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Overtime comes at a high price for businesses. It can often feel like your only option, but overtime doesn’t have to take over your profit margins. Even when demand is high and budgets are low, here are eight easy ways how to reduce overtime. 1. Treat overtime as the exception, not the rule Company culture starts at the top. If you treat overtime like any other hours worked and just part of doing business, your employees will do the same. Instead, overtime should be treated as the final option, not your first. Changing your “overtime culture” might be a challenge for the employees who are use ..read more

Temperatures over 100 degrees, El Niño, polar vortexes, or even just a few inches of snow. While the meaning of “inclement weather” changes from location to location, every employer still has the same responsibility: to keep their employees safe. Use this step-by-step guide to create an inclement weather policy that makes sense for your business. 1. Learn your weather laws Like we said, “inclement weather” means something different to everyone. Doing a quick search for “inclement weather” online offers up a range of results, all with different definitions and scenarios. What is seen as a weat ..read more

It’s what every entrepreneur hopes for—your business is thriving. Your customers are happy and your revenue forecast is even happier. You can see more potential leads over the horizon, and everyone is telling you it’s time to “scale up.” The next step? Hiring an entirely new team of salespeople to get even more customers in the door. Not exactly. For small businesses, bigger may look better—but that isn’t always the case. Growing your business and team may equal increased revenue, yet it also means increased hiring and operating costs. Instead, success is learning how to scale a business—and h ..read more

American employers are facing a burnout epidemic. About two-thirds of full-time workers today report experiencing burnout, while hourly and shift employees face the highest rates of burnout across industries. With busy season just around the corner, here’s what you need to know about employee burnout—and how to keep your business and team healthy during the holiday rush. The backstory behind burnout Everyone has an off day on the job. Every business has employees who don’t give 100% of their effort all the time. But employee burnout isn’t just the occasional off day or slacking on your respon ..read more

Employee burnout is a real problem. Just ask the World Health Organization which recently said that employee burnout consists of three things: Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion. Growing mental distance from an employee’s job, or negative or cynical feelings towards the job. Reduced professional efficiency or productivity. Maybe you think employee burnout only happens in rare and spectacularly bad workplaces, but you’d be wrong. A Gallup poll found that 23% of employees felt burned out often or always while 44% felt burned out sometimes. Add them up, and you have about 70% of your empl ..read more

The boundaries between your personal life and your work life have been blurring for years. You can thank technology for that. The ability to stay connected resulted in changes in expectations for work output. Because you can communicate quickly and can do some work away from the office, it’s expected. Even if it’s not an “official” policy, it’s so easy to send a message or an email to someone whether they are at work or not, and so we do. It is a natural outflow of how we communicate with our friends and family; why would work be any different? The change is rooted in technology, and its growt ..read more

40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful. That’s a problem. Regardless of what kind of work you do, the reality is that workplace stress is detrimental for employers and employees. Read on to find the causes of job stress, why it’s so harmful, and helpful tips to cope with workplace stress.  What Causes Stress in the Workplace? Stress points certainly vary among industries and different roles, but many overlap. These can include: Downsizing A bad economy or a company experiencing a budget crunch leads to downsizing. Every worker, whether hourly or salaried, experience ..read more

Do your employees wonder how to get promoted? Are there uncomfortable struggles between employees who think promotion is based on nepotism, longevity, hard work, favoritism, or various other standards? Does the whole thing make your head spin when you think about promoting from within? Maybe you think promotion is just a job title, or that an employee will “grow into” the promotion. Promoting your employees isn’t easy. You can look for seemingly good indicators and then still get it wrong. Keep The Peter Principle In Mind If you promote based on someone simply being a good worker, you’re going ..read more

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