Inspire - Tips To Grow Your Business, Productivity & Relationships

Onboarding is a critical part of employee retention, especially for startups where turnover rates can reach 70% within the first year. In a recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), nearly half of HR professionals said they had difficulty hiring qualified candidates because of poor onboarding practices. Onboarding is a crucial step in the employment relationship between employers and their employees, so follow these best practices to create a happy and productive team from the first day of work! 

Are Company Policies and Procedures Clear? 

This might seem like a no-brainer, but a well-written policy is essential for helping employees understand what they should expect from the organization, what they are doing, and why it matters how they behave. The best way to ensure compliance is by creating a comprehensive onboarding process that includes training materials, checklists, and processes. This will help employees understand what they should do during onboarding and provide them with the tools they need to complete it successfully. It will also allow HR staff to identify any gaps in knowledge or skills before new hires start working.

Engage Them from Day One.

Onboarding is not just about getting them started; it’s about making sure they stay engaged. It involves setting expectations, providing clear information, and helping people feel comfortable with the new way of doing things. So, what motivates them? Why did they choose this career path? What are their values? An easy entry point is to ask: “What would you like to see here?”  Doing so can help you understand where they are coming from and what they expect out of this experience. It may also involve creating a welcome email, setting expectations around privacy, explaining why they should care about your product, and so on. 

Here’s one advantage of working with a recruitment firm: this kind of personalized approach has been applied from the start! For example, at Recruiterie, they believe that each recruitment is as unique as the company and the position for which we are recruiting. To that end, they invest time in both the companies and candidates they build relationships with and work for.

Assist with Introductions to Key Team Members and Vendors 

One of the most important aspects of onboarding is getting newly acquired talent acquainted with tenured employees. Consider who the employee will work with on a regular basis. While it might not be practical for them to meet everyone in the business, ensure they meet key people like team leads, the accounting or billing departments, the human resources team and the IT department. This allows new employees to know the go-to people for both their daily work and any other work-related needs. 

Don’t forget about sending recommendations for vendors to make their job easier! For example, The Print Authority is a fantastic resource for a new hire to have at the ready for business cards, training materials, marketing materials and more. 

Strike the Right Balance with Training Intensity.

It can be easy to over- or under-train, and each has its own disadvantages. With over-training, the employees are overwhelmed by new information. You might think this would get them up to speed faster, but human brains can’t retain that much information. Give your new employees time to work and learn independently. 

Meanwhile, under-training is just as ineffective. You’re effectively telling employees that they need to figure out everything with little support. This negatively impacts morale because it makes employees feel like you don’t care about their success. It can leave even the most confident employees feeling vulnerable and unsure of their place at your company.

Encourage Communication in All Forms.

It’s important to check in with your new employees at various points during the onboarding process. You can’t know how a new hire is adjusting unless you ask them outright. Check in to see what they’ve learned so far, where they need support and whether they have any unanswered questions. Be sure to listen to their comments with an open mind, as this will encourage them to share ideas that could ultimately strengthen your business. 

A great way to encourage team-wide communication is to invest in a platform like Preciate: their Social Presence® platform promotes authentic connections that accelerate business by allowing people to naturally move through virtual spaces.  

The onboarding process is integral to helping new employees get properly established. Having the right approach ensures success for both your employees and your company overall. By adopting these best practices, you can develop an optimal process for transitioning talent onto any team!

One of the most important aspects of cybersecurity is planning. Without a plan, it can be difficult to know what steps to take to protect your data and systems. A good plan will help you identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, and then take steps to mitigate them. Additionally, a well-thought-out plan can help you respond quickly and effectively to a breach, minimizing the damage and helping you get back up and running as quickly as possible.

There are many factors to consider when creating a cybersecurity plan, but some of the most important include:

Identifying your assets:

In order to protect your data and systems, you first need to know what you have. Make a list of all of your important assets, including hardware, software, data, and intellectual property.

Identifying your risks:

Once you know what you have to protect, you can start to identify the risks that could potentially threaten those assets. Consider both external and internal threats, as well as natural disasters.

Creating a security strategy:

Based on the risks you have identified, you can start to put together a security strategy. This should include both preventive measures (such as firewalls and intrusion detection systems) and reactive measures (such as incident response plans).

Testing your plan:

Once you have created your plan, it’s important to test it to make sure it will actually work. This can be done through simulations and drills.

Updating your plan:

Your cybersecurity plan should not be static. As your assets and risks change, so should your plan. Make sure to review and update your plan on a regular basis.

Ensure Your Systems are Safe

Planning is essential to effective cybersecurity. By taking the time to identify your assets and risks, and create a security strategy, you can help ensure that your data and systems are safe from harm.

Gold is an American staple of value, from its luxurious roots, to the Gold Rush, to its position as an investment today. There has never been a period in America where gold wasn’t valued. What determines gold’s value and causes short term booms and busts are of much interest then. While gold has always gone up in value in the long term, looking year after year interesting trends reveal themselves.

Investments in America tend to follow one principle with certainty, investments fail to be secure the moment they are defaulted on. While this is rare for the most part, there’s always the danger of banks failing, with a history of bailouts riddling American banks. Gold makes itself the exception by being unable to be defaulted on.

This is because gold is not just a financial investment, it is a physical entity. This is the reason behind its security and particularly odd trends of booming and busting. While most investments will start to drop heavily as inflation rises, wages drop, and the economy generally falters, gold doesn’t. Gold sees its biggest increases in value during these times.
Gold is tangible and importantly finite. This means as the dollar loses value in the U.S in times of inflation, the real value of gold remains the same, so it will follow the trend of inflation by growing in value. While this isn’t a perfect trend, it makes gold one of the most reliable investments, specifically in times of economic uncertainty. There’s no investment quite like gold.

Growing a business will be the first goal of a founder after the revenue of the business has stabilized. Mistakes are made by some entrepreneurs when starting a business as they try to do too much at once. Draining the cash flow on extraneous things rather than establishing processes is very unwise. You want to have a plan to roll out certain features of the business as cash flow continues to stay healthy. You do not want to stunt growth due to not having the appropriate amount of cash to utilize. Below will outline various tactics to grow a business without crippling cash flow while keeping costs in mind. 

Renting Or Purchasing Used Equipment

The equipment for a business is going to depend on what type of business you are running. You might need to invest in scaffolding for sale for a home improvement business or computers for a digital marketing company. Used equipment is another option as not everything has to be brand new. As long as you can complete quality work with the equipment in an efficient manner, then used equipment is just as good as new equipment. 

Hire Slowly

Hiring too quickly can lead to employees not having enough work to do. You want a nice balance between employees pushing their productivity and morale. Pushing too hard can lead to burnout and will lower employee retention numbers. People want to be appreciated rather than constantly pushed which is difficult for some entrepreneurs to realize. You want to hire for the work that you currently have rather than work that the company could potentially land. Scaling part-time employees up is an option if there is a sudden growth in the business. 

Digital Marketing Is So Important 

The digital marketing that a new business does can help them build a brand and legitimize the business. You want to be able to rank on search engines for certain keywords and phrases. Creating content on the website is going to be important when it comes to these rankings. You need to create quality content as this is so important and generic content can be a waste of time as well as money. 

Social media can be a lifesaver for a small business that is trying to compete with much larger businesses that have massive budgets. Promoting content on social media is free and boosting a post only costs a few dollars. The social profiles that you claim also show up quite high on search engines as websites like Twitter have massive amounts of traffic. Tracking the return on the time and money spent on social media is far easier than you’d expect with the technology available. 

Growing your business is going to be something that presents a number of challenges. Dealing with these challenges is going to be far easier when you have some cash to throw at it. Don’t drain cash flow until your business is established and revenue has stabilized for months.