I’m one that understands that the current economy affects many and therefore is a topic at the top of any news editor’s assignment board. We see story after story of how companies and lives are crumbling due to the decrease in consumer confidence, decrease in spending, credit not as freely available as it once was and a multitude of other factors.
I’d like to thank Safari Solutions, an Indianapolis based human resources firm, for publishing an email newsletter today that takes a different angle on today’s circumstances. The topics in the newsletter include “5 Benefits of Hiring in a Down Economy” along with “Low Cost Strategies for Hiring in a Down Economy.”
Ann Clifford, President, writes:
A tough economy presents opportunities for companies to hire top talent. Investing in “A” players can increase revenues, productivity, and profits. Doing business as usual with existing “B” players may not. Below are tips for taking a proactive stance in a sluggish economy!
Ron Giles, HR Consultant, continues:
Business owners may be fearful or hesitant to recruit during an economic downturn. However, if a sluggish economy is affecting your business, hiring top talent may energize your company and give you a competitive advantage when the market turns around. Benefits to hiring during a downturn include:
- Larger pool of higher quality candidates.
- Industry talent available from competitor closings.
- Top performers available at affordable salaries.
- Top talent may position your company to excel when the market improves.
- Business owners can focus on high impact activities by delegating to proven performers.
Now isn’t that refreshing?
An office environment is made up of people with a range of personalities, needs, desires and skill levels. When managed even at a basic level the environment can be very healthy. We all know it’s not easy to keep the balance with the variety of motivations employees (and managers) have during office hours. Here are some very basic tips or best practices I’ve learned “over the years.”
- Leave your personal baggage at the door when you walk in the office every morning. This is harder than it sounds since you spend a lot of time with your co-workers and some may even become friends that you trust. You then start to share your personal business and develop deeper relationships with those you work with. Back to my point . . . if you can practice taking a deep breath on your way in the door each day and thinking “I’m at work now” and put your personal business away to concentrate your efforts on work for the next 8-10 hours you’ll be much better off. And so will those around you.
- Don’t assume others are at your beck and call. Everyone is busy. Practice this: “Is there time in your schedule to accommodate me for 10 minutes later today or tomorrow morning?”
- Help others realize you are not at their beck and call. Practice this: “I’d really like to help, my schedule is full now, how about tomorrow morning?”
- When another does walk into your office, have the courtesy to take your hands off your keyboard, look in their direction and give some sign of acknowledgment.
- In the extreme basics category fall: say good morning; acknowledge one another when passing by in the hall; don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink (must I go on?).
If you manage people, you have responsibilities as part of your job that are not practiced often enough:
- Provide adequate resources to do the work expected.
- Provide training and a source of advice when questions arise.
- Listen.
- Provide feedback. This is a big one for me. People want to know how they are doing. Am I doing well? Not so well? Tell me! What can I do to improve?
- Another big one: Say thank you! In person. In front of others. Via email. During reviews. All of the above. Sounds simple but few practice what means so much to so many and can have such positive results.
I know some think it corny but one of the best exercises performed at a prior place of employment was to hire a consultant to conduct a personality seminar – you know, like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or similar. All benefited from the day, learning how to communicate effectively with other personality types. I’m sure it’s still paying off, because I know as part of the hiring process that company now does some basic personality typing to not only help managers, but also help employees get the most out of the work environment.
I work with Doug Karr, who has so much enthusiasm and creativity, it spills out of his office and every now and then I’m fortunate enough to soak up a little. Admittedly, Doug likes to plan, model, ponder and create and has a great number of ideas 90% completed and he can’t remember them all! In a flurry of genius, Doug recently created (and finished) the Tuned In Calculator which has garnered a bit of interest. To help him celebrate this achievement, I invite you to check it out. Here’s the result on this blog:
I’m going to try to keep more content coming in to this space on a more regular basis, some topics may just be about “me” while others may take on a more work – life – hobbies tone.
I’ve been with my new employer for three months now, well into my initiation period. I now see my contributions making a difference (in a small company most everything makes a difference in some way!). Our management team had a good conversation today about the future of the company (we get together every two weeks for financial and strategy sessions) and I truly appreciate the amount of involvement I have with these decisions. There are moments when I want things to happen much more quickly, though. That’s my impatient side coming through and I tend to ignore the guy on my other shoulder whispering “you better watch what you ask for!”
So I did it! I’m now director of marketing for Patronpath, provider of marketing and e-commerce solutions for the restaurant industry. (Actually I stared about a month ago, I’ve just been late in posting about it!) I happen to be working with Douglas Karr, a great marketing and technology wizard who is active in the Indianapolis blogging scene. My days are spent developing and implementing marketing strategies to help this small, young company build a strong, sustainable and growing customer base.
What a great experience at Compendium! Now I’m on to other exciting opportunities and would love to share my experience and know-how with your company. Please see my profile by clicking on the image below, or contact me directly.
So I enjoy the idea of blogging so much I have now turned my profession towards helping corporations use blogs to most effectively communicate with their customers. I’ll still be blogging, though it’ll be a Compendium blog, and hopefully at some point I’ll dedicate this space to another topic. I’m very happy to be starting this new adventure, wish me luck! Cheers.
It’s well known that the number one customer acquisition tool for traditional retailers is drive-by, that is, customers find you by driving by your location. But what happens if they’re on the internet and want to find you? One way is to provide a map, with the goal of driving traffic to your retail location. This is very common as well and today I learned the power of the Google Map API. Without some intermediate level of programming expertise, you’ll want to outsource this function. Today I was in a team meeting speaking to such a programmer who opened my eyes to the power of Google Maps. What a great tool for retailers! To make it even easier to “find a location near you” we talked about a way the interface can automatically display the closest locations based on the users originating IP address. Wow! So now when asked “how did you find us?” the answer more and more will be “I was just surfing by!”
So what do I know? One option was to blog about my daily personal life (boring!). Another was to simply provide reviews of sites I visit and books I read, mostly about technology and business. Then I thought, well what do I know? I’m lucky enough to have a job where I can thrive doing what I love, using technology to help business owners market their customer experience, products and services. How do I do that? Let’s find out together. I do a lot of research on current trends that I’ll share and I’ll also relate to you what’s currently working and not working, where I’ve been and where I’m going along the tech trail.
I happen to apply my knowledge professionally at the company headquarters of the retail franchise Wild Birds Unlimited, therefore many posts will pertain to the franchise business, bird feeding and bird watching. You’d be amazed at how technology has transformed our business of supporting our independent business owners, how they can market their business using technology and how their customers use tech in bird feeding and bird watching.
What kind of readers am I looking for? Small business owners looking to improve using technology with a focus on franchise businesses, franchised and independent bird feeding and bird watching specialty store owners, and customers or fans of this business that might take an interest in how technology ultimately affects their shopping experience. Let’s go!
