Category: Business

  • Innovative Ways You Can Assist New Hires Adjust To Their Work As Soon As Possible

    Innovative Ways You Can Assist New Hires Adjust To Their Work As Soon As Possible

    Everyone starts their journey as a new employee at some point in time. It’s a time full of anxiety and uncertainty for the new recruit since they’re walking into an unknown environment. If you can help reduce their stress then the employee will adapt quickly to the new environment which will help them become a productive member of the company much faster. The quicker you can make an employee used to the work environment and culture of the company, the better.

    Below are some of the key points you should keep in mind when onboarding a new employee to help them become a part of the company faster and will ultimately retain them by creating a positive first impression.

    1. Make them feel at Home

    Whether it’s an offline onboarding in your office or an online onboarding process, you must ensure that the employee feels comfortable around their peers. This will help them establish their network inside the office and form professional relationships faster. Many companies provide a welcome gift, a set of instructions, and a welcome buddy to expedite this process.

    Making the new recruits comfortable will also make sure that they ask work related questions. Asking questions is extremely important since it will clear up their doubts regarding their work. The number one problem employers face with new employees is retention, if you follow these steps then it shouldn’t be a problem.

    2. Get the Paperwork Sorted

    Before you can start assigning your new employee their tasks, you should make sure that their documents are in order. This is beneficial for both your company and your employee. Your company will benefit greatly since managing paperwork is usually a cumbersome task for HR. You can always take the help of an easy employee onboarding software solution to make things easier and more convenient. If you complete the formalities in the beginning, you will not be facing any issues with incomplete paperwork in the future.

    This is also greatly beneficial for your employee since it will give them a sense of being officially inducted into your organization. The employee will be more productive after they consider themselves to be formally inducted.

    3. Assign a Mentor

    Oftentimes, the induction and the training provided to a new employee isn’t enough to make them ready for a real-life scenario. The problem with theoretical training is that it provides 0 practical experience in how to deal with problems that are bound to emerge during one’s work. The only way to teach your employee how to deal with these daily hiccups is by pairing them with someone who has experience in the organization.

    Only a person who has personally faced the problems can guide someone the right way. A mentor helps the new employee understand how the company works and what are the workarounds to the problems faced while completing their work. A new employee will get comfortable with their mentor very fast and this will help them develop their first bond with another employee in the company.

    4. Establish a Roadmap

    A roadmap that spans several weeks or even months will help your employee understand how their responsibilities and work are going to evolve over a period of time. You will also be able to hand over the critical functions one by one after your employees have proved that they are up to the mark.

    Initially, you would like to start slow and allow more room for the learning process and growth of your new employee. Once they are firmly established, you will be able to integrate them better into your organization by assigning more complex tasks. The roadmap will keep your employee’s morale high since they’ll know what to do in order to reach the next step on the growth ladder.

    5. Get the Managers Involved too

    The new recruit will be forming the backbone of your company and in order to establish a level of trust, you need to rope in the senior managers to interact with them. This will ensure that your new employees don’t feel left out and they might even get inspired by the top-level leadership. The involvement of managers will also show that your company cares about its employees and it will help inculcate a sense of belonging in the new employees.

    The managers symbolize the work culture of your company and interaction with them ensures that your employees understand the ethos of your company. A manager can get involved in little ways like organizing an interactive session to take feedback and address any issues. The communication line that develops during these interactions will go a long way in ensuring employee satisfaction which is important to retain your new recruits.

    6. Create a Fun and Positive Environment

    You don’t have to keep poking your new employees to do more work and achieve more targets right off the bat. If you create pressure from day one then it’s highly unlikely that the employee will associate their office with a place where they want to be. If you create a negative and tense atmosphere it will be just like hitting yourself with an ax.

    You want to ensure that the employee has a good time when they’re at the office. This will ensure that their productivity is high throughout the day and even during the rough patches which are inevitable. A positive environment is not only beneficial for new employees but for the veterans of your company as well. This is mainly because everyone wants to give their best at work and it’ll only be possible if you provide the right environment to do so.

    These are a few tips that will help your new recruits adapt better to the new environment they are in. You were also once a newbie at some point in time and empathizing with their situation is the best way forward. If you ensure that your employees get comfortable soon, then you’ll be rewarded with high retention rates and more productivity in the end. So focus on the adjusting phase and the results will automatically follow soon after.

  • What Is a Business Credit Card and How It Works?

    What Is a Business Credit Card and How It Works?

    Business credit cards provide financial support to businesses in almost all industries. These credit cards work pretty much like personal cards except for a few differences. 

    The cards give you a line of credit that increases your purchasing power, making it easier for you to meet your company’s financial needs. The cards can be used at different points of sale, but they do have a credit limit, just like with personal credit cards.

    Like other credit cards in the market, business credit card bills must be cleared on time and in full. Failure to do so attracts interest charges, late fees, and other penalties. 

    On a brighter note, proper use of a business credit card will improve your company’s credit rating and attract several perks and rewards. The perks vary from one issuer to the next, so you may want to shop around and find the card that gives your business the best value.

    What’s the Difference Between Business and Personal Credit Cards?

    The most obvious difference between a business credit card and a consumer card is a simple fact that business cards are meant to support a company’s financial obligations and not personal needs.

    The truth is that the issuer may have a hard time determining whether a particular charge was for your business or consumer expenses. However, if you use a credit card for businesses to meet personal needs, your consumer protection reduces significantly. Not to mention the damage it could have on your company’s books. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to avoid using these cards for personal expenses.

    Business and personal credit cards also have different reporting policies, and consumer credit card activities are reported to TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax every month. Meanwhile, some business credit card issuers report the credit card performance to commercial credit bureaus only, while others report to both commercial and consumer credit bureaus. 

    Small business credit cards have higher credit limits than personal cards. That’s one of several reasons why companies benefit hugely from business credit cards.

    What Are the Benefits of Business Credit Cards?

    They Are Convenient

    Using small business credit cards is fast and easier compared to cash and checkbooks. 

    They Enhance Cash Flow

    Business credit cards boost the flow of cash in your company. You’ll have a financial cushion even when sales are low, or your account receivables are behind. 

    They also keep your business operational by providing funds for inventory and emergency expenses. 

    They Offer Incentives

    Business credit cards attract incentives like signup bonuses, cashback, miles, shopping discounts, and points. 

    Before shopping for a business credit card, you may want to look at your books and see where most of your expenses go. Use this insight to get a credit card whose rewards are in line with your company’s needs. For instance, if a significant chunk of your capital goes towards traveling, a credit card with miles incentives may be a better choice than one offering shopping discounts.

    They Are Easy to Qualify For

    Getting a secured small business credit card can be easier than traditional bank loans. This is especially true if your business doesn’t have an established credit history. 

    They Simplify Bookkeeping

    These credit cards streamline business expenses in several ways. First, tracking employees’ expenditure is so much easier when everything is done from the credit card and not their consumer cards. Some issuers even give you the option of setting employee credit card spending limits.  

    If you are issuing the business card to an employee, make sure they’re well aware of the necessary measures to take to prevent business credit card fraud, everyone should be careful with that.

    Issuers also provide monthly statements, quarterly/annual summaries, and additional record-keeping tools. This makes it easier to track your company’s spending pattern and simplifies auditing and payment of taxes. 

    They Improve Your Company Credit Rating

    Small-business credit cards can build your company’s credit, improving your eligibility for lines of credit, bank loans, and other corporate credit cards that have higher limits and lower charges and interest rates. This can be achieved by using the card within the set limit and clearing the balances on time.

    Drawbacks of Business Credit Cards

    They Are Expensive

    Business credit cards have higher interest rates than most bank loans and fixed lines of credit. Penalties like late fees are also steep.

    Interest Rates Fluctuate

    Issuers can adjust the interest based on several factors like how you’re using your account.

    They Come With Less Protection

    The protection on small business credit cards is nowhere as comprehensive as with consumer cards. Go through the fine print and check the level of protection offered before applying for the card.

    They May Require Personal Legal Liability

    Some small business credit cards will require your personal security, meaning the card’s activities can negatively affect your personal credit rating.

    You will find small business cards very useful if your business needs steady cash flow, streamlined expenses, and more purchasing power. They do come with a few drawbacks but, in most cases, the benefits outweigh the cons.

  • Career Paths That Will Help You Generate More Money and Become Happier

    Career Paths That Will Help You Generate More Money and Become Happier

    There are as many career paths as there are people in the world. Long gone are the days when your options were: men do what your father did for the rest of your life, and women take care of a home and children. Today, people are having more complex and evolving careers than ever before. Most of us will have far more than one job our entire working life, and this wide variety of jobs is more likely to reach out across a few industries. Moreover, because the digital and technical world is developing at such a rapid pace, we need to be making career choices with the idea of pivoting in the back of our minds. 

    The jobs that exist today might not exist tomorrow (if 2020 has taught us nothing else, it’s that sudden change is a part of the human experience). We need to be ready to flow with the future instead of trying to stubbornly hold onto the ideas we had about work as children (or the ideas about work that were forced upon us from parents, grandparents, and outdated schooling systems).

    The following will explore some different career path ideas to help you get the creative juices flowing. When thinking about making choices for your working future, it’s always a good idea to keep yourself aware of the fact that it isn’t going to be a one-stop solution. 

    Even if you manage to get a job and hold onto it for the next forty years, you’re still going to have to be ready to adapt to the way technology will influence that job. It’s likely that what the day-to-day routine of someone with that position is today will change drastically within the next five to ten years.

    Solar and Wind Energy Technicians

    Both of these fields are booming right now as more people (and governments with big budgets to spend) turn to greener energy solutions. These industries are expected to grow somewhere between 50 and 70%, meaning there’s going to be a massive influx of money and need and few people who can serve that need. There’s space to create businesses here if that’s your vibe, but also open positions in every stage of the process from design to installation. 

    These jobs are also an excellent choice for those among us who don’t want to be doing only office work; many positions in this field contain at least some outdoor working time which many of the current booming industries don’t. As a bonus, this job is helping the world get access to clean, affordable energy, so it’s something you can feel good about doing even on those stressful days where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

    Content Creators

    No, it’s not just buzz. Everyone needs content today, and most people running a full-time business don’t have the extra time or skills to devote to video production, article writing, blogging, Instagramming, hashtagging, and search engine optimization. This is one of those career paths that has lots of room for pivoting, but it also takes a fair bit of time to build up to. Typically content creators need to produce a portfolio’s worth of work first and then start pitching clients. It’s also one of those fields where you’re going to be working on a contract basis (sometimes even as small as a single article), which means you’re also going to have to master how to keep those jobs coming in. 

    This is also a job with much more sporadic time requirements. Yes, people make it look like they’re just popping online twice per day to answer comments and post, but they’re not showing you the hours of photo editing and caption crafting that went on behind the scenes. This is a great choice for people who know they’d get bored senseless doing the same thing every day.

    Some of the best career paths to generate more money and become happier.

    The Clergy

    Now, this might not be the right type of work for everyone, but for the devout among us, this job is just as important as it has ever been. It also turns out that this position has some of the highest job satisfaction reportings available (87% report being extremely satisfied). People whose work aligns with their faith are happier than nearly all of the rest of us. This work helps spread positivity in the world and support real people through tough times. 

    What’s more, because of the advent of digital churches and ministries, tech-savvy folks are more than needed in this field. Beyond this, many congregations are seeing a rise in attendants as people turn back to their faith during the chaotic times these last two years have been.

    Coaching

    Given how complex modernity has become, many people are seeking guidance and support. Similar to the clergy point mentioned above, this profession can help spread positivity and support people through difficult times in their lives. Coaching has countless specializations (life coach, career coach, relationship coach, business coach… etc.), and many of these positions can be done remotely or virtually, allowing for greater freedom. If you find yourself asking: how much do life coaches make? You’ll be pleasantly surprised because coaches make a pretty penny. Similar to the content creation profession, this is one that will involve semi-regular seeking of new work. 

    Some clients you might have for long periods of time, but others might be hiring you to help them deal with a temporary event like a new job or a divorce. You’ll probably always have one eye open for a new client in this trade.

    Online Counseling and Therapy

    Are you noticing a trend? People need help. People need support, and more often than ever before, they’re turning to the internet to find it. Given the explosion of mental health needs and struggles as humans scramble to keep up with this ever-changing world, more people are turning towards counselors and therapists. This is a profession that can help you help others (studies have shown that helping others is the fastest way to be happy with your life). There is tons of room for specialization in this field as well, so take your time to explore all the options before choosing your direction.

    The above list of careers is just the tip of the iceberg. As the world changes, there will be more disruptions and more alterations. Since people expect to spend about one-third of their working life doing their jobs, the old-fashioned metrics no longer apply. Yes, we need to make ends meet, but we also need a sense of fulfillment from our work, a way to find happiness within it (especially now that we’re all living so long and therefore working for so much longer).

  • Five Ways to Avoid Copyright Infringement: A Guide for Bloggers

    Five Ways to Avoid Copyright Infringement: A Guide for Bloggers

    Many bloggers simply use images, text, logos, and other content without giving intellectual property rights a thought. However, copyright infringement is a serious business. Not only can bloggers find that content infringing on copyright is removed; they could potentially face seeing their blogs taken down and even having to pay hefty legal fees for infringing someone else’s creation. So, make sure you avoid copyright infringement by following these five methods.

    Get Advice from a Professional

    While the following ways of avoiding copyright infringement will inform you on the basics of intellectual property, if you want to make certain that no aspect of your blog is infringing on copyright, it is a good idea to get advice from a law firm like Heer Law, which specializes in intellectual property law. While hobbyists may not want to pursue this course of action, if you are serious about growing your blog and online presence and want to monetize your blog, it is a good idea to get professional advice concerning all elements of intellectual property infringement.

    Pay Attention to Brand Names and Logos

    You need to ensure you do not upload any other organization’s logo or trademarks, like Coca-Cola or Nike. Branded logos will be protected by both copyright and a registered trademark, so by reproducing logos on your blog, you could potentially be infringing on the copyright. However, by simply using brand-name words like “Coca-Cola” and “Nike,” it is highly unlikely it will amount to copyright infringement. But you do need to make sure you do not use brand names in a way that it looks as though they are supporting your blog or connected to it.

    Be Cautious of Public Domain Content

    Many bloggers believe that content in the public domain is able to be used freely without any repercussions, but not everything in the public domain is copyright-free. So, you always need to check the copyright status for any content you are considering posting on your blog. The majority of images and other creative works are protected by copyright until seventy years after the author’s death. So, it would be fine to post an image of Da Vinci’s Last Supper but not a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog. However, there are exceptions that allow you to use some protected material, such as the fair use rules in the United States.

    Know What Is Meant by Non-commercial Use

    With so many stock image sites providing thousands of free images, it can be easy to assume you can use them without infringing on the copyright. But that is not necessarily the case. For example, images should always state their commercial and non-commercial rights, and whether you need to cite authorship when you use images. Make sure you pay attention to the commercial rights aspect in particular. If you put a non-commercial rights image on your blog, it means you can only use that image when you are not promoting anything commercially. So, if you use promotions, ads, and other things to monetize your blog, you will not be allowed to use an image that has non-commercial rights.

    Understand Creative Commons Licenses

    Non-commercial rights also apply to Creative Commons licenses. In recent years, Creative Commons licenses have become a great way for members of the public to reuse content. But you can still only reuse it in certain ways, which many bloggers are unaware of. With a CC license, you can only use the content in the way specifically specified for that content. Some CC licenses allow you to reuse the content in an unmodified form, while some can only be used with attribution, and others can only be reused for non-commercial purposes.

  • What Is a Leased Line and How It Works?

    What Is a Leased Line and How It Works?

    Are you tired of broken conference calls, slow streaming, and even slower downloading? Does your business need a perfect internet connection 24/7? Don’t worry, there is a solution. A leased line might be the best choice for you. Many companies are using it nowadays and claim it has helped them grow their business and improve productivity.

    If you are interested in this topic, please continue reading. Here we will explain what a leased line is, how it works, and how can it benefit your company. Let’s begin!

    What Are Leased Lines?

    A leased-line is a fixed-bandwidth, dedicated data connection that provides high quality and a reliable internet connection to your business. It guarantees certain download and upload speed, as well as resilience and uptime. What basically happens is that an Internet Service Provider rents the internet connection to a company and it’s often much better than what standard providers can offer.

    Companies usually prefer leased lines because they delivered stable internet, high speed, and symmetrical download and upload speeds. Nowadays many companies use cloud-based phone systems and having a leased line is the best choice for them. If you have a big business and multiple people need to use the Internet, don’t worry. This will have no impact on the performance since your leased line is reserved for your company only.

    Leased lines often have these specific characteristics:

    • They are symmetrical (it means that the upload and the download speed must be the same)
    • They are uncontended (meaning they aren’t shared with any other user)
    • “Point to point” (leased lines connect two points, for example, your business location with the ISP)

    Standard internet connection may have worked for you in the past, but nowadays it can get a bit problematic. You see, when every user in your area is using the connection at the same time, especially if many people are downloading something, it can really slow down your internet speed. With standard internet, bandwidth is shared amongst many people in the area.

    On the other hand, if you want a bandwidth that is only yours and only you can have access to it – choose a dedicated leased line. Your internet connection will be perfect throughout the whole day and you won’t have to worry about a slow connection ever again.

    This is especially important for business owners. Slow internet connections can cause many problems, from interrupting conference calls to sending large files.

    How Do Leased Lines Work?

    A leased line sends pulses of light down your optic cable. This means that the data is traveling at the speed of light, which is astonishing. It is actually physically impossible for it to go any faster. The speed can even go up to 10Gbps (gigabits per second), although it can be tailored to your exact needs. When you are choosing a leased line, consider your budget requirements and your capacities. Leased lines can be an expensive solution but it gives amazing results. Your business will be much more productive and it’s worth it. 

    Just to compare it – the maximum speed of most fiber optic connections is around 75Mbps, which isn’t bad for domestic use. Still, your business needs better connection and speed. You don’t want anything to slow your connection down when there are many users at the same time. The leased line is dedicated to you and your business and you should enjoy all the amazing advantages it provides.

    What Are the Different Leased Line Options?

    Usually, a leased line belongs in one of the following categories:

    • Full Fibre (also known as “Ethernet Access Direct” and “Fibre Ethernet”)

    It is direct, very fast, and delivers a speed of around 1Gbps. Experts are currently testing 10Gbps, which would be astonishing. It is the most expensive one but it’s also the most reliable and fastest. 

    • EFM (Ethernet in the first mile, also known as “Ethernet Broadband”)

    This leased line uses the traditional copper network to deliver a connection to your business but it uses a full-fiber connection from the exchange. Therefore, it’s perfect for a business that doesn’t have a local fiber cabinet. It always uses two sets of copper to ensure the best service. For example, if one fails – the other will take over. 

    EFM is much slower than fiber but it’s also cheaper. If you are looking for a mid-price option, this is ideal for you. The service is still fully symmetrical and it also provides SLAs and resilience guarantees.

    • Ethernet over FTTC

    This one is also called EoFTTC and it’s the best for companies without any access to local fiber-based cabinets. It’s even cheaper than EFM but very similar. The only drop-off in speed is because of the distance between the local cabinet and your business.

    EoFTTC uses a mixture of fiber and copper and offers a completely symmetric connection. Still, it’s capable of increasing the download and upload speed according to your needs.

    Do You Need a Leased Line?

    Having super fast access to the internet is a dream come true in this digital era. Many business owners are very attracted to leased lines mainly for their speed. However, there are many other benefits you should consider:

    • SLAs that come with leased lines are great because you will know that any problem can be fixed in a few hours. This will reduce your usual stress levels and you will feel more confident and relaxed. 
    • Symmetrical connections have many benefits, which we have already discussed.
    • VoIP for communication and business telephony will be much more reliable.
    • A Leased line will make your day-to-day operations easier, especially if your company has a high reliance on data. 

    If you run a business that is internet critical, a leased line may be just the thing you are looking for. It’s especially useful if you often need to contact geographically distant offices and you are required to upload and send large files constantly. Your employees will be able to connect their work computers from various locations with ease, simultaneous work in the cloud won’t be a problem, and you will forget about interrupted conference calls forever.

  • Content Marketing for Students: Tips and Tricks

    Content Marketing for Students: Tips and Tricks

    Marketing is an inalienable part of the business. After all, you have to let other people know about you and what you do somehow. Thus, serving as a loudspeaker for companies, marketing content must be approached with lots of persistence and thoroughness. At the same time, working as a marketing content producer requires creativity and the ability to express one’s ideas as clearly and transparently as possible. All these requirements make the job quite challenging, to say the least, especially for beginners. Go through this Industry recognized Advanced Digital Marketing Course to enhance your skills in Marketing Domain

    Still, there are many ways and workarounds to make your creativity and thoroughness work for you in marketing, even if you’re just starting your business and have your classes and homework right behind your back.

    Creativity that Sells

    Marketing and art differ, perhaps, only in their purpose. While art exists for the sake of itself, serving only to satisfy our aesthetic needs, marketing is a similar kind of creative expression, the major purpose of which is to present something in the best of light in order to sell it to the consumers. That means that the marketing producer is much more limited than the regular artist and the success of such a person relies primarily on their understanding of their limitations.

    So, one of the most important points in marketing is to understand the limitations appropriate for the company when it comes to presenting it to the consumers. These limitations will largely differ from niche to niche, company to company, and even product to product. As such, the limitations for even the best essay writing websites will be different to those of a student resource company although they seem to be doing the same thing.

    5 Content Marketing Tips for Students

    Nevertheless, not everyone can understand the limitations appropriate for a certain marketing strategy just like that. That’s why organizing a couple of things is very important, and here is how you can do that.

    • Amass the content beforehand.

    It’s nice to always have relatively quick and really good decisions at hand. That’s why having a couple of ideas in development all the time is great. It doesn’t mean that you always must think about the potential new product or service to offer or constantly try to develop a new and better way to present your company to the customers. This means that you should rather always have a sketch of a general idea that can be implemented when the time comes. This way, you’ll never have to brainstorm in fits of panic and post whatever comes to mind first (which is rarely a good idea).

    • Repurpose your content.

    If you had one not just great but a perfect idea, there’s nothing bad in reusing it for another type of content or in another context. That doesn’t mean you have to copy your post word-for-word and make an ad out of it, for example. Approaching the idea of recycling properly is rearranging the existing content to fit the new form and context. Say, you’ve recently created a post on Facebook that was viewed by thousands of people and you certainly know that it positively affected your sales or your traffic. Now, you can use the key lines from it to create Instagram posts or visual advertisements. If that worked once, the chances that it’ll work more are pretty high.

    • Use your student status.

    To advertise something for a specific audience might cost lots of money and effort. Yet, since you’re a student and are doing business while still being on campus, why not market yourself there? Again, it’s pretty natural for student entrepreneurs to sell their products or services to their peers first. Other students like you are likely active young people, so they’ll make sure to spread the word if they like what you do. That largely saves you on advertisement in a certain area as well as creates a large boost by creating a vast space for word-of-mouth promotion.

    • Be bold and straightforward.

    This is a great strategy especially when you’re a beginner and when there’s no one around you who seems sincere. Sometimes, it feels like the world is stuck in the cliched fake smiles and insincere addresses to the customers. That’s when the bold and straightforward marketing content works at its best. You don’t have to insult your customers, of course, but you have to show them what you got in as most sincere and honest manner possible. Nobody’s perfect and so are you, yet you still have something your competitors don’t. So, make sure to underline this in the first place.

    • Put influencer marketing to good use.

    You likely know an influencer or, at least, someone who does. Influencer marketing is currently experiencing a boom and if you are able to convince a vlogger with their own audience to help you promote your business, you have a huge advantage.

    Don’t rely on just one method or strategy, take the best of a few of them and combine them to get the ultimate mix. You never know what will work first, so being able to organize your marketing strategies and content ideas is, perhaps, another ultimate goal. This will largely reduce your risk and increase the chances for success, so make sure to learn how the synergy works and use it wisely.

    When Marketing Content Turns into Art

    Lots of people can produce tons of great content for marketing, yet not everyone can make it work the way it’s intended or required. And the point here is not only in being an experienced marketing specialist who knows how the strategy works or how different types of content can be combined. State-of-art marketing is about being able to adapt to the situation and combine different elements of the marketing strategy into something bigger, something that will be remembered by people even after the trends fade away and the new era of advertisement starts.

    This article is contributed by Melony Hart. She is an enthusiastic and successful author, traveling blogger, and educator. She gets all her ideas from the experiences she has during her travels and work, so what you read is pure truth. And to Melony, it’s always an honor to think that by sharing her experiences with others, she helps this world to become a better place.