Winter Weather's Not Done- Protect Yourself

Many parts of the country have been slammed with snow this winter. Just this week saw much of the East Coast receiving anywhere from a wintry inch to snarl Southern roads to over a foot to hold up Northeast corridor. Snow days (pr days due to any extreme weather event for that matter) can pose a real challenge for small business owners, often unclear of what the law calls for vs. common sense. Many an OED Certified Advisor has spoken to a small business owner both revelling in and frustrated by the privacy of their empty office when he or she has made it over hill and dale.

To help you sort out the issue of what you should do as well as need to do, we recommend you brush up on Susan Healthfield's article on About.com. It is not intended as binding legal advice, but rather education to make you aware of certain twists and turns in HR issues thanks to weather fiascos.

So if it's still cold where you are, grab a hot cup of coffee and take a reading break. If you're laughing away from the Sunbelt, quit laughing. Hurricane season for you is but six short months away and brings some common challenges.

Read the article here. Stay warm!

Top 5 Tips for Dealing With Holidays in a Small Business

Thanks to SME Blogs for these reminders. While they meant "holidays" in the vacation sense- this info is solid at this time of year too. Whether your team will be shuffling religious holiday absences or vacation days... It's coming!

Top 5 Tips posts from the SME Blog are always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.

1. Don’t let it come as a shock to you when an employee is off on holiday. If you are unaware of their coming absence until the day they go away, there is most likely something wrong with your system.

2. Remember that ... a lot of your customers will also be away. Try to take the possible payment slump into account when planning ahead.

3. Always make sure that there is someone who is available who knows how (and is authorised) to perform specific tasks, such as making payments to suppliers.

4. Ask staff if they mind handing over access to their emails to someone else for the time they are away – this will help avoid nasty surprises or annoying your clients by not responding.

5. Train staff to be flexible in their job roles so that when someone goes away they can easily cover some of the work of the person on holiday.

Thanks SME Blogs for the reminders!!!!

Small Businesses Create 55,000 Jobs in November

(Reuters) - U.S. small businesses created 55,000 jobs in November but employees worked fewer hours and earned less money, according to a survey on Tuesday that highlighted the still weak labor market conditions.
Intuit, a payrolls processing company, said the increase in small business employment compared to October's upwardly revised 60,000 count, previously reported as a 30,000 gain.

The survey is based on responses from about 71,000 small businesses with fewer than 20 employees that use the Intuit Online Payroll system.

It covered the period from October 24 to November 23.

The average work week for small business employees fell 0.3 percent to 24.9 hours, while the average monthly salary slipped 0.18 percent to $2,637.

"Total compensation is down, part-time workers aren't getting as many hours, and there are fewer hourly employees who are working full time," said Susan Woodward, the economist who helped to develop the survey.

"Overall, this data is the best we could hope for given the uncertainty of the situation in Europe."
The government will release its closely watched employment report for November on Friday. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased 122,000, according to a Reuters survey, after rising 80,000 in October.


post published Nov 30 2011- Reuters News Agency

Assessing Personnel Needs - Tips

As payrolls have been trimmed and companies have been forced to run lean, many have tried to increase productivity to nearly unrealistic levels. As things start to emerge in what may be a "new normal" rather than lightening-quick recovery, we look at this cross-post from Bolts of Lightening in OED's Community site.

The small business owner should base the firm's personnel policies on explicit, well-proven principles. Small businesses that follow these principles have higher performance and growth rates than those that do not follow them. The most important of these principles are

• All positions should be filled with people who are both willing and able to do the job.
• The more accurate and realistic the specifications of and skill requirements for each job, the more likely it is that workers will be matched to the right job and, therefore, be more competent in that job.
• A written job description and definition are the keys to communicating job expectations to people. Do the best job you can! is terrible job guidance.
• Employees chosen on the basis of the best person available are more effective than those chosen on the basis of friendship or expediency.
• If specific job expectations are clearly spelled out, and if performance appraisals are based on these expectations, performance is higher. Also, employee training results in higher performance if it is based on measurable learning objectives.

The first step in assessing personnel needs for the small business is to conduct an audit of future personnel needs. Ask yourself:

• Can the workload you visualize be accomplished by the present work force? 
• Will more or fewer employees be needed? Consider seasonal patterns of demand and probable turnover rates.
• Can any jobs be eliminated to free people for other work?
• What balance of full-time or part-time, temporary or permanent, hourly or salaried personnel do you need?
• What does the labor supply look like in the future?
• Will you be able to fill some of the jobs you've identified? How easily?
• What qualifications are needed in your personnel?

Develop a method to forecast labor demand based on your answers to these questions. Once your needs are estimated, determine strategies to meet them. Be wary of tightening payroll to the point you eliminate any chance for growth.

And Now For Something Completely Different. And Really Uncomfortable.

Oooh, here's a possibly sticky topic that anyone with employees may face:

How do you tell an employee to stop dressing so provocatively?

Maybe this strikes a chord because Halloween with all its goofy/quirky/doesn't need to be so sexy costumes stormed all the businesses near us. Whatever the chord, more than one OED Advisor has stepped into a small business to find "juicy" across a young woman's sweatpants, or someone looking more like some "naughty librarian" than bookkeeper.

We love this post from Bloomberg.com on Business Week for it's suggestions! The first thing that may stop you is the question of whether YOUR employee handbook covers dress code. You DO have an employee manual, right? Even if you'd like to maintain a casual atmosphere, you are running a business.

Before updating (or writing) yours, check out Karen Klein's feedback to one highly concerned law firm partner.

Control Costs by Strategically Reducing Payroll Expense

OED Certifed Advisor Dana Komar spotlights the difference between slashing payroll and strategically reducing costs.



One of the most effective ways to reduce payroll is to minimize scheduling and reduce the overall number of people you employ. However, adjustments should not be done blindly as the wrong decisions could have a negative impact on your operation. The first step to make sure that doesn’t happen is to use past sales data to truly understand the demand patterns of your customers. If you have hourly employees, you need to know demand by hour. If your employees are on salary, it is sufficient to evaluate demand at a more aggregate level.

The next step is to determine the true capacity of who or what produces your product—whether it be a machine or a person. Don’t forget about machine downtime and employee personal time. Then using your demand analysis, schedule employees and machines operators so that their total production matches your expected demand. This will ensure you do not waste money on excess capacity, and that you have enough for the operation to run smoothly.