Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

You’re a small business owner, but you don’t know what the most common financial risks your company might be exposed to are. Whether you are an online business or a brick-and-mortar store, without the right information you might make a bad decision. Here we explain the 10 financial risks every small business should be aware of and start planning for the future. Before we get to that, let’s review some statistics. Small businesses form an integral part of a country’s economy.

Employees can have many reasons for tardiness or absence. Some of them include personal or family emergencies, transportation issues, etc. But as an employer, you must have an accurate record of each employee’s attendance for productivity and payroll management. So how do you keep track of all these absences and indicate the reason for each? By using employee attendance calendars.

Timesheet conversion is essential for businesses that track employee hours. Turning standard tracked time (hours and minutes) into decimal time makes payroll calculation a lot easier for companies. However, many firms have trouble with accurately calculating decimal time, resulting in problems when compensating employees. But don’t worry! In this article, we’ll tell you why timesheet conversion is important and how you can convert time for the payroll process.

Business owners have now realized the benefits of outsourcing certain tasks to virtual assistants. A virtual assistant (VA) adds tremendous value to their business and reduces their operational costs as they work from a virtual office. However, if you’re thinking of becoming a VA, setting up your virtual assistant business without proper guidance may seem daunting. That’s where virtual assistant training programs come in.

Managing employee tardiness, unscheduled and unexcused absence, etc., can be difficult in any business. These unscheduled leaves negatively impact employee productivity, team performance, and consequently, the firm’s income. Fortunately, you can solve these attendance issues by creating an absence policy. In this article, we’ll tell you what an effective absence policy will include and why you need one. We’ll also share a sample absence policy template for reference.

The annual ICMI Contact Center Expo provided valuable lessons for the future of call center operations. This year’s International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) Contact Center Expo was a little bit different than in years past. Instead of gathering at a large convention center in a major city, hundreds of contact center industry experts gathered at their computers to connect digitally.

With the arrival of the Internet of Things comes several innovations that help companies save time and money. One of the coolest of these is the rise of the ‘cyber secretary,’ or virtual assistant. Rather than paying a hefty salary, offering bonuses, and dishing out more benefits to an in-house employee, you can now reduce costs by hiring remote employees by investing in virtual assistant software programs to streamline your processes.

Working remotely has become the new normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With so many employees working from home, team managers need a remote work plan or policy to ensure that their employees stay productive. But how do you create an effective remote work plan? In this article, we’ll tell you how to build a remote work plan and what to include in it. We’ll also share a free downloadable remote work plan template to help you get started.

With the changing times, workplace norms and employee demands have evolved as well. Employees now prefer a flexible work arrangement like the compressed workweek or remote work over the standard nine-to-fiver. And if you’re considering allowing flexible working hours or flextime for your employees, you should set guidelines that clarify how it works in your company. How do you do that? By creating a flex time policy.

Today, many business owners face a dilemma — should you prioritize core tasks or answer customer calls? Fortunately, by hiring a virtual phone assistant, you can ensure you have enough time to focus on core activities while still attending important business calls. It can be IVR (Interactive Voice Response) or real people taking calls on your company’s behalf so you can focus on critical activities.