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In today’s economy we are seeing so many people being put out of work only to find that the company still ends up going bankrupt. Why is this? A big reason is because often times no matter how many employees are let go, the costs that the company has still ends up being more than what their profits are. Here are some creative ways where you can start cutting costs rather than cutting your employees.

• Enlist the help of everyone who work’s for you to come up with areas where you can cut costs to equal up to or at least close to the amount that you need to cut. In the end you may still end up having to let a few people go, but it will be a smaller number then it was before the brainstorming took place.
• Think about firing some of your costly customers. American Express cut out 2.7 million accounts because they had no balance or were inactive, this means the company was spending money to keep up these accounts even though they weren’t making money off of them, as stated on Bnet.com.
• Take a look at some of the resources and products that your company uses, are some of them extremely costly to your company? Is there another product that does the same job but costs less? If so, try cutting out the extravagant lifestyle of certain products and down size to a cheaper version.

Go for cheaper tech. If your shop needs a tech upgrade but you can’t afford it, consider the cloud. Increasingly, businesses are finding they can do almost all of their computing with free or cheap services that store your data on remote servers — that is, in the cloud. Moreover, there is so much good free software nowadays, including office suites with word processing and spreadsheet software, that this is often a no-brainer.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Christy C

As employers we all know that when it comes to hiring employees, especially today with so many people out of work trying to find a job, it is a very daunting task. It sometimes seems as though anyone will walk in off the street and hand in an application for any job whether they know what they’re doing or not.

When interviewing, always make sure to pick the one person in your office who is truly great at interviews of any kind. Someone who can remain calm, collected, and push the employee to answer revealing questions about themselves within the companies legal limits to do so.

Always, always, always check up on their references. Many people surprisingly put down either people they barely know, people they haven’t spoken to in forever, or even people that they don’t really know well but they figure you won’t take the time to check up on it… check on them!

The job description. Think carefully about the listing. What are the job’s responsibilities? What skill set is required? It also pays to think about what advantages your company has to offer that would make this job appealing. Remember, you have options, and so do the best candidates.

When coming to the end of the interview and your making them an offer, spell everything that’s on the table out to them. Don’t leave any room for them to be able to manipulate what they “thought” or were given the impression that they were getting. Have an outline on paper ready for them to take a look at when it comes to all the offerings you are prepared to make them. Posted recently on New York Times.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Svadilfari

I recently read an article by Tim Berry that I found to be very interesting. It talks about lessons learned over the years by employer to employee relations. When employers are working with employees, it is no surprise that there will always be some bumping of the heads and even some bad decisions made (also known as “duh moments”). Below are some of the tips found in the above mentioned article.

• People will always be very unpredictable, which makes it difficult to ensure that you have hired the absolute right person for the correct position in your company. It’s basically a guessing game, once you have completely reviewed their resume, references and more, there’s nothing left to do but bite the bullet and hope you have made the right choice.
• Often times you end up hiring the right person for the wrong job. This is not catastrophic, simply find the correct job for that person and all is well and solved!
• People have minds of their own and can change in mysterious ways sometimes. You can always change the job or change aspects about the job, but unfortunately you can not change the person on that job, change is up to them entirely.

“Fit” as in employee fit, is vital but also overrated, and too often used as a rationalization. You want people unlike you, not people like you. But you like people like you.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: doug.siefken

It is always difficult to have to let go of an employee. Even when the employee has not exactly been a “good fit” for the company, it is still not a task that anyone truly looks forward to doing. So how does a manager go about making this task not only easier for them but for the employee as well? Here are some tips that I recently read about on Entrepreneur.com to help you through this difficult task.

• Always make sure to think about your future when firing an employee, this will keep your mind on a more sensitive mind set and should keep you from causing any damage through the words that you speak. Remember that that the employee might be a future client of yours or may be in a position to spread negative information if pushed too hard.
• Make sure that before the final termination is made that you have reviewed the situation and have all necessary paperwork in order. No company should be firing anyone without proper documentation to back up the fact that this is the only and last option for this employee.

Recognize lessons learned. Although the company may think it handled a particular termination well, employee sentiment may not line up with the employer’s perception. It is important to talk to employees and supervisors left behind to ascertain their thoughts and feelings about how the company handled the departure keeping in mind confidentiality issues relating to the termination.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: arquera

More often than not our days are hectic, stressful, and complicated when they don’t need to be, and we are usually the cause of it. Here are two very simple steps I recently read about on Harvard Business in making your day simpler.

Start with your own actions and behavior. Think about all of the times you have sat through a meeting that was boring, took too long on one single issue, didn’t have important issues brought up, and more. Yet most of the time we don’t give any sort of feedback, advice, or voice our opinions on the matter, so it continues and sometimes gets worse.

Start putting in your two cents and advice, the problem can never be fixed if no one is publicly aware of the problem. Get others involved in your new actions and way of thinking. Encourage your co-workers and fellow employees to stand up and start giving their feedback. Help everyone get in the habit of working as a team and finding solutions to problems and concerns that are often easily fixed.

Encourage other people to experiment along with you, and to share what works and what does not. Look together at processes that cut across your functions, and how you might streamline hand offs and interactions. Talk about issues that you can’t tackle alone, but might be opportunities for group problem-solving.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

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In today’s world of technology, booming Internet applications, and businesses, many online business owners are going out and finding themselves a VA (Virtual Assistant). There are many different aspects to having a VA versus a regular assistant. Open Forum recently listed some thing’s to remember when working with your VA.

• You may never even meet your VA in person even if they have been working with you for 10 years or more. Most, if not all, of your communication will be online or via telephone and faxes.
• Always remember the geography aspect, meaning that they live in a different state than you. Make sure that you are familiar with their laws and regulations as well as they are familiar with the ones residing in your state.
• Always make sure you are providing specific details of instructions on what you want them to do and what you do not want them to do. Since there are time zone aspects and the fact they are not sitting 5 feet from your office, you’ll want to make sure they are clear from the get go on what to do.
• Ask them for progress reports. Lets say that a project you give is going to take them 3 day’s. You could have them report back to you the morning of the second day to let you know what their progress is on that project, that way you know for sure they are on track.

The first month you work with your virtual assistant, it might actually take you more time to accomplish the task. By the time you write up instructions, vet candidates, get used to working with the remote employee, send back work with more instructions, and spend your time fixing mistakes in the final product, it might take considerably more time than if you had done the task yourself.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: ArtemFinland

Many businesses today have quite a few great employees that they want to keep on their staff, but they can not necessarily offer them more money. Many think that if they can’t offer more money, those employees will walk. Some might if more money is a need of theirs, but some will still stay on your staff if you follow the tips that were posted on Nytimes.com.

• The general rule of thumb is that if you have proved your loyalty to your employees over time, they will in turn do the same for you by providing their loyalty to you as well.
• While you may not be able to give them a raise right now, you may know that you can give them a raise in 6 months or a year. If you explain the financial situation and let them know that there is a raise in their near future, then that often times is incentive enough for them to stay.

“Let workers follow their interests, and help them to develop their skills,” said Julie Stich, senior information and research specialist for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in an interview with The San Francisco Business Times. “Also, consider allowing employees to work in different areas of the organization. This will help to keep them challenged.”

• When all else fails, always be honest with your employees. Explain every situation that is related to them and their job, and explain why raises are not being offered at this particular moment. Most likely they will understand the situation and appreciate your honesty.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: spud murphy

As a person who once worked outside of the home, I have had my fair share of business people who truly are in the wrong but fail to ever admit such a thing, nonetheless apologize for their actions. So I was happy to see that My Venture Pad recently posted an article on apologizing in business and how to do it effectively.

Rather than give a fake 2 second “I’m sorry”, it is suggested that you actually seem sincere when apologizing and take responsibility for your actions, no one is perfect. Even the boss is liable to make some mistakes somewhere.

Stay away from using the words “if” and “but”, this makes it sound like you’re really not apologizing. Like you are stating that “if” they had only not provoked you then you wouldn’t have snapped at them, or you were in a great mood all day “but” they started it with something they did to you first.

Conflict is inevitable – destructive conflict is not. Clarity can prevent conflicts. Deal with conflicts sooner rather than later. Proving that you are right isn’t necessarily winning.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: nDevilTV

What is your customer experience like? Are you “wowing” key customers with personalized service? With so much business occurring online, wows aren’t easy to come by these days. To make your company top of mind, you must find ways to build vibrant personal customer relationships, even in the digital age. Stated on Entrepreneur.com.

• Start offering customer service refresher courses. Offer these maybe once a year. You can even make this a fun Saturday event providing some sort of breakfast or lunch for the employees. Make these courses mandatory for all employees that handle customers, but make sure to offer more than one optional day and time.
• Take note of all customer complaints and handle them in a timely and friendly manner. Bend over backwards if need be in order to satisfy the unhappy customer. This will prove a sense of customer loyalty and the word will spread about your exceptional customer service habits.
• Make sure you have the right people working in the right position’s within your company. If there is someone in customer service who is not exactly a “people person” then they should probably be switched to a different sector of the company.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

U.S. output per worker rose at its fastest pace in six years during the second quarter as businesses wrung more productivity from fewer staff in a sign that a recovery from recession will be slow and unlikely to create a surge in hiring.

A Labor Department report showed non-farm productivity, a gauge of hourly output per worker, jumped at a 6.4 percent annual rate, the sharpest since the third quarter of 2003 after a 0.3 percent gain in the January-March quarter.

“The bounce in productivity is another indication that the nasty U.S. recession is drawing to a close. The bad news is, however, that firms are still reluctant to hire,” said Harm Bandholz, an economist at UniCredit Markets and Investment Banking in New York.

Photo by washingtoncitypaper.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.