulations before signing the contract.

One challenge most business owners and office managers are very familiar with is the lack of space. No matter the size of your office space, you’ll find that you need more at least once in your time at the workplace, if not repeatedly.

While it is rarely possible to move workspaces and actually increase the size of your office, it is possible to maximize whatever space you do have. Not only does an organized office mean more space for people to move around in, but it has also been shown to boost productivity and reduce wasted time among employees.

You will, of course, need to personalize your strategy to fit your space and organizational needs. However, there are some tips you can keep in mind.

Cut Down on Paper

It’s not immediately evident, but paper takes up an enormous amount of space in an office. From filing cabinets and printers to binders full of physical documents, the amount of paper you use quickly adds up.

While it may not always be possible to shift away from using paper, cutting down on your usage where possible can help free up a lot of physical space. One advantage is that the legal system is catching up with these needs – electronic signatures, for example, have the same legal validity as physical signatures in much of the world. This reduces the barriers to ending businesses’ dependence on paper.

Purge the Space

This step is, in many ways, the other side of the coin to cutting down on paper. Not only do businesses use a lot of paper for official documents, but many companies also have the habit of storing these documents in filing cabinets, no matter whether they are needed or not.

While going paperless is a great first step, it doesn’t do much for the paper you have already accumulated around the office. By going through the heaps of documents you have stored, there’s a good chance that you’ll discover that much of it can be shredded and destroyed.

Depending on what you have accumulated and over how long, this could undoubtedly take a significant amount of time. However, once you’re done, you’re sure to be taken aback by how much you didn’t need and the sheer amount of space that is now free for use.

Consider Dynamic Partitions

Dynamic partition walls allow you to constantly reconfigure a space, redesigning it to meet your changing needs. For example, you may not need large meeting rooms more than once a week. Designating a permanent area for this limits the amount of space your employees have during the rest of the workweek and forces you to work in a smaller space.

Dynamic office partitions provide an easy solution to this challenge. You can leave a space open for employees when it is not in use and create a private room when the necessity arises. Additionally, as the team here points out, these walls don’t get in the way of the HVAC system, so you don’t need to worry about the logistics. More than that, for the benefits they provide you, they are surprisingly budget-friendly.

You can find dynamic walls in a variety of styles and colors, allowing you to customize them to match your workspace’s existing design. Furthermore, they are available in numerous materials, including glass, aluminum, bamboo, acrylic, resin, wood, and more.

Think Vertically

So, you may not have a lot of floor space – but that doesn’t mean you don’t have vertical space you can use instead!

Vertical space can be filled with shelves and wall hooks, perfect for storing items neatly instead of messing up the look of the office. Additionally, using a little floor space can pay a lot of dividends in terms of vertical space – one great storage solution, for example, is a wall of bookcases. These take up significantly less floor space than filing cabinets do and allow you to display important files just as well. More than that, they can be used to store other items and are easier to access than cabinets.

You can even use vertical space to provide personal storage for your employees, which will allow for more efficient usage of their desks while still allowing them to personalize their space. If you have cubicles, use the vertical space provided by the dividers to create stackable areas or dry-erase whiteboards where they can work easily.

Furnish Strategically

When furnishing an office space, it’s important to think strategically. While bulkier chairs and bigger sofas may look better, they also take up a lot of space and can make your office feel cramped.

Instead, consider investing in space-saving furniture. Alternatively, look at multipurpose furnishing options, so you can cut down on the number of pieces you need to have in your office. Some options you can consider include foldable and expandable tables and chairs, mobile furniture that can easily be transported around a space, and smaller desks that take up less space.

Embrace Natural Light

So, this is admittedly a bit of a cheat. Sometimes, no matter what you do to maximize space, your office will still look crowded. Aesthetics play a significant role in any workspace, as a better-looking space will be more attractive to current and prospective employees.

While you may not be able to shift locations completely, you can use natural light to make the space seem bigger. Aside from making the area look better, an increase in natural light also has health benefits for employees, including a reduction in issues such as headaches and eyestrain.

Natural light can also increase the retail value of space and boost productivity. In fact, a survey found that access to natural light and the ability to see outside is the biggest office perk that employees look for. Without enough natural light, workers report feeling gloomy and tired, especially if they do much of their work on electronic devices like computers.

Office organization can be challenging, especially if you’re working with a small space or one that is not big enough to meet the business’s growing needs. However, with a few clever moves, you will soon find that your workplace is actually much bigger than you ever thought possible!

The best way to work with your team is to ensure there is a culture of trust, transparency, and communication. As with all teams, you want to be able to monitor workload, quality, and productivity. Now that many of our work lives have changed dramatically in the last year, we are facing new challenges and experiences. One of those is learning how to track your remote workforce. It can be difficult to do this in a way that promotes positivity and trust among your team. Here are 7 ways you can keep track of your remote workforce.

Deadlines

When setting your team tasks, set them with a deadline. This gives them the motivation to complete the task on time and can deal with any moments of procrastination they might be feeling coming on. Setting a task without a deadline can give them the room to take their time even if they can get the task done fairly quickly. By setting an expectation from the start, they are more likely to complete the task within the set time frame.

Set Rules And Precedents

Putting together a set of rules and working with your team to do this, can be helpful. Coming up with ways for them to organize their time and increase productivity can help you ensure they are meeting deadlines and have the right mindset and space to work properly.

One strategy to employ is to ensure that everyone is online at the same time during a certain period of work. This could be to attend meetings, check-ins, or to collaborate effectively with their team. If your team’s productivity begins to decline, you can then think about bringing in stricter measures. If their productivity is not affected or is even increasing, it’s probably a sign that having their own autonomy is helpful for them.

Time Tracking

One way to ensure tasks, projects, and workload is completed on time is to use a time tracker. You don’t necessarily need to monitor every aspect of their working day. Monitoring your workforce productivity using a time tracker to track their progress on a project or their working hours can help you get a clearer sense of how well they are working. If they appear to need further support or help, you can offer this before it gets too late.

Honesty

Everyone has a different home life, in comparison to the office, some might have children, live with extended family members, or have duties they need to attend to. By encouraging them to be open and honest about their situation, you can come up with working procedures and schedules that work for both of you. A collaborative effort is beneficial for both you and your team.

Daily Report

At the end of each working day, you can have your team offer a summary of their day. They can highlight their wins, losses, and progress. This is an easy way for you to track their work and gives them an opportunity to reflect and see how they can do better.

Accountability

Set clear expectations with your employees. They will be more likely to deliver high-quality work on time if they know what is expected of them. If you have been clear with them and they continually fail to meet the set expectations, you can hold them accountable. Holding them accountable will mean different things for each workplace, but it is important in order for your employees to stay on track.

Transparency

When your workforce is remote it can be hard to figure out the line between what is considered intrusive and what is simply management. A workforce that feels heard, understood, and appreciated is more likely to produce great work compared to a workforce that feels they are being spied on. That’s why fostering a culture of transparency is key.

Ensure your team is involved in and well aware of any changes. They can be involved in planning, awareness, and even coming up with new ways to keep themselves accountable. It should be clear to your workforce that your aim is to ensure that all the work gets done on time, and to a high standard. The more involved and the more transparent they are, the more motivated they will be.

Use these 7 ways of tracking your remote workforce to cultivate a culture of honesty and transparency. A workforce that collaborates and understands the expectations laid out for them, is a much more productive workforce. Encouraging individuality within the context of a team and achieving common and individual goals will ensure a workforce that’s productive and healthy. 

Is your business now at the stage where you need to start hiring employees? If so, here are five crucial things you need to know.

1. You Need an EIN

First off, if you are hiring employees for the very first time, you need to obtain an Employer Identification Number. The nine-digit number is unique to your business. You can obtain it from the IRS. Basically, your EIN is used for reporting information about your employees to state agencies and reporting taxes to the IRS.

2. Providing Your Employees with Their W-2 Forms

The W2 Form is used to report wages, compensation, and taxes annually for each of your employees to the federal government. Copy A of the form needs to be sent to the Social Security Administration. And employers must send employees their W2 forms before January 31, for wages and taxes paid the previous year. The W2 Form is pretty simple to complete and there is HR software that can help you with the process. You will enter information that is already available in your payroll records and need some additional information like your State ID Number and EIN. Check out this insightful guide on how to complete a W2 to make sure you get it right. You will also need to complete Form W4, which is used for federal income tax withholding.

3. How Much to Pay?

Before you start hiring employees, you need to know how much you can afford to pay them. If you are working in an industry with clearly defined pay scales, then you should stick to those rates. Otherwise, the amount you pay needs to be calculated in relation to your other business finances. You also need to decide what benefits and insurance packages you want to provide. Hiring employees can be a lot more costly than you think, so make sure you work out the costs and create a budget before you start advertising for roles.

4. Defining the Position and Writing a Job Description

Once all of the background nuts and bolts of hiring someone are out of the way, you can focus on finding the right employees. Quite simply, to find the right workers, you need to clearly define what you are looking for.

Begin by clearly defining the available position and break it down into the tasks and duties the role involves. Next, make a list of the skills the ideal employee should have for your available position, and consider whether the applicant should have experience and/or qualifications. You also need to consider other attributes. For instance, if the role involves customer service, you will need to ensure the candidate is friendly, outgoing, and can handle angry customers in a calm manner. When you know precisely what you want out of your employee, you will be much better placed to find the right person. You will also better know what questions to focus on during the interview process. But before you get to that, you need to write a job description. Use all of the above information about the role to create a job description and do not forget to include a little about your company so you can ensure the right candidates apply.

5. Background Checks Are Crucial

You could find an applicant who seems to be the ideal person for your role after reviewing his or her resume and meeting the candidate in person at the interview. But unless you perform a background check, you cannot be sure that the person is right for the job. An effective background check is one of the most important steps when considering who to hire. You should check work references, educational credentials, and criminal history (learn more here). If you do not, you could regret it.

No matter what kind of business you run, it’s extremely important that you provide your customers with a convenient method of paying you for your goods or services. You can be a freelancer, an exporter, a consultant, an engineer, or a seller; in any case, you’ll need a solid payment system so that your customers don’t have to jump through hoops to acquire your services. If you want to have a global reach then it becomes critical to give some form of payment system to every customer all over the world. However, due to the varying nature of payment options in every country, it becomes a difficult task to accomplish.

You can try to leave it up to your customers to find a way to pay you, but this is a tried and tested recipe for disaster, as there are many others who’ll be willing to offer them a better deal with an easier checkout process. You can also rely on third-party vendors to collect payments for you, but they’ll take a significant cut out of your hard-earned money. This is why you need to establish a payment system that will make it easier for your customers to pay no matter where they are in the world.

Today, we’ll be looking at a few tips which will help you identify the areas that you need to focus on in order to build a worldwide payment system for your brand. Once you’re done with this article, you’ll have a fairly good idea of what to do next. So let’s get to it and find out how you can maximize your profits by making payments easier for your customers.

1. Conduct Intensive Research

Since this is a rather huge step for your brand, you’ll want to ensure that you choose only the best option available. It’s also very important to choose the proper payment methods because it’ll be a long-term feature that you provide. You’ll need to look at the costs associated with setting it up, the method of transfer also known as funding practice, monthly fee, and additional charges levied by your payment gateway provider. Once you properly research all the options available, you’ll be able to decide which one to choose based on your needs.

2. Multiple Payment Methods

It’s always a good idea to provide your customers with a variety of payment methods. Many websites provide only one or two payment methods which might be enough in most cases, but you don’t want to take any chances which is why you should try to incorporate a range of payment systems so that your customers can find at least one that they can go with. It’s a good idea to include major credit cards, some debit cards, direct bank transfers, and any other payment methods that you deem worthy. This will greatly increase the accessibility of your website by providing the customers with various options to make payments.

3. Make a Payment Form and Integrate It

There are many different types of payment forms used by online stores, you could easily refer to one of those if you’re having a hard time coming up with original ideas. A payment form generally involves the amount a customer is paying, any applicable discounts or promotions, any applicable taxes and deductions, the information of the customer, the delivery address, and the details of the product or service being purchased. These are all important points that help a customer verify their order before finally placing it. You’ll have to integrate this payment form seamlessly into your website so that the overall experience isn’t hampered, and it functions optimally. 

4. Hire an Expert

It’s not necessary that you do everything for your business yourself. Sometimes, we have to take external help and in this case, it’s certainly needed very much. A programmer who has plenty of web development experience can easily integrate the payment system on your website. It’s recommended that you hire an expert because they can perform the integration with a guarantee of success. Whereas, if you try it yourself without having any experience, you’re more than likely to screw it up. You can’t afford to make mistakes in this area since you depend on this system to be paid and any minor mistake can literally cost you a lot. So, invest in an experienced web developer and that’ll be just a small investment when compared to the potential benefits of hiring them.

5. Testing, Debugging, and Launching

This is the final step in the process of setting up a payment system for your business. You need to make sure that the system is operating properly as needed before you launch it for public use. The testing will help you identify any bugs and that’ll help you to rectify the issues. Debugging is usually even more important than development itself as it can take a lot of time, and it ensures that the final product is error-free. After you’re done with the process of testing and debugging, you can finally do what you’ve been waiting for and launch the payment system. It’ll serve to make both sending and receiving payments easier so that you don’t have to say goodbye to your profit and your customer doesn’t have to go through a difficult process.

These are some of the basic steps that you need to take in order to properly implement a payment system. There are many minor steps in between that haven’t been covered due to the vast nature of this topic. However, these steps should provide you with a solid outline for successfully implementing your payment system. It’ll not only make your payments much faster, but you’ll also be able to reach potential customers all over the world. Expanding your reach will have immense benefits for your business as you’ll be able to charge more and deliver the same services to different corners of the world. If you’re serious about growing your business, then you should give it a sincere thought and consider whether you need a global payment system or not.