Management Articles

Healthcare Help for Entrepreneurs? If you are in business for yourself, you have probably already discovered that individual health insurance is extremely cost-prohibitive. You may think paying outrageous fees is your only option. Or even that you can’t afford health coverage at all. What Are Health Savings Accounts? A Health Savings Account (HSA) is an insurance policy that was actually designed with the self-employed and the small business owner in mind. According ...

Running a One-Man Show Transitioning from working in the corporate world to working from home requires a lot of adjustments, but the biggest one is probably organizing your time. Because, in a very real sense, it is your time now. It’s not your boss’ time or the companies’ time—you answer to yourself. That’s a tremendous amount of freedom, but it’s also a great deal of responsibility. You’re now in charge of every aspect of your business. It’s your job to find your clie...

You may not realize it, but you deal with intellectual property (IP) every day. If you own a website, that website is your intellectual property. The way you deal with IP—yours and others—can directly impact the success of your business. What’s Intellectual Property? Registered patent attorney Patricia McQueeney (http://BrinkleyMcNerney.com) explains, “[Intellectual property] can be broken down…into four types: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.” • A...

There’s no slow-down in the number of commercial developments, both out-of-town and in city centres. Most commercial development consists of units that are refurbished or newly built and then sub-let to companies. It is this sub-letting that is often the key to obtaining good levels of development finance. Commercial developments include: • Office space • Production areas • Warehousing • Leisure facilities • Retail outlets Anything that houses a business of any t...

It doesn’t matter whether you have 5 employees or 500, an employer’s responsibility is to ensure that employees have a safe environment in which to work. This includes both the day-to-day processes carried out at your premises, and the general safety and welfare of the people who work for you. There’s a fine line between using security measures to keep your staff safe, and invading their privacy. That’s why, before you implement safety measures, you should always check tha...

Customer security is one of the prime considerations of any retail outlet today. Whilst implementing key marketing strategies in order to promote products and increase sales, retail managers also need to be thinking about how safe their customers feel in-store and ways they can improve the attractiveness of their space for shoppers. Lighting Good lighting is a key aspect of the customer experience. Stores require lighting that allows customers to see what they are doing...

Retail crime is increasing and 86% loss of stock through crime or wastage was attributed to crime in 2005, according to a report released by the Centre for Retail Research in the UK in the latter part of that year. The survey covered a large number of European retail businesses, who returned results that suggested that external burglary and theft by staff were the biggest causes of loss. These figures are rising and yet, in 2005, an estimated €7633m was spent on installing...

Is tackling talent management one of your goals this year? Employees are becoming more demanding, and topping their list is professional growth and development. These are the employees you should be striving to keep. They want new challenges, interesting work, and the opportunity to develop new skills. Even if you don’t have the resources to implement a full-scale career development program, you can still provide your employees with the tools and support to manage their own c...

Organizations today are facing several challenges and talent management is one of the greatest. According to a poll conducted by OI Partners, Inc., the number one challenge facing the HR profession is leadership development and succession planning. Attracting, developing, and retaining quality talent is more costly and has a greater impact on the bottom-line than ever before. Retiring baby-boomers, the expectations of Gen X and Gen Y employees, and the new definition of “long...

Eventhough the concept of outsourcing has been around for years, its implementation often incorrect and misled. Outsourcing is NOT about having jobs done by other parties. Outsourcing is about having the best talent and resource to do some tasks, so you can concentrate on more strategic ones. The distinction is obvious. Your strategic tasks is the most important things you need them to be done to grow your business. You do not want to be distracted by other repetitiv...