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Do Your Workers Need More Education?

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If you are reviewing your employee benefits package, you may want to consider continuing education.

While not one of the traditional components of benefits packages for employees, it is an attractive addition.

People like the idea of getting education for free to help their careers and income potential to grow.

Benefits for Employers

Offering continuing education doesn’t just benefit the employee; it provides advantages the employer as well.

The most obvious advantage is the fact that you can promote from within when a higher position opens up. Instead of hiring strangers to take a supervisory position, you can place someone you already know and trust in that job.

It also helps reduce the cost of turnover because employees are more likely to stay with an employer if they feel they can continue to grow and advance.

They also know that they will make more money if they can promote up through the department or even move into a new department within the same company.

Happy Customers

The better trained your staff is, the better satisfied your customers will be.

This translates into more revenue for you. Even small businesses can benefit from helping their employees get more education.

For example, say you own a beauty salon.

As the following article looks at, by offering your staff the opportunity to take cosmetology online classes, they can learn new techniques or expand their knowledge while continuing to work. They can sell their new skills to customers in the form of additional services.

This concept works for just about any small business, so explore how it can help your company.

Are There Any Downsides?

Even if you can see all of the advantages to offering employees continuing education, you may wonder about the downside. The first is the cost.

Of course, you can limit the cost by offering to pay only for tuition or for a portion of the tuition.

To prevent your employees from getting the training and then leaving immediately, you can also include a requirement of service for a reasonable period of time.

For instance, an employee may need to be employed for at least a year and plan to stay at least a year after completion of education.

The other big disadvantage to employers is that employees have gained new skills that they can take elsewhere. However, this is not as big of a problem as you might think.

By offering educational help as part of the employee benefits, you show that your business cares about the people who work there. It inspires loyalty in the staff and the employees are less likely to leave.

People who make a decent salary and have the opportunities to grow and face new challenges in their jobs are less likely to look elsewhere for jobs.

Instead, they will turn their focus inward when they are ready to make changes.

By offering continuing education to employees, you equip them to become even more valuable to your organization and encourage them to stay and share their new skills with your company.

Photo credits: Images courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net and Got Credit

 

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including business and education.

Make It Your Business to Know Google Chrome Extensions

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software-development-diagram-100101781You might be surprised to find out how some of the newest Google Chrome extensions can help your business run more efficiently or improve productivity to increase the bottom line.

You must select the ones that have the best benefits for your company and know how to use them properly.

With that in mind, check out:

Smartsheet

This app allows you to manage projects and work with team members.

It looks similar to a spreadsheet, which makes it easier for anyone to learn. You can set deadlines and even choose the priority level of each project. You can even create assignments within assignments.

One of the big benefits with this extension is that it allows you to attach documents, videos and other files so that everyone can have access.

You can also check your calendar and timeline to see how each project fits into your overall schedule and what is coming due when.

Business Hangouts

For those familiar with Hangouts will appreciate this app.

It includes special features just for businesses, such as the ability to manage who is attending your meetings and send out invites and reminders.

Another benefit that will be important to many businesses is the fact that you can include people who are not part of Google Plus. When you install it on Chrome, it only takes a click to set up a meeting.

Evernote

Listed as one of the top extensions in the article, 7 Killer Google Chrome Extensions for Your Business, Evernote is well-known but not everyone is taking advantage of its features.

For those who are always on the go and accessing information on multiple devices, Evernote lets you keep all of your notes in one place where you can retrieve them from anywhere.

It has been compared to the paper Post-It notes, but it actually does a lot more. You can even search for your notes and place everything together for fast access.

Wave Accounting

You can manage your own finances with this app.

It runs right in your browser and is ideal for small businesses. You have the option of entering expenses manually or allowing the process to work automatically. It also allows you to create invoices for your customers and even send them straight from your computer. You can even accept credit cards for payment.

Like many other complex and expensive software programs, Wave Accounting allows you to create reports and balance sheets so you can manage the financial aspect of your business.

Each of these apps works with Google Chrome and can provide a significant benefit for your business.

By using one or more of them, you can organize your time, documents and work flow so that you can keep your company on track. By automating as many processes as you can and using quick and easy apps to manage certain aspects of your organization, you can spend more time on other tasks.

These apps also allow you to function like any other business no matter how small your company is.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including business and technology.

Is Starting a Small Business a Health Insurance Headache?

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multi-ethnic-team-during-meeting-10066408If you’ve been thinking about turning your hobby into a small business or even buying an existing business, you may be hesitant after you start looking into the health insurance aspects of hiring employees.

Thanks to Obamacare, more small businesses are now required to provide health insurance plans.

That’s all well and good for owners who have the resources necessary to fund such plans, but it bodes ominous for startups that are bootstrapping their business.

In fact, the sole requirement for a health plan can deter new businesses from starting up in the first place.

Don’t worry.

Starting a small business doesn’t have to be a health insurance headache.

There are ways around the Obamacare mandate, just as there are ways to comply with the law in ways that won’t negatively impact your business finances.

Here are some effective ways to get your small business up and running – and keep it running – while dealing with health insurance requirements:

How to Get Around the Requirement

If you have zero funds available for a health insurance plan, yet still need employees to operate the day-to-day tasks of your business, hire independent contractors. Independent contractors are in business for themselves.

As such, they are responsible for their own taxes and health insurance.

They work for you on what’s called a “work for hire” basis. You assign them tasks based on their expertise and specialties, and they invoice you for work that is satisfactorily completed.

Independent contractors don’t technically work for you, and are not your employees. Thus, you are not liable to provide health insurance for them.

The management of your independent contractors needs to be systemized so that in itself doesn’t become an organizational headache.

If this is an avenue you’re interested in pursuing, consider hiring a project manager and investing in some kind of online collaborative software to ensure projects get done on time and under budget.

Keep in mind that if you want or expect your business to grow, eventually you’ll need to move to a traditional employee model.

At that time, you will need to implement a health insurance plan for them, and you’ll need to save in order to manage that scenario.

How to Work With the Requirement

The fact is, there are so many complicated requirements within the Obamacare mandate that it can be compared to the complexity of the overall tax law in general.

As the following article shows, a small business owner, will be hard pressed to research and understand the basic key health insurance terms, let alone come up with a health plan by themselves that satisfies the vast legal requirements.

Your best course of action is to outsource your health insurance plan management to a professional company that specializes in working with small businesses like yours.

Otherwise, the vast amount of your time and the time of your admin team will be spent trying to navigate the minefield of employee health insurance.

Whatever you spend on the health plan management company is tax deductible and the return on investment will prove substantial, even in the short term.

As a small business owner, how are you dealing with the new health insurance requirements?

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Kate Supino writes extensively about best business practices.

The Business of Preventing Fraud

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fraud-calculator-indicates-rip-off-and-calculate-100303071While both large and small businesses can fall victim to fraud, its small businesses that are at the highest risk, with a frequency around 31 percent, according to Association of Certified Financial Examiner’s (ACFE) 2012 Report to the Nations.

The report states that the most common types of fraud amongst small businesses are billing fraud, corruption, check tampering, skimming and expense reimbursement fraud.

Sadly enough, close to half of the fraudulent individuals had been with the company between one and five years.

Breakdown of fraud in the workplace: The ACFE found that of those that are guilty of fraud, 42 percent are employees, 38 percent are managers and 18 percent are business owners or executives.

Fraud Can Occur Just About Anywhere

Surprisingly, even physicians can be affected by fraudulent acts.

The article “Physicians and Stolen Tax Returns: Avoiding medical malpractice fraud” states that physicians in Texas, in addition to other states, are victims of bogus filers that are trying to scheme millions of dollars from the federal government.

While typically the physicians aren’t responsible for these acts, being a victim of fraud takes a tremendous toll on one’s life by adding an immense amount of stress that could have been avoided.

How to Stay a Step Ahead of Fraud

For individuals, such as the physicians mentioned above, they can protect themselves by contacting the Identity Protection Specialization Unit and filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the US Department of Justice and the Social Security Administration.

Businesses can protect themselves by:

  • Use highly-secured computers – For all banking and financial duties, you should have a computer strictly for those needs and those needs only. No surfing the web, no sending emails and no playing games. Install antivirus software on the computer to prevent your information from being hacked.
  • Keep tabs on your money and personal information – Never wire money unless you know for sure that the recipient can be trusted. Also, do not give out your personal business information to those that you do not know. Check all your bank statements on a regular basis to make sure there is nothing sketchy going on with your accounts.
  • Always perform background checks on employees – Ensure that their past is clear by performing background checks on all potential employees.
  • Insist employees take time off – A main characteristic of a fraudulent employee is someone who insists on never taking any time off of work. The reason being is that they do not want anyone else doing their job for them and perhaps catching them in their fraudulent activities. Have employees work in teams and check each other’s work regularly.
  • Encourage an honest environment – By encouraging honesty throughout your company, keeping tabs on employees and even setting up an anonymous “fraud tip” phone line, you lesson your business’s chances of falling victim to fraud.

While fraud cannot always be prevented, it does tend to happen more often in businesses that are not actively trying to avoid it.

Always have your guard up, follow your accounts closely and if you suspect something suspicious, confront that employee immediately.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Sarah Brooks is a freelance writer living in Charlotte, NC. She writes on a variety of topics including small business, social media and personal finance.

Ways to Retain the Best Workers

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ahappyemployeeYour employees are the lifeblood of your business.

The right team is the difference between brilliant ideas and lackluster ones; excellent planning and management, and costly failures; great customer service and customer service that get you noticed for all the wrong reasons.

Finding the right employees can be time consuming and costly, so once you find the right people, you’ll want to hang on to them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that workers in the U.S. stay in a job for around 4.6 years.

What can you do if you want to retain your best employees longer than that?

Start with these steps:

1. Offer Great Benefits

Let’s be blunt. If one of your best employees is offered a similar position with better pay, they’re likely to take it. By the time you make a counter offer it could well be too late. Instead, offer your employees a good remuneration package from the start, paying well for their type of role.

Benefits go beyond wages. From medical and dental to life insurance and pensions, or even small perks like free tickets or discounted gym membership, a good benefits package can make all the difference.

Don’t forget about flexi time, telecommuting or other flexible working to show your team that their work life balance matters to you.

2. Get Real Feedback – And Listen

Happy, fulfilled employees are more likely to stay with you. Set aside regular time to chat with your employees, or ask their direct manager or team leader to do so. Find out what they like about working with you, and what they don’t. Follow up with an action plan you both agree on.

To learn more about how your employees feel about their jobs, foster open communications between employees and management. Make it easy for your team to have a chat with someone, and have their concerns heard and valued.

Consider using “stay interviews”.

Talk to your longstanding employees about why they stay, what they love, what you’re doing right and anything you’re doing wrong,  to gain insight into what you’re doing that encourages people to stay.

3. Encourage Your People to Develop

Keep working life interesting by encouraging your employees to develop within their roles. Start by looking at their daily tasks and offering further training if appropriate to help them learn new skills.

You can also invest in your employees’ education.

By funding a course of study that’s related to their jobs you’ll be helping them to grow their skills, and encouraging loyalty by showing them that you value them enough to invest in them.

If you think one of your team is a great candidate for taking on new responsibilities, talk to them about it. Showing that you want to help your employees grow within your organization is an important part of retaining them.

4. Get Clear on Growth Pathways

As pointed out in the article “5 Ways to Retain Your Best Employees“, if your best people only see stagnation on the horizon, they’ll look elsewhere. Your employees want to know that they have a future with you. Make sure you plan for that future from the start.

Having a growth pathway is particularly important when it comes to retaining the best of the best. Talk to your employees regularly and agree on a growth path that suits you and them – and then stick to it.

Good employees have immeasurable value for your business, helping it to grow, to run effectively, and to increase profits.

Value your employees and support them to grow within your organization – show them that they matter to you and they’ll be more likely to stay loyal and use their skills to benefit your business.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a wide variety of topics, including social media, SEO, benefits packages and employee retention.

Let Software Help Keep You on Schedule

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asoftwareRunning a business takes plenty of time and effort. In fact, most business owners will tell you there is not enough time in the day to get everything done that they want to.

With that in mind, what if your business life could be made just a little bit easier, especially when it comes to keeping your employee schedules in check?

Given all business owners must deal with when it comes to their customers, having a good repertoire with their employees is critical, especially in a day and age when more and more employees are telecommuting. Whether your employees all work under one roof or some are working from home and/or the road, keeping their schedules in sync is crucial to running a smooth operation.

Know When Your Employees Are on the Clock

Whether your company employs only a few people or hundreds of workers, keeping their days running smoothly with the right scheduling software is important for several reasons. Among them:

  • Continuity – Having a business that runs on time is important, especially given the fact that consumers have more and more choices these days with where their dollars will be spent;
  • Production – If you have employees coming and going at all hours of the day and no real schedule in place, your production schedule could suffer. The right scheduling software allows you to coordinate the proper shifts from the minute your business day begins;
  • Fairness – Face it, some offices have to deal with office politics at times. In order to keep everyone relatively happy when it comes to work schedules, having a software program in place dedicated to coordinating shifts can do wonders for your business. Its biggest attribute is it should cut down on any potential complaints from co-workers that so-and-so is not reporting for work on time and/or cutting out too early;
  • Absenteeism – As all too many business owners discover over time, absenteeism can have a profoundly negative impact on their company. Many workers can certainly have legitimate excuses for missing work, ranging from illness to injury involving themselves or a loved one. That said many others will try and milk the system, taking advantage of their bosses in the process. When this happens, not only is the employee ultimately hurting him or herself, but they are negatively impacting their place of employment. More pressure is put on other employees to pick up the slack, thereby making it more difficult for them to do their own jobs. This can also result in lower office morale, something that can ultimately have a significant impact on the company’s ability to meet the needs of customers.

If your company has essentially let employee schedules run on the fly over time, now might be a good time to turn to technology to better enforce worker schedules.

By investing in the right scheduling software, you can schedule and communicate with your hourly workers right from day one of their employment. Keeping them on schedule will ultimately keep your business on schedule with the people who matter most, your customers.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Dave Thomas writes for a variety of websites on topics such as human resources and running a small business.