Small Business Hiring And News

September 1, 2016 by

64002400Small business owners across the United States are being careful after the dismal reports of hiring across the country.  They are holding off any hiring they may do, and are still reticent to make any moves that will put their financials in jeopardy.  Economic growth seems to be inching forward a bit slowly, and some small business owners are still holding off till elections are over.

To read more about this and other stories follow the links below.

Dear Donald Trump: I’m a Small Business Owner, and I Want More Regulation

We love the election-year attention but the presidential candidates are focusing on the wrong things

In election years, I love calling myself a “small business owner.” It’s the one time when the act of selling falafel, building a website or otherwise trying to make a buck comes off as heroic. We’re the “backbone” of the economy, you know, and the “heart and soul of equal opportunity,” as Fran Tarkenton told the Republican convention.

It’s the season when politicians shower us with love and policy papers. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have put forward proposals to make our businesses great again, together. I prefer Clinton’s, but mostly I think the election-year pandering to small businesses misses what really matters.

 Trump, like most Republicans, focuses on tax relief. He proposes lowering the top rate for pass-through business income to 15%. This doesn’t move me. Why? My company doesn’t earn enough for the proposal to make much of a difference, as is true for most small business owners. The lion’s share of pass-through income is earned by a small percentage of businesses, which means wealthy individuals would catch a giant tax break while the majority of small business owners are unaffected.

Columbus, Ohio: A growing mecca for small business

In a prior life, Joe DeLoss worked as a banking analyst, but today, his day job couldn’t be more different. DeLoss owns the wildly popular Hot Chicken Takeover in Columbus, Ohio, serving up Nashville Hot Chicken, a spicy style of fried chicken.

 But it’s not the leap from banking to fast food that makes his story so interesting. It’s the fact that his two-year-old restaurant is staffed by a nearly 50-person workforce that has largely experienced incarceration. Some employees have criminal arrest records, while others have served time for everything from misdemeanors to felonies. DeLoss admits they might be overlooked by other employers, but he’s a firm believer in second chances. Make no mistake, though; it’s no charity.

“We created Hot Chicken Takeover to be a fair chance employer. A large part of our workforce has been affected by incarceration in the past, but it’s not what defines our future. We have a team that works harder, is more productive and more motivated than most people in our industry,” DeLoss said.

 State lawmakers OK parental leave for small-business workers

SACRAMENTO — California parents who work for small businesses would be eligible for six weeks of job-protected leave under a bill heading to Gov.Jerry Brown.

The bill was among the myriad of proposed laws sent Wednesday to Brown on the final day of the two-year legislative session. Brown has until Sept. 30 to act on the hundreds of bills on his desk.

With Wednesday’s adjournment, lawmakers concluded a year in which they raised the minimum wage, extended greenhouse gas reduction targets to 2030, added gun control measures and approved $2 billion in bond money for housing and treating mentally ill Californians who are homeless.

On a lighter note, lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday declaring denim as the state’s official fabric under AB501 by Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Small Business Health Coverage And Retirement Plans

August 23, 2016 by

donk1-300x266

Saving for retirement as a small business owner is hard.  The extra cash is immediately invested in the business, and retirement plans are always for tomorrow.  According to  the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), many Americans are falling short when it comes to retirement. In 2015, 28% of Americans had less than $1,000 dollars saved, and a whooping 64% had less than $50,000.  While retirement plans are not always available through their employers, many workers should be happy to know that the ease to open a retirement account through other mediums is fairly easy and pain free.

To read more about this topic, follow the links below.

Some Small Businesses Restore Group Health Coverage

Backtracking reflects tighter labor market and pricier individual plans.

Some small companies that dropped group health insurance for their employees are reversing course, driven by a tightening labor market and rising costs and fewer choices for individual coverage.

Laura Cottrell, owner of a seven-person home-furnishings and home-improvement products business in St. Louis, dropped group coverage in 2014, not only because of the cost but also the complexities of picking the right plan within a short deadline. Instead, she gave her employees a raise that they could use to buy their own health plans, sparing her from choosing for them.

Now Ms. Cottrell is looking at adding health benefits to make a cabinetry business she launched this year more attractive to potential employees. If she makes the change, she says she would offer coverage to employees of both of her businesses.

“People are looking for health care,” said Ms. Cottrell, who said she was recently turned down by one job candidate because she doesn’t offer health benefits. Adding to her pain: UnitedHealth Group Inc., her personal carrier, won’t offer individual coverage in Missouri next year.

When can you quit your day job when starting a small business?

Q: When you’re starting a small business, when is the right time to quit your day job — financially speaking? If you’re starting your own business and you plan to take out a loan, should you factor in your own living expenses?

Anonymous business owner.

A: When you are starting a business, your personal finances are inseparable from the business. So you need to factor your living expenses into all your financial calculations.

An exercise I use with my students is to have them calculate their “runway.” It is a simple calculation to determine how long they have before they and the business run out of money. How long before the business has to take off. How do you calculate your runway?

 You begin by estimating the cash needs of the business. This includes investments in property, plant and equipment, lease improvements, inventory and all the other outflows of cash required to get a business off the ground. Don’t underestimate your monthly outflows.

California set to join states offering retirement plans

Workers without a workplace option can now open accounts.

More than half of American workers — roughly 55 million — don’t have access to a retirement savings plan on the job.

While those people can open an individual retirement account with an investment company, less than 1 in 3 American households has an IRAand even then most of those people have access to an employer-sponsored plan such as a 401(k).

This week California lawmakers are expected to vote on a bill that would enroll employees who are not covered by an employer-sponsored retirement plan at work into a state-run one.

Lawmakers in California, the nation’s most populous state, are not alone. Since 2012, more than half of state legislatures have considered bills that would create government-run retirement plans for private-sector workers. (See map below.)

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Business News For The Small Business Owner

August 17, 2016 by

64735957

It is perhaps the ability of a small business owner to keep optimism at high levels to be able to do what they do every single day.  There is no other people telling you what to do, or what jobs require top priority.    As a small business owner, the credit and blame stop with them.  There is no employee that works in a small business, that is not the responsibility of the owner.  The successes and the failures mean something else for them as well.  To be a small business owner is to be different.  To have the courage to do what many others wish to do, but are afraid to take the first step.  Read more about business news by following the links below.

Abrams: Small businesses have already won the gold

Small-business owners: If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you may be getting the wrong message. I’m here to tell you that you’re winners, even if you never get the business equivalent of an Olympic gold medal.

For the past week, I’ve been mesmerized watching swimmer Katie Ledecky breaking world records with ease. Usain Bolt running faster than any man on Earth, and smiling as he does it. Those amazing, fearless gymnasts, led by Simone Biles, risking life and limb.

But one aspect of Olympic coverage that frustrates me is when someone asks a silver- or bronze-medal winner if they’re disappointed because they didn’t win the gold.

Most of these fantastic athletes react the way American swimmer Nathan Adrian did when asked whether he was upset that he “only” got a bronze. He looked surprised, then, with an endearing grin, he reminded the correspondent that hey, he was at the Olympics and he won a medal. How great is that?

The Truth About Hiring Friends in Your Small Business

Hiring friends must be done with care to be successful.

Small business ideas are often mulled over by friends long before you take the plunge and say, “I’ve made the decision. I’m starting my own business.” Friends’ reactions may range from encouragement to total negativity, but there’s a good chance at least one friend might be interested in working for you or with you.

While mixing business with friendship can work out, many people choose to keep business separate from friendships. Business relationships gone sour can ruin relationships, and some people avoid this risk by starting out with a “no hiring friends” policy. Most people fall between the two extremes of wanting to hire friends and refusing to do so. With strict boundaries, it’s possible to successfully hire friends for your business.

Hiring a Friend Will Be Fine, Right?

Maybe? After deciding to start your own business, it’s intuitive that many people want friends on board to help build the business. And since close friends tend to be vocal supporters of your ideas, and may be willing to work long hours with little or no pay it makes the choice a quick solution.

Aetna ditching 70% of its ObamaCare business

Insurance giant Aetna won’t be offering coverage under ObamaCare next year in 11 of the 15 states it now serves — an announcement that instantly became an issue in the presidential race.

Aetna’s decision led Donald Trump to charge that President Obama’s health care reform was “imploding.”

“Aetna’s decision to leave the Affordable Care Act’s public marketplaces is the latest blow to this broken law that is slowly imploding under its regulatory red tape,” said Trump campaign deputy national policy director Dan Kowalski.

“Millions of Americans have lost their health coverage under this disastrous policy, eliminating their ability to choose their doctors. Thousands of businesses have been forced to cut employment or shutter their doors in response to Obama’s signature achievement,” he added.

The company had previously warned that it expected to lose more than $300 million this year on the 900,000 patients it covers under the Affordable Care Act.

Aetna said it is pulling out of ObamaCare markets in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

 

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is Your Company Culture Positive?

August 9, 2016 by

54640451Although a company’s culture is not a visual entity, it is a palpable entity that most employees can tell you exist in their place of work without pinpointing the exactness of it.  For a large company to succeed or a small business to be able to generate the sales they need, a positive, transparent working environment is always a positive asset to have, without investing too much in other training programs elsewhere.  Lines of communication between departments and employees should be an important asset owners and managers alike should strive to exploit for the benefit of the business.

Tax-Free Weekend Lifts Sales for Small Businesses

STATEWIDE — Shoppers across Texas enjoyed a tax-free weekend on clothing and school supplies. While many flocked to large chain stores, some small businesses also saw a boost.

“Definitely it’s working,” said  David Marrs, owner of Vagabond Vintage Clothing in San Marcos. “I don’t think it can compare to the outlet mall, but I think I saw my sales double yesterday.”

While the San Marcos outlets are always a big draw, shoppers saved 8.25 cents on every dollars of eligible purchases during the weekend no matter where they shopped. For some, it was the reason for a shopping spree. For others, a pleasant coincidence.

“I forgot that it was tax-free weekend,” said Matt Counts, a shopper at Vagabond.

“Until we didn’t pay tax!” laughed his wife Mandy Counts.

Business leaders say shopping at locally-owned stores is a move consumers can feel good about.

Highlight Company Culture to Attract Candidates with Passion

Recruiting motivated, purpose-driven candidates and matching them up to a job and company culture that matters to them will improve employee engagement and retention, according to recent research from LinkedIn.

The global network’s 2016 Global Talent Trends survey of over 33,000 professionals on LinkedIn revealed that those who see themselves staying at their current company for three or more years were more likely than others to be primarily motivated by a sense of purpose.

Forty-one percent of respondents said they couldn’t imagine being at their current company two years in the future, while 37 percent see themselves staying for three or more years. Of those who envision a longer future at their current organization, the largest percentage (39 percent) said they are motivated most by personal fulfillment and purpose and that they tend to accept a job because of a company’s culture, vision and products.

“Their primary motivation is using their work to advance a greater good, a higher cause, a mission they deem worthy of working toward,” said Esther Lee Cruz, global marketing manager at LinkedIn and a co-author of the survey’s report. Of the remaining 61 percent of respondents who intend to stay for three or more years at their current job, 35 percent indicated they are primarily driven by career status and compensation. Twenty-six percent did not indicate a primary motivator.

3 Telltale Signs of Toxic Company Culture – and What to Do About It

What is company culture? Look around you – company culture encompasses everything from your office layout, to the way you collaborate with peers and managers, to the costume contest held every Halloween. In today’s workplace landscape, culture has quickly moved from a “nice-to-have” to a “must have”. However, a recent study by Deloitte University Press reported that HR leaders consider culture and engagement their number one challenge.

So, how can your organizations create a strong company culture and avoid toxicity? It starts at the top. Leadership must vigilantly watch for warning signs and take proactive measures to ensure culture is protected.

Here are three warning signs of toxic company culture:

1. Knowledge Hoarding

Shared knowledge increases efficiency, improves employee performance, and fosters innovation. However, some individuals develop a “figure it out yourself” attitude instead of sharing tacit knowledge openly and willingly. They become territorial and lack the willingness to share their hard-earned skills and experience with colleagues. Some hoard information because they feed off of power and control. Others hoard knowledge because they believe sharing their knowledge with others will only make them disposable.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Small Business News For The Entrepreneur

August 3, 2016 by

59948705

It seems that after so many months of uncertainty about the US economy, reports are becoming more encouraging for the US. A  Deutsche Bank strategist writes that in the last past two weeks the US market has surprisingly jumped into positive territory for the first time in almost two years.

With more jobs in manufacturing and services, the result should be a positive economic growth for the small business owner as well.

To read more about this and other  stories, follow the links below.

How These Entrepreneurs Are Living the Startup Life 24/7

If you occasionally get nostalgic for college – missing its around-the-clock access to homework help and social outlets — or if you’re tired of the lonely business owner’s life, you may be captivated by the idea of living with a group of entrepreneurs. But could you take the constant stream of ideas, the high energy, the 24/7 lifestyle? To some, such as Chandler Bolt, this living situation is nothing short of a profitable dream come true.

Bolt, the founder of Self-Publishing School, has lived in San Diego for the last year with four other super smart and motivated online entrepreneurs. The goal in creating the living arrangement was to create an intentional community of likeminded business people intent on improving every level of their lives – from physical to financial.

“I thought, ‘Why not put five people in a house?’” Bolt, said. “I thrive best when there’s work going on around me – knowing there’s stuff always happening.”

12 tips for creating a must-read business blog

Business owners, bloggers and online marketers discuss what small businesses can do to drive traffic to their blogs, increase their page views and keep readers coming back for more.

Too often business owners start blogging in the hope that it will drive traffic to their business, only to quickly fall into the trap of posting stale or sales-heavy content that gets no or few views. Then they become frustrated and either blog less frequently or abandon their blog, wondering why they bothered.

1. Think about and write for your target audience. “Think about the audience you are trying to attract to your blog and share content that is relevant, interesting and valuable to that specific demographic,” says Arsineh Ghazarian, cofounder & CEO, Zveil.

July Small Business Job Growth Is Positive, Paychex CEO Mucci Tells CNBC

Paychex (PAYX) CEO Martin Mucci discussed the country’s July small business job growth, which slowed from last month, on CNBC today.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Paychex  (PAYX) CEO Martin Mucci explained the outsourcing solutions company’s somewhat weak July survey results on small business job growth, which were released Tuesday morning, with CNBC‘s Brian Sullivan on “Squawk Box.”

Small business job growth was down by 0.12% to 100.68 in July after increasing 0.21% to 100.81 in June, according to the Paychex IHS Small Business Jobs Index.
“It was just a small drop in July after a pretty good increase in June, so we’ve been a bit choppy this year on the overall index but year to date we’re up 0.3% so I think it’s still positive. It’s cautious but it’s still positive,” Mucci said.
Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Taxes, Insurance And The Small Business Owner

July 28, 2016 by

64002400

For any business that wants to attract talented employees, marketers agree they need to consider the perks associated with attracting and keeping employees that every business wants.  Health insurance and retirement accounts are the basic benefits that many of these businesses offer. Others include gyms on site and free lunches to their employees without blinking.  But many of these giants offer benefits that many small business owners cannot afford.  And although many employees are lured to the extra benefits they can get, others are happy to work for the small business owner, and be an intricate part of making the small business succeed.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

Should Your Small Business Offer Health Insurance?

For a small business, helping employees sign up for Obamacare often is the best idea for them.

Health insurance is expensive—and getting more so all the time. Does it make more sense for a small company to provide coverage (with employees paying some of the premiums) or let them get a policy on their own through the Affordable Care Act?

Not long ago, it could be difficult and often very expensive for individuals to buy their ownhealth insurance, while the tax code gives an advantage to group insurance provided through the workplace. To keep employees happy and maintain a stable workforce, companies that could afford to offered group insurance.

Now Obamacare, as the law is known, has changed the calculus. Individuals these days can buy insurance with regulated benefits and premiums, and most are eligible for big subsidies. And while companies with the equivalent of at least 50 full-time employees must offer health insurance to those full-time workers or pay penalties, the ACA has no such requirement for smaller businesses.

The upshot is that in many cases, particularly when employees are relatively low-paid, both the company and its employees might be better off if workers buy their own insurance.

Small businesses looking forward to sales tax holiday

A “lackluster” summer for sales have small businesses looking forward to the upcoming sales tax holiday across the state, said Rosemary Elebash, Alabama director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

The holiday from sales tax on a host of items including clothing, computers, footwear and much, much more could provide a much-needed lift to many small stores and businesses, said Elebash.

“It’s been a lackluster summer for a lot of small businesses,” Elebash said. “The sales-tax holiday should help people get fired up and in the mood to spend,” added Elebash in a prepared statement from NFIB touting the holiday and its importance to small businesses.

The sales tax holiday begins Friday, Aug. 5 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 7.

The sales tax holiday comes after the latest FIB Small Business Optimism Index, released July 12, shows that small-business confidence improved by only a fraction of one percent in June.

 

Small Business Owners Put Everything They Have Into Their Businesses– Nearly Nine in 10 Say It’s All Worth It

SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — More than eight in 10 small business owners (82%) say they put everything they have into their business, according to the second annual Bank of the West Small Business Growth Survey, released today—and an overwhelming majority (86%) say that all they’ve sacrificed for their business has been worth it.

The survey, conducted online by Harris Poll among a national sample of 505 small business owners and an additional 207 California small business owners, delves into the journey of the small business owner, identifying the unique challenges they face and benefits of the job that drive them to persevere through hardships. The survey also spotlights California, and sheds light on unique advantages and challenges felt by women small business owners.

Additionally, this year’s index number (55) and results from the survey show that small businesses have experienced growth and are optimistic in the future of their businesses amid an uncertain economic and political climate. Further, 70 percent of companies surveyed were in growth mode – up from 64 percent last year. The index tracks four key indicators over the previous 12 months: profitability, revenue, investments, and reductions. On the scale of 0-100, a composite score of higher than 50 indicates growth and less than 50 signals decline.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Productivity In The Workplace

July 15, 2016 by

64735957For a small business owner with few employees, matching the right job to the right person may seem easy.  After all, if you hired the right people, you know their qualifications, and their strengths.  It is important to note that delegating business tasks to employees, have to be carefully monitored to ensure that it is done properly in the beginning.  Matching the right job to the right person is one of the most basic decisions a business owner makes, but some times the task seems impossible.  Know your employees, their strengths and their qualifications, and you will have a strong team in your business.

7 Digital Tools to Help You Get More Done Every Day

Think about the last time you completed a huge project, organized your space, or completed a bunch of necessary tasks. When it comes to work, whittling down a to-dolist may be one of the most gratifying things a person can do. To help, here are several tools to skyrocket any office worker’s productivity.

Typeform

If you need any kind of form on your website, this communication tool can help. It’s a software platform that lets visitors register or pay for things, complete job applications, provide ideas for a suggestion box, fill out incident reports, contact your company, or do anything else that necessitates a form. Focusing on a conversational user experience, Typeform is designed to increase response rates from users by making questions more engaging. The platform has 170,000 active users, about 1 million registered users, and launched in beta in 2013.

Price: Plans range from free to $70 a month at Typeform.

Management Starts Here: 5 Ways to Increase Office Productivity

In the business world, lots of decisions come down to the bottom line, and that line is almost always financial. We’re accustomed to looking at whether or not we can afford to make certain decisions.

Productivity is always key; especially in the United States, we’re accustomed to viewing the most productive workers as the best workers.

It’s all well and good to make something great, but if someone else can make 10 things that are good at the same time it takes someone else to make one thing that’s great, well, a lot of companies will choose good over great every time.

Seth Godin calls this mode of thinking the race to the bottom, the urge to compromise instead of insisting on the highest possible quality. We think you don’t have to give up productivity in order to have greatness.

Here are five things you can do to increase productivity and its value while still offering amazing results.

The 8 Digital Productivity Tools Everyone Should Adopt

I’m a super adopter. I love trying out hundreds of new applications, social networks and devices every year. But not everybody wants to live the thousand-app lifestyle. For most people, the goal is to adopt the smallest number of tools necessary to work efficiently. That’s why my friends and colleagues often ask me which technologies I regard as must-haves: the tools and tactics that will make a big impact on their productivity without spending a lot of time or money getting up and running.

While I often find myself recommending specific technologies to people with particular challenges, there are some tools I suggest again and again, because they are useful to just about everybody. In many cases, they are tools that not only benefit individual users, but entire teams, by reducing inbox clutter and communications overhead. But in other cases, they are applications I suggest because I find it viscerally painful to see someone using Microsoft Office for something that could be better accomplished with a purpose-built note-taking or collaboration tool.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apps And Tips To Help Your Small Business

June 21, 2016 by

Customer Relationship Management business chart on a digital tab

There is always the dream for many people to have their own business and be their own boss.  You either will succeed on your terms or not.  A small business for many people is a scary idea that they better not contemplate.  But, if you are like the millions of entrepreneurs in the United States, you need to try, and it is never too late according to many small business owners.  The paperwork, and costs  associated with starting a small business have been declining over the years, making it more feasible for an individual to open shop.  For free advice and other related articles to starting your own business, follow the links below.

Facebook Messenger Is Actually Helping Small Businesses Boost Sales

According to the company’s director of small business.

Facebook has built its reputation on its ability to get granular. Because the social network knows so much about its 1.6 billion users, marketers can use the platform to target highly curated groups of people.

But small–business owners should think on an even more individual level, says Dan Levy, the company’s vice president of small business. He repeatedly sees companies missing out on a valuable, and inexpensive, tool: Messaging.

For better or for worse, over the last decade the phone call has gone the way of the Dodo. Millennials may have driven the trend, but by this point Gen Xers and even Baby Boomers would often rather text than talk. This extends to their interactions as consumers. “Small-business owners are telling me, ‘I’m getting more sales leads over Messenger than I get over the phone,’” Levy says.

Ken Crite: It’s never too soon to start small business

Small firms accounted for 64 percent of the net new jobs created between 1993 and 2011 (or 11.8 million of the 18.5 million net new jobs). Since the latest recession, from mid-2009 to 2011, small businesses have accounted for 67 percent of the net new jobs.

With this in mind, if the focus was on the development and/or expansion of small businesses, we should experience a more rapid rebuild of the economy.

When large corporations expand and create 50 new jobs, there are several hundred applications, leaving the majority of the applicants in the same situation that they were in prior to applying.

If half of the applicants decided to start their own small business and hired only one additional employee, the job creation and development increases dramatically.

10 Must-Have Apps for Your Small Business

Today, tablets and mobile phones are enabling every industry, every line of business and every employee to work in astounding new ways. This capacity is fueling a new generation of apps, delivering more power, more insight and more capability to businesses than ever before.

This is true for businesses of all sizes – both large and small. Leveraging the right kinds of apps can make for a cohesive business ecosystem valuable in increasing productivity, streamlining business processes, and instilling creativity overall. So where to start? This slideshow offers a look at some of the best types of apps for kicking your small business off the ground or to a higher level.

Mind Mapping

The practice of mind mapping goes beyond the brainstorming exercises you did in elementary school. When you’re beginning a business, it’s important to think through everything and being able to collect your thoughts in a flexible way, especially when you’re on the go, is valuable.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The State of Small Business Today

June 3, 2016 by

64002400

Many small businesses where the minimum wage has increased, are dealing with issues that they believed are detrimental to the growth of their companies.  Federal law regulation about overtime pay went into effect December 1, 2015, making this another issue to overcome.  As a small business owner, is 2016 a better or worse year for you?

To read more about this and other news, follow the links below.

What You Need to Know About the New Federal Overtime Rules 

Scheduled to go into effect Dec. 1, 2016, the new rule changes overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime protections. Previously, employees were excluded if they were salaried, earned at least $455 per week ($23,660 per year) or were in positions considered executive, administrative or professional. Now, those exemptions will be lifted and the pay threshold for overtime protections will be raised to $913 per week, or an annual salary of $47,476. That pay threshold will be updated once every three years, indexed to wage growth over time.A rule change announced May 18 by the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) would expand overtime protections to an estimated 4.2 million workers, extending the rule to cover those making less than $47,476 per year and removing long-standing exemptions in the law. Business News Daily dug into the specifics of the new regulation and spoke with labor policy experts and human resources professionals about the anticipated effects of the change, for both employers and workers.

Paychex Sees Small Business Job Growth Dip in May

The pace of small business job growth dropped slightly in May after a strong start earlier in the year, according to a new report from the payroll giant Paychex.

The Paychex | IHS Small Business Jobs Index, which the company compiles with the research firm IHS, declined 0.18 percent in May, from 100.77 to 100.59. Nevertheless, the pace of small business employment growth has increased 0.22 percent since the beginning of 2016.

“It’s roughly flat compared to a year ago, but the pace of small business job growth slowed a bit in May after a pretty hot start in ’16,” said Paychex president and CEO Martin Mucci. “We had a good start, but it’s dropped off a little bit. We’ll see if it’s a trend or not, but at this point we still feel like we’ve got pretty good job growth in small business, despite a little slowdown in May.”

Instagram targets small business ad revenue

SAN FRANCISCO — In a major bid to ramp up advertising revenue, Instagram is rolling out new features for small- and medium-sized businesses including the ability to buy an ad within the mobile app.

“This is really the first time you can advertise like this within the app,” James Quarles, Instagram’s global head of business and brand development, told USA TODAY.

“We have millions of businesses, great community members, and today we want to help them to have the capability to be a business on Instagram, not just be an account,” he said.

 

Filed Under: Ohio Business News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Busy and Productive Aren’t the Same Thing

June 1, 2016 by

business (11)It’s confusing.  There’s a big difference between being busy and being productive, but many people think they’re the same thing – especially small business owners.  They often mistake a busy employee for a productive one, usually to the business’s disadvantage.  Thousands of businesses have closed because, while they may have been busy, they weren’t productive.

This isn’t just playing with words; there’s a marked distinction between the concepts, and the actions which go with them.  A difference that’s important for owners to understand.  Many don’t have a good working knowledge of the process of or requirements for genuine productivity.

Usually, because they don’t “get it” they don’t make it a priority.  They aren’t good at managing it.  They don’t track it or, worse yet, even expect it out of their employees (or themselves, but that’s another article).  Therefore, let’s look at what it is and why it matters.

Simply put – productivity is the amount of value (money) produced divided by the amount of costs (i.e. time, supplies, personal) required to do so.  It’s calculated by dividing the output created during a specific time by the total cost used to produce it.  This formula can be used to measure the yield of many things: shifts, individuals, products, machines, crews, etc.

But, how does it actually work?  Let’s look at a composite example.

Sam had a successful machine shop with a 1st and 2nd shift.  He wanted to increase his volume, but didn’t know how to get to the next level.  He believed his employees were as productive as they could be, because when he was on the shop floor they always seemed busy.   

He was skeptical when Tim, an outside professional, challenged his beliefs.  Tim was able to document, using the formula for productivity, that the 2nd shift was more productive, therefore more profitable, than the 1st shift.  He was also able to determine the reasons why. 

Even though they worked the same total hours the 2nd shift had higher output, used fewer materials, took less time to do a job and had a smaller amount of rework.  In addition, they had lower employee turnover, fewer call offs and not as much tardiness or early clock outs. 

However, neither shift had a productivity rating over 70%.  Sam admitted that both shift foremen had talked to him about making some changes to increase the efficiency of their crews, but he hadn’t listened.  He’d thought the employee’s busyness was equal to their effectiveness.

An owner should be able to recognize which work creates value.  Typically, this means thinking and behaving differently than he has in the past.  Replacing busy work with productive work can take time and diligence, but it usually results in happier employees, higher profit and increased happiness for the owner. 

Filed Under: coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »