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7 tips for gracefully managing employees during the holidays

November 29, 2022

By Alysha Love

There’s no changing the holiday rush, but small business owners can help lower the stress of the season for everyone by managing employees with grace.

That can be easier said than done. The National Retail Foundation predicts a 6-8% increase in total retail sales for the winter holidays this year. At the same time, 9 out of 10 small business owners told QuickBooks that they’ve been ensnared by supply chain issues this year. Those kinds of stressors can make graceful leadership feel unimportant or impossible by comparison.

But how you curate your work culture and manage your employees makes a huge difference in their job satisfaction — and, ultimately, your employee retention. The three overarching reasons that employees leave are because of subpar benefits, like paid time off; a lack of recognition; and poor company practices, like an unhealthy culture, a 2021 QuickBooks study found.

Small actions can speak volumes. These seven tips are a good place to start to manage your employees through the holidays with grace.

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6 Strategies to Prevent Quiet Quitting from Your Team

October 20, 2022

“Quiet quitting” is the newest buzzword in the business world. While this term evokes mental images of employees leaving their job without saying a word, the reality is much less terrifying. Quiet quitting is when employees stop going above and beyond at their workplace. Quiet quitting is a response to the idea of hustle culture, a form of workplace culture that can lead to severe burnout.

Unfortunately, for many small businesses, the idea of employees doing the bare minimum for their job is unsustainable and can cause stagnant business growth. However, there are plenty of things that you can do to prevent quiet quitting. Things like valuing your employees, clearly communicating work expectations, and offering advancement opportunities can all go a long way toward preventing the “quiet quitting” phenomenon.

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5 Ways to Focus on Personal Development as a Business Owner, and Why You Should

July 20, 2021
By Sharita Humphrey –

No doubt, as a small business owner, you bring an incredible amount of value to the table. It’s a huge task to get a company up and running and make it profitable. Most certainly, it requires a lot of attention and dedication. You might get so busy running your business that you forget about yourself. However, as your business grows, you should, too.

According to career and personal growth coach Kathy Caprino, “Personal growth is the process of growing stronger, more confident, and more effective as a person and an agent of change for your own life. It relates to how you see and perceive yourself, interact with others, engage with the world, and envision your future and your possibilities.”

This is why it’s important to cultivate a lifestyle that encourages personal growth alongside business growth, to allow for multiple levels of success. When you care about personal development (your own and that of any employees you oversee), you’ll foster a more engaged workplace, more efficient employee performance, and greater profitability over time. (more…)

How To Increase Profits Using More Accurate Job Costing

November 10, 2020
By Ken Boyd –

If you can’t identify and accurately estimate all of your project costs, how can you determine the profitability of the job? It’s simple, you can’t.

Business owners who conduct business on a project or job basis may have a difficult time tracking each individual cost associated with each individual job. However, owners who cannot track total project costs accurately may find themselves taking on work that is not profitable or pricing their work too low. The solution lies in accurate job costing. Estimating the total cost of a job can be easier said than done. We've got a few tips to help you manage and track your job costs for more accurate estimates. Click To Tweet But first, let’s take a look at the difference between job costing and process costing. (more…)