StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article

What Every Adult Needs To Know About Money

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article
 
As an adult, the most confusing thing we often have to get used to in our lives is dealing with money and being responsible for a whole lot of things. We never get taught how to manage money in school so when we hit adulthood the terminology can be super confusing and it is no wonder so many of us are left in debt. If you are new to adulthood and need a few easy tips on managing money, here are the basics.

You need to start saving soon

Savings are so crucial for anyone to have and you should never take them for granted. Start saving even a few dollars as soon as you can and have it secured in a savings account for you to use later on in life. This acts as an emergency fund for if you are ever taken ill from work or you ever suffer from some sort of unexpected bill. Always save and be smart.

Tax is a pain

Tax is a word which can bring a collective shudder down the spine of pretty much any adult and it can be a real pain to manage. Tax is a form of payment we give to the government to help them run the services and other things which make the country. Everyone has to contribute a little bit and this is used for the better of the whole country. There are various things to think about with tax such as getting Qdos IR35 advice, thinking about national insurance and lots of other elements, and it is worth reading up on the basics of tax so that you know what your money is going towards.

Pensions are super important

Pensions might be something you don’t consider when you are in your late teens and early twenties but a pension can be a huge benefit to you later in life and the earlier you start saving the better it will be for you. If you can start your pension now you will have more money towards your life later on when you need it the most. It is a simple thing to set up and you won’t even notice the pension leave your bank account anyway!

Read your bank statements!

It cannot be said enough that those bank statements you get through the post or emailed to you every month should be read. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t really bought much or had any big costs this month, it is always worth knowing how much money you have and also how much money you spend on average each week. You might find that you need to cut down on lunch or coffee costs and work and this can help a huge amount towards your financial stability in the future.

Compare prices for your bills

If you own a house, first of all, congratulations. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be a homeowner these days so you deserve a little pat on the back! In seriousness, if you have bills to pay each month, it is important to make sure that you compare deals online to see if you can pay less. Even if you already have a provider there is no problem in switching!

StrategyDriven Big Picture of Business Article

The Big Picture of Business – Ethics… Good for Business

StrategyDriven Big Picture of Business ArticleIn order to succeed and thrive in modern society, all private and public sector entities must live by codes of ethics. In an era that encompasses mistrust of business, uncertainties about the economy and growing disillusionments within society’s structure, it is vital for every organization to determine, analyze, fine-tune and communicate their value systems.

Corporate Responsibility is more than just a statement that a committee whips together. It is more than a slogan or rehash of a Mission Statement. It is an ongoing dialog that companies have with themselves. It is important to teach business domestically and internationally that:

  1. We must understand how to use power and influence for positive change.
  2. How we meet corporate objectives is as important as the objectives themselves.
  3. Ethics and profits are not conflicting goals.
  4. Unethical dealings for short-term gain do not pay off in the long-run.
  5. Good judgment comes from experience, which, in turn comes from bad judgment.
  6. Business must be receptive–not combative–to differing opinions.
  7. Change is 90% beneficial. We must learn to benefit from change management, not to become victims of it.

Corporate Responsibility relates to every stage in the evolution of a business, leadership development, mentoring and creative ways of doing business. It is an understanding how and why any organization remains standing and growing…instead of continuing to look at micro-niche parts.

Integrity is personal and professional. It is about more than the contents of a financial report. It bespeaks to every aspect of the way in which we do business. Integrity requires consistency and the enlightened self-interest of doing a better job.

Financial statements by themselves cannot nor ever were intended to determine company value. The enlightened company must be structured, plan and benchmark according to all seven categories on my trademarked Business Tree™: core business, running the business, financial, people, business development, Body of Knowledge (interaction of each part to the other and to the whole) and The Big Picture (who the organization really is, where it is going and how it will successfully get there).

One need not fear business nor think ill of it because of the recent corporate scandals. One need not fear globalization and expansion of business because of economic recessions. It is during the downturns that strong, committed and ethical businesses renew their energies to move forward. The good apples polish their luster in such ways as to distance from the few bad apples.

Corporate Responsibility means operating a business in ways that meet or exceed the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business. This is a comprehensive set of strategies, methodologies, policies, practices and programs that are integrated throughout business operations, supported and rewarded by top management.

Corporate Sustainability aligns an organization’s products and services with stakeholder expectations, thereby adding economic, environmental and social value. This looks at how good companies become better.

Corporate Governance constitutes a balance between economic and social goals and between individual and community goals. The corporate governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for community stewardship of those resources.

As part of strategic planning, ethics helps the organization to adapt to rapid change, regulatory changes, mergers and global competition. It helps to manage relations with stakeholders. It enlightens partners and suppliers about a company’s own standards. It reassures other stakeholders as to the company’s intent.


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article

Tear Down This Wall: 4 Ways to Fix Business and Tech’s ‘Women Problem’

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion ArticleInformation technology (tech) is at the epicenter of the world’s economy. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the foremost companies in the world. But women in tech, as in other industries, face obstacles from entry-level positions to the C-suite.

If industry truly wishes to fix this, it must stop retreating into seemingly noble expressions of sentiment, and instead evaluate and adopt specific procedures and programs. That is particularly true of tech, exhibit “A” in the corporate failure to hire and promote women. Re-allocating burdens, from women who aspire to the companies and industries that would employ them, and adoption by those companies of specific programs, is what my book is all about.

Women can lean in, education can push STEM, states may enact wage gap and family leave legislation. But those developments mask the more fundamental issue. From startups to the largest firms, firms themselves actually hire and promote females. In contrast, many of these companies have gender aversion baked into their DNA. Tech, for example, has been unable to support women at any level. A mere 5 percent of Tech’s senior executives are women. Branches of the industry, such as video gaming, are overtly misogynist in governance, in culture, and in product content.

Can tech and other industries redeem themselves? Here are four steps companies could take:

Change the mindset, reallocate the burdens. Bookshelves are overloaded with advice books for women who aspire in business. Get a mentor, network, don’t be a “bully broad,” be strategic, lean in, lower your voice, don’t be a “queen bee,” dress conservatively, and so on. Now is high time to look at the other side of the equation, what responsibilities companies and industries bear and what sorts of measures they should be considering. The onus shouldn’t be solely upon women anymore.

Adopt specific programs and procedures. Professional advice books emphasize that women should obtain mentors. Women have, and it has not moved the needle at all. Women in business complain, “I have been mentored to death and I am still in same position I was 7 years ago.” Recently, emphasis in Australia has shifted to corporations themselves and to mentoring plus sponsorship. It has moved the needle – significantly. Ideas include comply or explain requirements (“if not, why not?”), certificate programs, pledge regimes, quota laws (Norway, Spain, Italy, France, Germany but probably not for the United States), mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure, structured search (Rooney Rule) adoptions, and more.

Cast a wide net. Compared to other countries around the globe, the U.S.’s progress on gender diversity issues has slipped below the global median. Governments, stock exchanges, and industry groups in Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, for example, are very active on gender diversity issues. Surprisingly, promotion of women in business and in governance is hot-button issue of in the Peoples’ Republic of China (not in Japan, however: fewer than one percent of corporate directors are female). On the Atlantic side, proposals and programs proliferate in the countries of the European Union and with the EU itself.

Look to the future: pay attention to the pool problem. We now appreciate that executives must balance maximization of shareholder value with sustainability. Long-term sustainability requires gender diversity. The pool problem speaks to that issue. The pool consists of the women from among whom boards and executives will choose senior managers — not now, not next year, but 10 years, 12 years, or 15 years in the future. Compared with today’s meager pool, the future pool will be markedly inferior, unless companies put in place steps to deal with the deficiency. One vital strategy is to ease the off ramps and ease the on ramps for women as they find it necessary to step aside from their careers, temporarily, often because of childbirth and child rearing issues. Dial up, dial down, alumnae, and welcome back programs, among other things, can ease those on and off ramps. Companies must think about these type of measures.

When it comes to promoting women to leadership roles or positioning them for executive roles in the future, tech is the most backward of major industries. Even lower down the ranks, the number of women tech companies employ has declined – from 37 percent in 1995 to 24 percent in 2016 — and is predicted to decrease further in coming years.

Neither does the future appear as hopeful as we have wished. Yet there are steps and programs that might brighten that future significantly.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert ContributorDouglas M. Branson is the W. Edward Sell Chair at the University of Pittsburgh. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the Universities of Washington and Hong Kong, and Melbourne University, among others. He was a State Department–sponsored corporate governance consultant to New Zealand, Indonesia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. He is the author of 23 books on gender and corporate governance. His new book is The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity (NYU Press, July 2018).

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article

What to do After an Unfair Dismissal

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals ArticleBeing made jobless can be an extremely traumatic time. The sudden loss of your livelihood can have a range of adverse effects on one’s mental health and well-being. If you were dismissed unfairly, the unjustness of your situation can increase these adverse effects. It’s not the time to despair, to be angry or to take a short break from work, though. It’s the time to act. This article talks you through the stages you will need to take after an unfair dismissal to ensure you receive justice for the situation while at the same time preparing for a new life with a new job.

Emergency Budget

Usually, an unfair dismissal comes out of nowhere, which means you’ll not have had time to prepare your finances or your personal life for the effects of being without your regular source of income. Take an overview of your cash situation and consider your monthly payments. This might be a time where your lifestyle is forced to pause while you consolidate your resources and await either a new job, the reinstatement of your previous position, or some compensation for your unfair dismissal.

Legal Routes

An unfair dismissal often means you’ll be able to pursue your previous employer in an employment court. It’s very simple to check whether this is a possible route for you to take. When you call the number provided at spencerssolicitors.com, you will receive expert advice on your case. If there are grounds for complaining about your dismissal as unfair, these legal experts will be able to take the case on for you and offer you any advice you may have to follow for your claim to be as watertight as possible. Unfair dismissals are traumatic and can affect your future, so you’re well within your right to launch a legal proceeding.

New Income

Nevertheless, compensation from your previous employer will not necessarily be swift to arrive in your bank account. There might be a few weeks or even months between you being unfairly dismissed and you being able to claim your compensation, and in that time you’ll need an alternative source of income. Begin job hunting as soon as you can, even for part-time or temporary positions in your area. Don’t be afraid to take a lesser job to your previous one initially. It’s essential you’re earning before you search for that dream new job.

The Legacy

As you move into the future, it’s important to construct a palatable legacy from your previous position from which you were unfairly dismissed. Dismissals from work are something of a stain on your CV and your employment record, and that’s why it’ll be crucial to set the record straight. Keep on good terms with someone from your old workplace who’ll be able to give you a reference explaining the circumstances of your dismissal in an accurate and flattering fashion. Ensure that you’re able still to draw upon the good moments in your old place of work, and don’t isolate yourself from them entirely.

Unfair dismissals are a significant speed bump in life, but they can nonetheless be easily navigated. These tips will ensure your unfair dismissal is not too damaging to your lifestyle.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article

Here’s Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Here’s Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t Working

In modern business, there is one thing that can either make or break your business: marketing. More specifically, digital marketing.

If you don’t get it right – and a lot of businesses simply don’t – it can mean the loss of profit, poor brand exposure and ultimately stilted business growth. As simply put, people are more and more interested in what a business is doing online in the modern age. So failing to put forward an effective digital footprint can be a real hindrance to your business efforts.

At the top of these failures tends to be a business’s approach to SEO. They understand that good SEO can push their business website forward, but don’t particularly have the right approach to make it work and actually gain the benefit that SEO presents. It’s a big issue and one you want to prevent from Day One of your digital marketing exploits – or at least very early in your campaigns.

So, if you are frustrated with the SEO aspect of your digital marketing then here are some sure-fire ways you’re going wrong. And, more importantly, how to fix them!

Outdated Tactics

The best practice when it comes to SEO changes every day. Largely because Google will cotton on to a new technique, view it as ‘spammy’, and update their algorithms accordingly. Some of these tactics may even be considered to be Black Hat SEO. Take the recent August update, for example. It saw a big problem that many people were exploiting – long, advice based, content that may or may not has been actually helpful – and made it more sustainable. Ostensibly, to better both user experience and help legitimate advice sites prosper.

For this reason, it is very important to keep on track of Google’s and other search engines guidelines. Be aware of the different tactics and what may be considered ‘spammy’. Otherwise, you may find that your site faces punishment as a result of not actually following the right rules.

On the whole, SEO tactics vary from person to person. Some people swear by link building, others value content and even more think the technical side is where the future of SEO is heading. Test out what you think might work, but then don’t be afraid to change tactics if something isn’t working for you.

Technically Incompetent Website

Yes, the quality and ‘technical’ backdrop of your website actually have a big impact on your SEO and subsequent rankings. If you have a website that isn’t particularly good, has thin or weak, or poor user engagement then it simply won’t help to convert for your business. In fact, you could even find it more of a money drain and hindrance than anything else.

If your website is poor, then you’re going to struggle both in terms of ranking and conversions when users actually do go on site. Also, bad sites simply turn off users; so, having the right level of ‘polish’ to a site is simply necessary. Otherwise, you will find your site filtered out by the masses who simply expect better from their online experience.

Misunderstanding Data

A lot of SEO is incredibly data-driven. You have to understand the traffic your site is gaining, what this means about your acquisitions channels and ultimately how to generate more. All from a few numbers and line graphs that Google Analytics presents.

It’s easy to see all of the data presented by Google Analytics or other sites, then feel disheartened or as if your efforts aren’t quite there. However, it’s not necessarily about the data. It’s much more about your interpretation thereof. Interpret right and you could end up generating thousands of more users, better conversions and overall have a better website. Whereas interpret it wrong and it will simply sit there with very little views and traffic.

If you’re confused about analytics, there are plenty of resources to help you become a Google Analytics expert.

Terrible Keyword Targeting

You understand keywords. Which means that you know how to research them, implement them on your site and the supposed results that this should bring. However, it simply doesn’t. Your rankings remain a flop, even with the ‘right’ implementation of keywords. Chances are you have really miscalculated your keyword targeting.

This miscalculation can come from a number of different issues. Targeting keywords with too much search volume, targeting those with too little and sometimes you may target the wrong keyword altogether. It really is a mixed bag of reasons on a good day.

Try changing your tactics. Pick two targets; one long-term and one short-term. From there, you can decide whether your strategy is working in the short term, then make adjustments to ensure it continues or begins to do so in the long term. Thus, hopefully, removing the issue of wasted time potentially.

Impatience

One of the worst things, in terms of your SEO campaigns, can be a level of impatience on your part. By no means is SEO a get rich fast tactic. In fact, when done right SEO is a slowly building organic process and gradually improves over a long period of time (though this differs from business to business, good SEO can take up to a year or more). It’s all about sustainability and not appearing ‘unnatural’.

This level of impatience is why many clients and marketing agencies fall out, as the client is often impatient for quick results. Some of these situations even lead to the involvement of mediation solicitors. However, this is unfair in many cases as SEO is a slow method for achieving great results.

For that reason, even when your SEO strategy doesn’t seem to be working the best thing to do is to not panic. Simply look at what you’re actually doing and look to adjust. Make beneficial, smart, changes and you can easily find a strategy that does actually work for your website and business.