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Does Your Company Need a PEO?

Owning a business requires time, patience and a great deal of effort to ensure its success and longevity. A professional employer organization (PEO) will spend time researching your business needs and deliver a cost-effective plan to meet them. Instead of endless piles of paperwork, staying current with employee regulations and interviewing, you can focus your attention on running your company.

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PEO FAQ

1. What is a PEO?

Professional Employer Organization may be an unfamiliar term, but they are extremely valuable. A PEO provides a variety of services that includes human resources functions, payroll assistance, safety and employment resolutions, regulatory compliance, professional orientation and much more.

2. How can a PEO Benefit Your Business?

Improve the safety of the workplace environment through seminars and training workshops.
Oversee worker’s compensation issues and follow-up on injuries or claims.
Control spending by focusing on their primary duties instead of tedious work.
Reduce payroll and wasteful accounting expenses.
Implement and structure human resource services such as company policies, employee handbooks and vacation scheduling.
Refocus the attention on revenue generating tasks such as sales and marketing strategies to help the company grow and flourish.
Manage employee health and dental benefits.
Stay on top of current regulations and compliance in regard to end of the year reports, state laws and filing any necessary documentation pertaining to the guidelines.

3. How will a PEO Improve my Workplace Environment?

In addition to the many benefits a PEO can provide for your business, the remainder of the employees in your workplace will reap just as many rewards through their outsourcing.

Efficient and timely payroll services – No longer will you have to worry about payroll and getting paychecks out to your employees in a timely fashion. This is part of a PEO’s job and can take the headache out of tallying up regular, overtime and salaried hours for the employees and making sure everyone gets their check when they are supposed to. Managing the correct deductions is just as important when it pertains to insurance, expense and tax related issues.
Improved employee/employer communication – Proper communication is necessary for any successful business and a PEO can ensure that a company stays on top of important dates such as employee reviews, insurance deadlines and other relatable items.
Maintain a peaceful environment – A professional and knowledgeable PEO can take all of the worry out of managing a proper business by providing guidance on legal compliance, safety and risk management services for your company.

If you’re company is having trouble staying on task with their benefits, unable to set a budget for monetary compensation to your employees or having issues with human resource maintenance and employee hiring, it may be time to hire a professional employer organization. A PEO can get your business on the road to effective planning and help the company stay focused on growth.

About the Author: Researcher Shelby Warden writes articles to help small business owners reach their goals. Since 1997 Midwest HR has been identifying new, cutting-edge ways to positively affect the bottom line and overall growth of businesses of all sizes. Read their extensive PEO FAQ for more details on how a PEO can help with payroll, tax administration, risk management, worker’s compensation and legal compliance.

Virtual Offices – Providing Support For Home Businesses

Many people that work from home find it difficult to manage all aspects of their business by themselves. Unfortunately many business owners simply do not have the capital to be able employ or accommodate an administration team to provide them with support. Virtual offices offer affordable support solutions for people that run home based businesses. Work can be outsourced to virtual assistants who have the skills and knowledge to handle both administration and customer service tasks.

Virtual office services

Virtual offices usually offer a telephone answering service, where a business’s calls will be directed to a virtual receptionist, rather than to the business owner. This enables business owners to get on with other more productive tasks. Using a virtual receptionist will also make your business look bigger and more professional.

They will answer your calls using your personalised business greeting and learn information about your business so they can answer your customers’ queries. If you are not available to speak to a customer, the virtual receptionist will take a message which will be sent to you via email or text message.

Giving out a home address to clients can often look a little unprofessional, giving them the wrong impression about your business. Combat this issue by using a virtual office’s mail forwarding service. You will be able to use the virtual office’s address as your own, which looks far more professional to customers, especially if the office is based in a prestigious area. The mail forwarding service will also help to increase efficiency, as you will no longer feel like you have to wait around at home to sign for important letters and packages.

Virtual offices also carry out other general administration work for businesses such as invoicing, scheduling and faxing. Some companies even offer extensive services such as social media and project management.

Benefits of using a virtual office

Virtual offices provide an affordable solution for home business owners that require additional support. Rather than having to hire an employee who would require a wage and other benefits like sick and holiday pay, you can pay a monthly fee to receive the services of a virtual office. Not only is this more cost efficient for small businesses, but it is also less of a commitment. Virtual offices usually offer small contracts or provide services on a month to month basis, preventing you from having to tie yourself into long contracts.

Working with a virtual office will also help to increase productivity. You will have much more time to spend on sourcing products, marketing your business and planning expansion as you will not be sat at home taking your customers’ phone calls all day.

How to choose a virtual office

When it comes to choosing a virtual office it is important to find one that will take the time to get to know you and your business. It is important that the virtual receptionists and assistants are able to represent your business in a way that you are happy with, as they will be the people speaking directly to your customers. Do a little online research and you are sure to find a company that is capable of representing your company to a high standard.

Outsourcing work to a virtual office will mean you have more time to work on the parts of your business that you enjoy! — License: Creative Commons image source

Conclusion

Virtual offices enable home businesses owners to grow and develop their company with a supportive team behind them at just a fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house admin team. Everyone needs a little extra support sometimes and this is something that virtual offices are there to provide. Not only will a virtual office benefit a home based business in terms of support, but it can also make them look more professional, creating the right impression on customers.

About the Author: Written by Megan Hunt who likes having home business support

Divide and Conquer – The Art of Delegation

Many business owners – especially when they’re just starting out – feel like they have to do everything themselves. They understandably want to be in charge of every single aspect of the company, from the marketing work to HR, from writing business plans to checking stock and a million other things besides. No task is too small to be looked at in minute detail; after all, they don’t want their business to fail.

The Importance of Delegation

While it is obviously important to keep track of your business as a whole, it can be practically impossible to focus on every little element of the day-to-day running of the company; there’s no way that a single person can do everything – and still keep their sanity. Important jobs can need a lot of time spent on them in order to do them well, and if you’re trying to do too much, your work will suffer for it. That’s when the art of delegation – allocating jobs to others in your company – comes into play.

Delegation isn’t simply a get-out-clause, a way of shirking your responsibilities or escaping from your obligations; it is an incredibly useful tool which – when implemented properly – can help your company to improve and grow. In dividing your tasks, you will conquer more at the end of each business day. Some people feel that if they are delegating, they are somehow cheating or failing to fulfil their role as manager or owner of the business. This simply isn’t true; with spreading the work around, you not only end up utilising your own skills to their fullest advantage, but you also create a better working environment for your employees.

Employee Morale

No one wants a high turnover of staff, and if you want to avoid having to interview for a new sales assistant or administrator every few months, it is vital that you keep employee morale up and make your company a nice, satisfying, place to work. Giving them more tasks and responsibilities can help with this. For example, instead of being in charge of boosting sales over the whole company yourself, give each staff member a particular product or area to track and improve on. People like being appreciated for what they do, but they like seeing good, solid results even more.

If your business is doing well, stress levels will no doubt be kept to a minimum – and people who enjoy their jobs are more likely to be productive and efficient in their work. If the manager is concentrating on the really important business tasks instead of spreading themselves too thin doing all the little things, the business is more likely to benefit. As the staff start to see the company getting more successful, they can share in the pride of the achievement and will want to ensure the continuation of the accomplishment. They helped get the company to where it is today; they have a stake in it now and want to see it do well – just as much as the boss does.

Business Hierarchy

The use of delegation also creates a clear-cut hierarchy where perhaps there wasn’t one before (this can sometimes be the case with particularly small businesses). In generating new roles and new levels of authority, staff will feel like they can report to someone – or ask their advice – without having to go straight to the top. Knowing that there are more supervisory figures than just the boss, employees will be more likely to complete tasks quickly and efficiently, and soon your company will be a well-oiled machine, where every cog – or staff member in this case – is not only incredibly important, but also highly valued. Along with this idea of hierarchy comes the opportunity to create new departments and offer new roles to existing staff members – giving not only your company the chance to grow, but the individuals within it the chance as well.

By perfecting the art of delegation, you will be giving your company the best possible chance it has to grow and develop, not to mention the huge boost you will give your staff in terms of morale and motivation.

About the Author: This article is contributed by James Stewardson blogger for Sage Software. He enjoys sharing small business tips and advice.

Quick Tips For Reducing The Cost Of Doing Business

No business can afford to pass up on any form of cost saving tips in this tough economy. There are always ways that you can cut back on your business’ expenses without sacrificing quality, but you need to look for them. If you are not actively searching for lower prices, how do you know that you are not paying too much?

coins — License: Creative Commons href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/meshal/40297406/sizes/z/in/photostream/” rel=”nofollow”>image source

Here are a few quick tips for reducing the cost of doing business:

Audit business expenses

Every company needs to analysis and justify each business expense a few times each year. Make it a part of your quarterly strategy or at least annually and always start by re-quoting your supplies. If you don’t find a better deal out there, you can always negotiate lower prices or better terms with your existing suppliers.

Increase staff productivity

In today’s modern world, the first step to improving productivity is searching for technological advancements. Manual entry is a thing of the past and there are now automated systems for nearly anything you need to accomplish in a typical business day. There are automated marketing systems, invoice generators, and automatic order processing, including payment. The less time your staff is spending on entering paperwork means more time they can be spending on innovation and growth.

Cut staff if needed

You may also discuss some positions are not as necessary as you think. For example, if you only need to process less than fifty invoices per week (which is typical for a small business), then you probably don’t need to hire a full-time bookkeeper. You could enter the transactions yourself in less than an hour and save a considerable amount on labor expenses.

Use video-conferencing instead of meeting in person

To save the expense of commuting between locations, try using video-conferencing whenever possible. If you also use file sharing program like Google Drive, you can both even work on the same document without having to email it back and forth.

Use less expensive forms of marketing

Social media marketing is being used by more big business as a way to connect on a more person level with potential consumers. It is relatively inexpensive, especially when you compare it to all other mediums for global advertising. Create an engaging website, an interactive blog, a fun Facebook page, and an intriguing Twitter feed.

Reduce your paper costs

You can save time and money by switching to paper saving online solutions. Use email, online calendars, and online billing software to reduce the amount of paper you use. If you email invoices directly to your customers, you will save on both paper and stamps!

Take action and start saving money today by auditing your business expenses, increase productivity, take advantage of video-conferencing, use inexpensive marketing methods, and reduce your paper cost. These little things can add up to an incredible savings for your company.

About the Author: The article is posted by Gerwyn Wallto. You can find other related articles here.

5 Reasons Your Small Business Needs A YouTube Channel

YouTube has exploded over the last few years, with its increasing amount of users; it has some amazing opportunities for small businesses. YouTube can help increase conversion rates, increase quality traffic, improve branding, and plenty more.

Reason Number One – Increase Your Quality Traffic

Traffic to your website is one of the most important things to focus on when starting a new business. The more people that ends up on your site will ultimately determine the success of your online sales and successful customer transactions. With YouTube, you can place a video that explains your products and services then attach a link for people to click on. If they click on the link, this is going to be a high quality visit because they are already aware of what you offer and are interested in more information on how to obtain it. This benefit can’t be stressed enough because if you can create high quality videos that will keep people interested, then you have a potential market place with millions of people at your fingertips.

Reason Number Two – Might Go Viral

Other people who then share it with their friends can sometimes pick up creating a high quality video. This can be very beneficial because the people that are watching your video already trust the person who provided it, allowing them to already have a good first impression about your business. This also allows your video to be presented to a large amount of other audiences thus increasing your chance at success.

Reason Number Three – Help Your Branding

The way your business is viewed by the public eye is a very important aspect to always be thinking about. If people don’t know your brand, or respect it, then why would they do business with it? By submitting videos to YouTube, you have a chance to present your business the exact way you want your customers to view you as. Even if you make a video that doesn’t include trying to sell your services, you will still be able to have people want to do business with you based off what your video includes.

Reason Number Four – Non-Stop Marketing

Marketing can be a costly and time consuming part of doing business. With YouTube, all you have to do is create a video people will want to watch, and let the side do the rest of the work. It’s an excellent way to get free, non-stop marketing services that doesn’t require much maintenance. Buy YouTube views to ensure that your channel gets its regular dose of viewers.

Reason Number Five – It’s Global as well as Local

Whether your business can cater to global clients or just local ones, YouTube can target an exact audience. Videos that are submitted can be search engine optimized and marketed as well. So if you want to target a certain area of people, then that won’t be too hard to do. YouTube is one of the most used websites in the world, so you have access to an unlimited amount of potential customers. It’s up to you to take advantage and convert them into sales.

About the Author: Karen T. Kelch works as a freelance blogger. She has a passion for blogging and making friends online.