I am one of seven children — a large family even in the 1960s. One hundred years earlier, in the 1860s, it was typical for families to have between 6 and 9 children. At that time, parents considered many children to be an economic asset since they could work the farm and at least some would survive to care for them in their old age. Starting around the 1920s, the large family began to vanish as industrialization created more work for women outside the home. Following World War II, the United States experienced a greatly elevated birth rate, adding an average of 4.24 million new babies to the p ..read more

It’s no surprise that employers are having challenges finding employees in 2021 and it doesn’t appear to be industry specific. As of the end of March, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was 3.8% while the federal number was closer to 6.2%. Whether you’re in hospitality, manufacturing, construction, or any other industry, finding good talent is a daunting challenge. My colleague, Nancy Johnshoy, CFA, discusses the reasons behind this at length in her recent article, “The Job Market Enigma.” In response to those challenges’ employers are pulling out all the stops to attract employees: sign-on bonuses ..read more

Question: What is 12 years old, has only celebrated 9 birthdays, has survived two recessions and a pandemic, and has raised $521,800 for our community? I know . . .too easy. Obviously, it is the First Business Bank Charity Golf Invitational! As we look forward to the 2021 First Business Bank Charity Golf Invitationals in Milwaukee and Madison in August and September, respectively, it is worth looking back at the history of this unique event. In 2008, First Business Bank was trying to hold an event to help non-profits in the Madison area. When the idea of a charity golf event surfaced, Corey Ch ..read more

Recently, some of my coworkers at First Business Bank dove headfirst into the podcast pool and I’ve been enjoying their work. As you can imagine, over the past 30 years that our bank has been working with small and medium-sized businesses in many industries, we’ve learned a lot about different aspects of business, leadership, and a whole catalog of topics that make for great podcast listening. While we don’t claim to be experts on everything, we do have what we’re calling “a front-row seat” to “what’s working and what has potential.” I really like that — from the perspective of sharing what’s ..read more

We all have stressful times in our lives when it seems like we have more to do than we can possibly get done. For many of us, it is often a combination of work-life and personal responsibilities that lead to overload. Early in my career, this seemed to happen to me on a monthly basis. Now, it happens to me a few times per year. Maybe it happens less frequently because I have learned to avoid getting into those situations or I have developed a higher tolerance for them. However, a few weeks ago it happened: Overload! I was working on a complex project with tight time frames. It was an important ..read more

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a variety of challenges to everyone — and worse, it has presented many opportunities for cyber criminals. With the holidays approaching, during the pandemic most of us will perform our holiday shopping from the safety of our homes. Adobe predicts that online sales this year will grow by 33% and estimates that online spending will top $3 billion in a 24-hour window compared to $2 billion in 2019(2). With this online shopping surge, it is important, now more than ever before, to be vigilant while shopping online. Here are some tips and recommendations to enjoy ..read more

MADISON, WI – NOVEMBER 23, 2020 – First Business Trust & Investments, the Private Wealth division of First Business Bank, is pleased to announce that it recently reached a new milestone: $2 Billion assets under management. As the First Business Trust & Investments team approaches 20 years helping clients protect and grow their hard-earned wealth, they look back on their achievements with an appreciation for clients. In 2015, the division reached the $1 Billion assets under management milestone and reports $2 Billion only five years later. In annual client satisfaction surveys, clients ..read more

I began working remotely in May of 2018 from the comfort of my brand new apartment in Lakewood, Colorado. I had been working in an office environment for nearly 15 years and I figured that working from home would be a seamless adjustment. After all, work is work, right? Well, I was wrong about that. More than two years later, as a large portion of America’s workforce is working from home, I thought I might help with some hard-learned lessons about working remotely. Get curious and proactive about IT. When you work from home, you can’t just walk over to the IT department with your laptop that ..read more

What appears as a routine, everyday task can quickly become a multi-thousand-dollar theft from your company in the blink of an eye. Take Jane, an accounting specialist, who received an email that appeared to be from the company CFO asking her to send a $43,000 payment that very same day for an overlooked invoice from a new vendor. The CFO’s email did not contain the copy of invoice, so Jane replied to the email to request it. Given this payment request was for a new vendor, Jane’s first step should have been to complete out-of-band authentication, picking up the phone and contacting the CFO to ..read more

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” – Yogi Berra Clearly our vision of the future today is much different than what we were dreaming of even back in January of this year. The global COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly causing us to change our habits and our everyday lives. The work-from-home environment for traditional white collar jobs could change the need for office space in the future as companies might feel the benefits of working remotely outweigh the negatives. While there may be a need for an office space, maybe that space will be smaller and shared with other workers on a come-in-as-need ..read more