How to Gain Impact as a Business

How far are you hoping to go with your business? Do like where you are now or are you hoping to one day be a high-impact business like Apple, Google, FedEx, Starbucks, McDonald's, etc.? Being a high-impact means becoming a producer of jobs and products that are actively sought out and often widely recognized. Most businesses dream of providing not only services to their clients but inspiration and innovation on a larger setting.

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Getting to that high-impact state, however, takes dedication. Additionally, making it big requires a few key factors that most major businesses not only foster but encourage. Check out the following tips that will help you succeed as a high-impact entrepreneur.

1. Like the business you’re in. The entrepreneur needs to have a positive attitude about the business they have or wish to have. If you do not like the business or it does not fit well with your interests or ideals, then you are already off to a bad start. When entrepreneurs betray themselves in this way, he or she will never get the business they always dreamed of.
2. Empower yourself. Entrepreneurs should know the importance of seeking information and training their employees well enough so the business runs well. If you want it to grow fast, you need to devote double the preparedness. This starts by having a staff you can rely on to help you reach your goals and delegating properly.
3. Never be “common”. Common for high-impact entrepreneurs is usually a sense of permanent dissatisfaction. For these entrepreneurs, the business is never quite good enough.
4. Innovate. Besides not having to settle, high-impact entrepreneurs should always keep innovating their products or services. Even within the company, high-impact business men and women strive to have the best, whether that's up-to-date time clocks or the best project management system.
5. Be honest. This goes for all sorts of activities. Do not try to grow with shortcuts and ethical misconduct.
6. Be an example. Conducting business honestly is not only a legal requirement for high-impact entrepreneurs, it should be a way of life. Leading by example helps establish not only credibility but also helps foster a connection to your clients as well as your staff.

Big Companies Strategies for Success

Big companies have plenty of secrets when it comes making things work out for the best. For new entrepreneurs just discovering the chaos of owning a business, the best way to pave the way for success is to take a few pointers from big businesses.

One way big business ensures that they have the tools they need to succeed is by taking care of their work force. Happy employees make for more productive and dedicated ones. These classic tips have helped big businesses establish a solid, productive work environment that their employees can grow in, and ultimately, help the company grow as well.

1.  Productivity Incentives. Most businesses will give their employees some kind of incentive for getting work in on or before deadlines. These can range from days off to gift cards.
2. Professional Development. Ensuring that your employees are constantly learning is a smart move for any business.
3. Employee Support. Wellness centers or on-site daycare are perfect for any size business. As long as your employees see that you are making an effort to cater to their needs, they will work harder than they have before.
4. Employee Engagement and Trust. Ensuring that your employees trust you just as much as you trust them is hard work but it is possible. Give them work that is important and communicate goals to show them that they are important to the company.
5. Work Life Balance. Make sure you allow your employees the possibility to juggle their work life with their personal life. Be flexible with work schedules but also offer free trips or paid sabbaticals for good performance.
6.  Fun. Work doesn’t have to be boring. You can always have some kind of “fun day” or build a sports room.
7. Pay and Benefits. Try to offer your employees extra benefits or incentives. This is a good time to update your time clocks as well to help ensure payroll accuracy and employee accountability.

Beating the Flu

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When flu season strikes, companies don’t want sick workers punching in on the time clock and infecting the rest of the work force. In fact, it is best for ill employees to stay at home when they have the flu or any serious sickness. By taking a structured, organized approach to the flu, your company can be a step ahead, and not have to worry about one person infecting the entire crew.

One very inexpensive way to fight the flu virus is to install brass fixtures. As opposed to plastic and stainless steel, brass and copper actually stop many pathogens from spreading. It has to do with the chemical properties of the metals. Even when infected employees have not yet shown signs of the flu, brass and copper light fixtures and doorknobs will help cut down on the spread of the virus. Brass and copper will cost a bit more than stainless steel or plastic fixtures, but will likely pay for themselves by keeping your workforce healthy.

Giving disinfectant sprays and gels to your workers is much cheaper than losing valuable worker time to the flu virus. When several sick employees are unable to punch time clocks due to the flu, you might wish you had made free disinfectant gels and sprays available sooner. This is perhaps the least expensive way to stop seasonal sicknesses in their tracks.

Staying home when you are sick is the single best way to avoid making the absentee problem worse. Sick workers should not be logging in at time clocks, or anywhere on company property. If someone’s expertise is necessary for a particular project, consider working over the phone or online until the worker is well. It is also a wise policy to encourage all workers to stay away from company grounds when they are ill or think they are about to come down with something.

The flu virus is a serious illness and should be dealt with rapidly and effectively.  Do yourself, and your work force, a favor and be strict about preventing the flu at work.

Why Hire an Older Worker?

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Age discrimination is just as common as race or sex discrimination these days. It is increasingly hard for the older generation to find work. In fact, once a person turns the big 4-0, they are then considered a part of America’s aging workforce. Most people, however, consider this the time when they are in the pinnacle of their working careers.

So, if you are one of those companies that normally hire the tech-savvy hotshot — you may want to rethink your hiring strategy a little. Here are some reasons why you should hire older employees rather than younger ones:

1. You know what you’re getting. With older employees, you know what you are going to get just by checking their work history and background check. You will be able to determine if they are the fit you are looking for, while with an employee right out of college you won’t have that work history to look back on.
2. Older employees will have lower benefits. Yes, lower benefits. When you reach a certain age, you won’t have dependents like children to worry about. Medicare, which starts at 65, will not go on a company’s tab either. In fact, many older employees would rather work part-time rather than full-time which means that benefits are decreased even more so.
3. Flexibility. Older employees have no children and they usually have no extracurricular activities to go to which mean odd shifts and those hard to fill time slots on the time clock get filled easily.
4. Wise beyond their years. This saying tells it all. When you sat down in front of your grandparents and they told you how to do something that seemed farfetched, you listened anyways because you knew that they were wise. This same thinking goes into the business world. Older workers have been around for a while and it can be beneficial to hear what they have to say, especially if they have been in one sector for decades.
5. They are eager. Just because they are older doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn. In fact, they love to learn and older workers are just as capable of learning new techniques just as much so as younger workers.

What Makes a Quality Leader

Every business needs a good leader to thrive. Delegating tasks, keeping employees motivated and setting a great example for the team are among the key qualities for leadership. Check out the following five things that help define a confident and successful leader: 

1.   Articulate Interests. Ensuring harmony and balance in the team is the basic task of a leader. The biggest challenge is to reconcile the different interests that coexist in the same organization, articulating them in a productive way.

2. Maintain Open Channels With Your Team. For employees to assimilate the values and principles that guide the business, it is essential to communicate with clarity and objectivity. Likewise, it is important to be open to hearing what everyone has to say on various topics. This establishes a trust relationship with the group, creating harmony and an encouraging environment.

3.  Establish And Verify Work Patterns. The standardization of work processes is crucial for a company's performance. It is the job of a good leader to establish these processes. It is important also to have effective methods to verify compliance with these processes, whether it be time clocks to ensure hours worked or weekly reports.

4.     Promote A Culture Of Innovation. Creating an environment conducive to innovation is also the task of a leader who wants to see your business take off. It is important to encourage and foster the diversity of ideas in order to make the work environment more creative and innovative.

5.     Train More Leaders. A good leader is one who knows how to identify and encourage other leaders within the business. That means looking for people with innovative and motivating character, exercising a positive influence on the group.

Become More Productive This Year

We all know that our everyday lives are not easy. We only have 24 hours to take care of our business, our personal lives and still try to find some room to relax. One way to helping you etch out time for the latest episode or to take a job is to be more productive.

Here are some tips to help you become more productive both at home and in the office in 2013:

1.     Arrange: Get your desktop organized. Everything must be easily accessible so you do not waste time looking for something.

2.     Say "no": Only say "yes" when necessary or possible. Avoid doing things that take up time or cause stress.

3.     Schedule right: When scheduling a new task, take into account factors such as queues that take time, displacement and transit time.

4.     Simplify: At first, it seems that everything we do is essential, but it is not. Choose the tasks necessary to your goals.

5.     Consider life as a whole: Divide your day into parts because doing everything at once will only stress you out and kill productivity.

6.     Focus and concentration: Keep a to-do-list. Leaving things vague will bring distraction and forgetfulness.

7.     Organizing methods: There are many theories about personal organization. You need not follow any, but knowing them and select the ones you are interested. Getting better time clocks for your office would be one great way to organize the office space.

8.     Find your own way: Create your own methods of doing things that get the work done and keep you focused. Methods are different for everyone.

9.     What’s your interest in productivity: What do you want to do with your time? Remind yourself of what productivity brings.

10.  Do not miss the focus: For those who want to gain productivity and efficiency, the key is to analyze your situation, find out enough about it, find a technique that works well, and use that technique to help re-focus other time on your own personal goals.

How to Respond When Things Go Wrong – Part Two

Every company should be prepared to face problems. The important thing is to not expect them to happen and then react. The ideal thing is to think ahead and make plans that contribute to fixing the damage before it happens so that the damage to your business is minimal, even after a serious incident.

Here is the second part of a two-part series with tips on how you can respond when things go wrong in your company.

·  Be Ready To Respond: You should already have your emergency action plan (EAP) written by now, so at this point you want to make sure that your staff know about it. It is important that each one knows what is expected of one another when an emergency pops up. It doesn’t matter how big or how small the emergency is. In fact, it is vital that you do “test runs” every month to keep them fresh on emergency procedures. You should keep in mind that no plan is ever perfect until you put it to the test.

o   Here are some areas of training you should focus on:

§  Basic first aid

§  Use of fire extinguisher

§  Emergency equipment shutdown

§  Building evacuation procedures

§  Emergency notification procedures

§  CPR

·  Recovery Procedures: Once the first the steps are in the books, it is vital that you get back in the swing of things and get your business up and running again. Make sure you have a plan for how you will recover after a disaster happens. Think about these questions:

o   Will you need another location?

o   Are you able to obtain replacement equipment?

o   Do you have someone to clean up the business?

o   Is it possible to recover any lost data on time clocks or other instruments?

o   Can your staff get to work?

o   Will your workers be able to reach you?

o   Can your suppliers still get you the goods on a regular basis?