Business Plus Baby

When you start hiring, you’ll probably want to offer extensive training and support. Anything to get the right candidates to apply, right? Sadly, many entrepreneurs fail to deliver on that promise. In truth, training costs too much for many small business owners to afford. As well as the expense of the training, you’ll have to consider paying your staff for the time. It isn’t always practical.

But, failure to follow through on your promises can cause a variety of staffing problems. Your employees will feel deceived, and rightly so. They may opt to leave you. And, even if they do stay, they won’t be in a position to do the best job possible. How can they if they haven’t received adequate training?

The good news is, there are ways to provide training without putting yourself out of pocket. Admittedly, this will involve taking more responsibility on your shoulders. But it’ll be worth it in the long run! Let’s look at some ways you can achieve the goal.

Host in-house training courses

For the most part, your staff aren’t going to care whether they’re sent away for training or do it right there in the office. What matters is that they’re getting the information they need. You could argue that you’re the best person to teach them, anyway. No one knows what you want better than you do. There will still be some costs involved. To ensure your course is top quality, you might want to look into something like Conference Data Services projector hire. This will add a professional touch to proceedings and ensure a visual aid to your teaching. It’s also worth thinking about printing worksheets to hand around to staff members. The more additions you provide, the better chance they have of learning.

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Books: The cheap way to learn

Books are an endless learning resource. Even better, they’re cheap. At least, they are when you compare them with spending hundreds on training courses. You don’t have to stock up on a copy of a book for each staff member. But, having a small library of essentials in the office will be a huge help. Books about dealing with customer complaints, or fixing issues in your chosen computer programs, will be a huge help. This way, staff will be able to rest easy that they can always do some research if they’re stuck.

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On-the-job training

Most importantly, though, you should turn to on-the-job training. The main benefit here is that you don’t have to pay for time spent training. All you need to do is shadow your staff and teach them on the go. In many ways, this is the most efficient training method. After all, listening to someone speak will never match up to doing it themselves. Either stick with your staff for their first week or pair them up with a long-standing member of staff. This will help put their mind at ease, and ensure they can face most issues working for you might throw at them.

 

Starting a business and becoming a mompreneur is no doubt, one of the most difficult things that you will ever do. However, it can also be one of the most beneficial things that you ever do, for you and your children. Your business may stay small, and you may be able to easily run it single-handedly, or it may grow and get to the point where you cannot run your business by yourself anymore and need to take on a team to help you.

While getting to this stage is incredibly exciting, it’s also important to remember that it can come with some downsides. Hiring a team of employees is a great step to take, and one that every business owner dreams of getting to. That being said, having a team beneath you can sometimes be hard to manage, as there is a lot more to being an employer than meets the eye.

Bearing that in mind, below are some of the struggles of taking on employees and tips for dealing with them effectively.

image: Sergey Galyonkin

Learning to delegate

If there is one thing that a lot of business owners struggle with when first taking on employees, it’s learning how to delegate. The fact is that if you are going to take on a team, then you need to learn how to delegate effectively because otherwise, you are going to be paying employees to work for you but doing everything yourself, which defeats the object of taking them on in the first place. Delegation is key to success as a business owner; it’s just a case of learning how to act like a leader rather than a boss. Because the last thing you want is your team to resent you, which is why getting your leadership skills right is so important.

Dealing with payroll

Then there’s the concept of dealing with payroll. When you take on a team of employees, whether it’s two employees or 20, you then have the need to deal with payroll, a task that is not always easy to do. This is especially true when life is already busy enough as it is, without having to worry about dealing with payroll too. That’s why a lot of business owners choose to use payroll recruitment consultants to find a payroll specialist who can adequately handle your payroll needs and ensure that everyone gets paid on time and the right amount each month.

Finding that perfect balance

Another struggle that a lot of new employers have is finding the ideal balance between being a boss and being a friend to their colleagues. This struggle can make it hard to ensure that you are the type of boss that you want to be. It is not always easy working out how to act when you first take on a team, but in time as you learn more about your new role, you will soon master the right way to behave.

Adjusting to being an employer and having a whole team below you isn’t easy, but if you take note of the tips above, you can help to make adjusting a little less stressful.

 

Whether it’s a website representing you, personally, or a company website, there are plenty of things that its design can say about you. Whether positive or negative, the Internet masses have developed a habit of forming an opinion about any particular website the moment they see it. This can make it either incredibly easy – or incredibly difficult – to develop a positive image. Knowing what web design can say about you, whether good or bad, can make all the difference in the world.

It is far too easy to design a confusing website

It’s highly likely that you’ve felt some degree of confusion while navigating at least half of the websites you normally come across on the Internet. It can be quite easy to create a confusing website, because while being passionate about delivering content, webmasters might not quite know how to achieve it in the best way. Instead they put as much information as they can on a single page, which ends up being overwhelming, rather than inviting for visitors. It’s a level of awkwardness you have probably come across; this is how sharply website design can mirror an individual’s personality.

How do I avoid this issue?

The first thing that you need to understand is that you don’t have to try too hard to impress visitors. It’s a lot like entering your home; they’re bound to be looking for comfort. It’s counter-productive to simply try and include all possible information; in the end it comes across as awkward, which is not a feeling you want to convey to visitors. Instead, focus on what’s really important in your website’s design.

Purpose needs to be obvious

Ask yourself what kind of message you want to convey, and then try to put yourself in the shoes of someone visiting your website for the first time. You’ll be surprised at how well you’ll be able to communicate your message. The purpose of your message needs to be clear and concise, so that visitors will be instantly aware of what your website is all about. This way, visitors will see that you as an individual know how to focus and catch their attention. It’s impressive, and they’ll be sure to start looking at your website’s content more closely.

While knowing how to deliver your message can do nothing but good for your website’s image, it’s most definitely easier said than done. There’s no reason to be afraid of getting professional help, because services such as those provided by Web design Oxford experts can be instrumental in creating a web design that is all about you. They can make up for any lack of experience in web design on your part, and get you positive results without all of the hassle that comes with designing a website yourself.

Image: vanmarciano

 

Running a business and a busy family can be a bit hectic. Trying to get everyone up, dressed and off to school in time for you to dash to work is no mean feat, but there are a few things you can do to make life a little bit easier for yourself.

Navigating your way through all the potential pitfalls of the business world takes time, agility and the ability to learn fast. Luckily you are already practised in all of these skills raising your family! Just as you know that an afternoon nap will prevent overtiredness, you can learn simple tricks for organising your business for smooth sailing.

Here’s how.

Buy the Best Software

You could try to keep track of your business yourself, but as you know, juggling lots of information inputs and trying to analyse them all at once is near impossible. Instead try using Enterprise Asset Management Software.

EAM Software will help you to collect and analyse data, produce quarterly reports to track your progress and streamline your business operations to be more efficient and save money! Finding the right software will require a bit of research but once it is up and running, the time you took looking into it will be well spent.

Delegate

When your business is young, handing over the reins to someone else feels risky. You have put everything into getting this far, and even just an hour away makes you feel nervous. Actually, it’s just like handing your baby over to a babysitter for the first time!

Finding the right person to delegate tasks to can be nerve racking to being with, but equally having someone else who understands the running of your business will be a real weight off in the long run. Start small with simple tasks that you are around to monitor before you take the plunge and have a day off. As you give up more responsibilities, it will get easier to do the things you really need to be doing as the business owner and you certainly won’t regret it!

Prioritise

When you have a list as long as your arm, you need to prioritise which tasks to do first, what can wait and what should be delegated. Just as delegating can be difficult, knowing where to focus your attention is a skill worth learning.

Try colour-coding your list using red for the most urgent tasks, orange for the ones with deadlines looming and green for things that can wait. Delegate as much as possible. Once you have a finalised list, work through the reds first, then the oranges and finally the greens. Bear in mind that the colours may change as deadlines loom, so don’t be tempted to ignore those greens and oranges until they turn red! Tackle them with plenty of time to spare.

Being a parent and a business owner is a lot of hard work but the rewards for both pursuits are amazing and make it all worthwhile. Hopefully with these three tips, you will be able to manage your work/life balance a bit more effectively and reduce your stress. You might even find time for a holiday!

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Being a mum and a working woman is one of the most challenging jobs in life. As a woman, being in the workplace is full of discrimination barriers which need hurdling. And, opting to start a family does mean putting your career on the backburner. Sure, maternity leave allows women to come back, but when they do they are light years behind the men. So, are there any advantages for mums in the workplace? Yes, there are because being a parent is a full-time job. As with all roles, the skills are transferable.

Here are the parenting traits which relate to any and every career.

Visualising Ahead

As soon as a mum leaves the house, anything can go wrong. Kids who are potty training may need to find an emergency bathroom, or a screaming fit may occur out of nowhere. Parents have to be able to negate these issues as and when they happen, or else it could turn into a scene. To make sure a child doesn’t scream the supermarket down, mums often think about the problems beforehand. For a business, visualisation is essential as projects never go smoothly. If you can think ahead, you can negate the potential pitfalls in advance and save time and money.

Party Planning

Kids seem to have birthdays more than once a year! For some reason, there is always a party on the horizon that needs arranging. From cake to drink and party games, parents are adept in the art of pulling off an event. It may seem like an abstract skill, yet plenty of businesses use corporate functions to generate leads. At an event company, you will be able to take your skills and scale them up for the bigger stage. Organisation, of course, is the main attribute, but so is creating a guest list, inviting the right people, and playing politics.

Problem Solving

Without a doubt the most significant skill a parent has in the corporate world is problem-solving. Kids can’t act for themselves because they are children. As a result, they need their parents to come up with quick fixes. Better yet, they need their mums to find solutions which are suitable. Yes, kids aren’t just demanding but quality-driven too! Whether it’s finding a tasty snack or a way to pass the time, mums know all the tricks. Businesses need people who can think on their feet because they haven’t got time to hold a worker’s hand.

Listening

Young people don’t open up often, so, when they do, mums have to simmer down. Not only that, but a savvy mum asks open-ended questions which encourages their child to open up further. You clever son of a gun! To a business, listening is essential for a variety of reasons. Firstly, every role revolves around a boss’s instructions. Anyone who can’t listen, then, can’t do their job. Secondly, customers will have queries and complaints. Being able to pinpoint their frustration is vital to be able to find a solution.

Being a mother and having a career is difficult, but there are advantages.

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