Category Archives: Small Business Tips

Hiring the Right Employees in Your Small Business

December 15, 2021 | 613 views

Hiring the Right Employees in Your Small Business
Hiring the Right Employees in Your Small Business

Most small business owners understand that hiring employees is one of their most important functions. A poor hire will drain your time, patience, and bank account (when you finally cut ‘em loose). But a good hire will add measurably to your success. And while any employee can be difficult to manage at times, the key is finding and hiring the right employee from the start.

Clarify the Position and Role

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5 Ways to Tackle Employee Tardiness

December 8, 2021 | 598 views

5 Ways to Tackle Employee Tardiness
5 Ways to Tackle Employee Tardiness

Any one of us will occasionally be late. Cars won’t start, pipes burst, and kids get sick. However, these situations are exceptions. If your organization has chronically tardy employees, that is a situation that is difficult and potentially very costly. People who are consistently late have difficulty managing their time and develop habits that are difficult to change. Still, managers have to address tardiness consistently and effectively.

Ideally, preventive steps will eliminate tardiness, but it is often necessary to institute punitive actions and rewards for employees who need more guidance.

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10 Tips if You Schedule Overnight Staff

November 24, 2021 | 668 views

10 Tips if You Schedule Overnight Staff
10 Tips if You Schedule Overnight Staff

Overnight staffing has unique challenges, logistically and physically. While the rare night owl prefers night time shifts, most employees are affected by fatigue. Fatigue causes safety issues that can create serious problems. And then, if employees rotate between day and night shifts, it spreads out the difficulty, but the change of times is problematic, too.

Shift changes of a few hours are well tolerated by most, however, so reducing the jolt of shift changes is helpful. If you run a 24-hour operation in health care, security, or public safety, it is important to schedule appropriately to reduce risk and improve employee welfare.

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4 Ways PEO’s Help Businesses Avoid Headaches

November 3, 2021 | 527 views

4 Ways PEO’s Help Businesses Avoid Headaches
4 Ways PEO’s Help Businesses Avoid Headaches

Our clients operate a wide variety of businesses. From single-location retail stores to construction companies, we are always impressed by the levels of expertise in various industries. While we focus on staff scheduling, we realize that you cannot be as skilled in employee management any more than we would know how to run your operation.

Most organizations provide a product or service. The human capital side of the business is a different specialty altogether, and employee issues can be stressful and time-consuming. But you’ve probably had to dedicate more time than you wanted to personnel concerns and legalities.

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Creating Staff Schedules in Your New Small Business

October 27, 2021 | 531 views

Creating Staff Schedules in Your New Small Business
Creating Staff Schedules in Your New Small Business

Starting a new business can feel a bit chaotic. Everything is new and feels strange. There is little pattern to each day, yet, and no consistency. Scheduling employees feels similarly odd, too, especially in the early days of opening a new business. You will juggle good (and maybe not-so-good) employees and those who are often ill. Or an otherwise normal day ramps way up (or down) without anticipating employee resources accurately. The early days will continually present you with new situations to manage, and appropriate staffing is fundamental to keeping things balanced. Creating staff schedules that work for your new business will go smoother with a few key strategies.

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Does a Condensed 9/80 Schedule Make Sense?

October 20, 2021 | 565 views

Does a Condensed 9/80 Schedule Make Sense?
Does a Condensed 9/80 Schedule Make Sense?

We’ve watched work schedules change a great deal in the last year. For the most part, hours are now more aligned with worker needs. The oft-used word “flexible” is a challenge for many businesses that rely on consistent work shifts and coverage. Hybrid or WFH structures are not an option for many. But if you are trying to give employees a little without losing production hours, a condensed 9/80 schedule might make sense.

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Hiring for Seasonal Retail Workers – Why Virtual Hiring Works

October 6, 2021 | 519 views

Hiring for Seasonal Retail Workers – Why Virtual Hiring Works
Hiring for Seasonal Retail Workers – Why Virtual Hiring Works

The holidays bring expanded opportunities for many types of retail locations. Holiday travel, dining, and catered events usually increase. Salons and entertainment venues gear up for holiday spending and celebrations. Pandemic or not, we see economic growth in retail sectors where a seasonal workforce is needed. Virtually hiring seasonal workers is an appropriate and efficient technique to hire seasonal employees quickly. Here’s why:

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  1. Safety matters. This $@&# pandemic isn’t going away—at least not this holiday season. Virtual hiring methods allow you to schedule interviews with prospective employees remotely while still seeing their facial expressions. For now, an online interview without a mask is better than an in-person interview with masks.
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Qualities That Create a “Good” Work Schedule

September 29, 2021 | 538 views

Qualities That Create a “Good” Work Schedule
Qualities That Create a “Good” Work Schedule

What one person considers a good work schedule is not the same as another person’s ideal schedule. For a long time, we lumped the idea that we could be happy at work and home into a work-life balance concept that somehow perfected workloads while providing time for personal pursuits. The idea was that if we tried hard enough, we could neatly relegate workload demands to specific hours of the day. Then, an employee could then manage their personal needs (outside of work) accordingly.

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Is the 4-Day Work Week Worth Reconsidering?

September 15, 2021 | 576 views

Is the 4-Day Work Week Worth Reconsidering?
Is the 4-Day Work Week Worth Reconsidering?

A 4-day work week has always sounded attractive. Not too long, not unreasonably short. I could enjoy longer weekends and probably still get my work done each week before traveling on weekends to cheer on my son’s football team.

We’ve written about this idea before. What struck me recently was how the combination of pandemic-related demands for scheduling flexibility have combined with large movements to a 4-day week. Naturally, there are concerns about how some schedules might be too condensed and cause more harm than good. And even Utah’s government reverted to a traditional 5-day schedule after budget savings were not enough to outweigh citizen complaints about reduced availability (although local governments in Denmark, Spain, West Virginia, and Colorado have stayed with their 4-day weeks).

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Which Employees Deserve a Promotion?

September 8, 2021 | 595 views

Which Employees Deserve a Promotion?
Which Employees Deserve a Promotion?

The career development of employees helps your business grow. It increases self-confidence and improves employee engagement when staff members understand how they can advance their careers. Appropriate staff development helps your organization, also, because it is cost-effective to promote internal people rather than hiring and training someone new. The challenge for managers is recognizing talent along with productive work. It is not always a hard skill set that determines increased responsibility. Sometimes, there are internal motivations in employees that will make an employee more deserving of a promotion.

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