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Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top Talent

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Attracting Talent|Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top TalentSecuring top talent is undeniably essential to the long-term success of any business.

But certain high-level professional skills are in incredibly high demand. There are so many roles to fill, that those who have proven their ability can afford to be picky, and to move on if they aren’t satisfied with the position.

So now the job market swings so heavily in favour of these candidates, how can you attract them to join your enterprise, and convince them to stay for the long haul? If you’re looking for some pointers, check out the list below.

Know Your Value

Highly-trained candidates with specialist skills will have many employment options. So your recruitment process needs to be as much about communicating the value and potential of your business, as it is about assessing their suitability for the role.

What are the wider repercussions of the work you do? What are you proud of having achieved? And what are you striving for in the future?

Your employees want to feel that they will contribute significantly to something progressive and exciting. Make it clear how they will fit in, how their skills will move the business forward, and how they can become part of something impactful.

Invest in your promotional material – your website, careers pages, videos, and personal communication from your team – to spread this message loud and clear.

More Than Just A Job

A long-term career is more than just a job. It’s a personal investment that touches every aspect of your life. And potential candidates will want to know that your business puts time and effort into developing a healthy work-life balance.

Can you offer more flexible working hours? Can you give the option to work at home when needed? How does your business support parents, or those will disabilities? Do you provide meals, activities, or mental health initiatives for employees?

Think about what is going to be important to the contentment of your employees outside of the role and the salary. Because family, health and happiness will play a bigger role in their decision than just about anything else.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Attracting Talent|Investing in Your Employees: 4 Ways To Attract and Keep Hold of Top TalentInvest in Their Professional Development

Smart, ambitious people will get restless in a job that doesn’t challenge them or lead somewhere exciting. And when they feel like they’re stagnating or heading towards a dead-end, your employees will simply look for employment opportunities elsewhere.

So it’s important to discuss the professional development goals of your employees and plan regularly how to facilitate them. This might include gaining experiences in other roles, learning new skills through outside IT Training, or training for management or leadership positions.

Wherever they want to go, you should do your best to help them progress. Because a sense of purpose comes hand in hand with loyalty and motivation.

The Social Side

One of the biggest factors in job satisfaction is having good friendships with your colleagues. So working hard to foster the social side of your business is absolutely essential.

Take the time to introduce new employees to the team and try using a buddy system to make sure they feel supported from day one.

Invest in social events and team building exercises and give people the chance to get to know each other outside of work.

And if you have a great social environment already, let potential candidates know this! Show them around the office and give them a sense of how much fun it would be to work here. Because if they feel like they’ll fit right in, they’ll pick you over your competitors.

Improving Employee Efficiency

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Employee Productivity|Improving Employee EfficiencyIf you are able to save time in the office, then it can be something that can be really beneficial to your business and to your employees. These days, employees are spending more time at the office, and in many instances, are exceeding the typical hours that should be worked in a working week. However, simply working more hours isn’t something that is going to make much of a difference, as productivity can be lost over time. If the team is tired, asking them to keep working more than they should won’t be a good thing to do. So how can you as a leader in business help to improve the productivity of your employees, while still doing things to save time? Here are some of the top things to be thinking about.

Delegate

While this tip can seem like something that is obvious, it can be hard for some leaders to delegate and share the load. Your business is going to be your baby, and you’ll want to be in control of it. There is nothing wrong with checking on how something is going, or what the finished product looks like. But if it means you are wasting your time to check every small detail, then it can be detrimental to you, as well as the team of people you are working with. So instead, look to give responsibilities to the qualified employees, and then you just have to trust that they will perform the tasks. This helps the team to grow, as well as feel needed in the business, and can let you get on with other things, being more productive overall.

Train and Develop Employees

If you want to reduce training, or even stop it altogether, it can seem like you will save money as well as time. Although people can learn on the job, it can actually backfire, as learning on the job can be quite inefficient for some. So one thing to do, that will help productivity in the long run, is to take a day to train them in something, and carry on doing this from time to time, to show they are valued and that you want to keep them improving their skills.

You can get people in to train them, though with a corporate training platform, you could also perform the training yourself. Offer some continued employee development and help them to expand their skills. It will be what helps your business to grow and grow. You could also offer some specific courses, or things like mentoring, if they are ultimately looking to achieve something specific.

Embrace Telecommuting

If your business is one where just a laptop and a phone are all that is needed, then encourage and allow your team to work from home from time to time. You might think that they won’t get much done from home, however, the reality will be the opposite. Working from home can be much more productive, as they won’t gossip with colleagues, go to the coffee machine, or take a full lunch like they might when working in a city. Plus, you have the option to keep productivity high for your business. For example, an employee with a cold might feel a little rough to come in, though they are still able to function. Instead of them calling in sick, they can work from home, as that will be easier for them to do when they aren’t feeling completely at their based. In bed checking emails and getting things done, will be better for the business than that person doing nothing that day.

11 Most Profitable Online Course Ideas in 2020

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Online Course Ideas|11 Most Profitable Online Course Ideas in 2020Let’s face it, wage earners are not seeing a lot of increases in their paychecks these days. The average worker is lucky if they get a two to three percent pay increase this year. As a result, many people are looking for new avenues to earn money.

Freelancing is gaining in popularity. Individuals are cashing in on hobbies, special skills, and things in which they are a subject matter expert.

If you have knowledge people are in need of, you can profit from it by creating popular online courses. You simply need to come up with online course ideas.

The rising cost of college tuition and the time it takes to get a degree is what is fueling online learning.
The process can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of months to create the courses. Once it’s up and running, you can focus on marketing.

Are you looking for ways to create a new stream of income? Keep reading for the 11 most profitable online course ideas in 2020.

How Do Online Course Ideas Earn You Money?

The most profitable online courses are those that are well-thought-out and meet a need that is in high demand.
You can’t look at it as a get rich quick scheme. People depend on you to deliver high-quality content on the level of a business school.

Once you have your course idea and develop your project, the next steps are to:

  • Set the price.
  • Get your content on a platform (online marketplace, learning management system, or your own business website).
  • Market your online courses.

The courses you choose to offer will guide you down the best path for your individual success.

1. Crafting

Do what you love for a living is a reality many people rarely experience. Imagine being really good at something that brings you great joy and making a living teaching it to others. That’s exactly what many crafters are doing.
Your online course ideas can teach people everything from knitting to how to design 3D wall art.

2. Home Improvement Projects

These bestselling online courses are a hit because everyone loves doing weekend projects. Maybe not everyone, but if you’re a homeowner there will come a time when you may have to replace the gutters or install new flooring.
Online courses can save you thousands on actual projects when you know how to do-it-yourself.

3. Bestselling Author

It seems everyone wants to be an author. Between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are published each year in the United States. Most people that decide to write a book have no clue what they are doing.

The stigma associated with self-publishing is no longer a big deal. How to write a book and get it published are popular online courses.

4. Blogging

Next to writing a book, blogging has become a big moneymaker for many people. Too often people jump into things without fully understanding the ins and outs of what looks simple on the surface.

There are numerous online course ideas someone with extensive blogging expertise can use to build their course offerings.

5. Influencer Marketing

Two huge misconceptions about influencer marketing are that you have to be a well-known celebrity and you need a million followers. Both are untrue.

Influencer marketing is about gaining trust and being able to get people to buy into what someone is selling.
There are special techniques and best practices people need to learn in order to be successful in any marketing endeavor. It is all about selling, and this is a great course to create for someone with a successful sales background.

6. Make-up Artist

The beauty industry is a multi-faceted multi-billion dollar industry. Teaching people how to be a make-up artist is one of the most profitable online course categories. There is so much money to be made.

With the success of the social media platform, Instagram, more people are focusing on their appearance. This has led to new opportunities in make-up artistry.

7. Event Planner

Freelance opportunities are on the rise because people want personalized service. Event planning is a career that can span across socio-economic grids. Regardless of how much money someone earns, when it comes to putting on an event cost goes out the window.

Event planning can be the church picnic or a million-dollar conference. The right online courses can teach people how to get started.

8. Line Dancing

This online course is for a fitness instructor or a dance teacher. People love to line dance at weddings and other social events. It is also a fun way to workout.

If you know the moves to 50 different line dances create a course to not only teach people the routines but also how to open a studio and create a strong following.

9. Vegan Cooking

Vegan cooking is all the rage and if you know how to create popular dishes using cauliflower, you can create various cooking courses. The art of making online courses is to find what’s trending and provide people with step-by-step instructions.

10. Business Start-up

Regardless of what a person’s interest is, anyone, wanting to go into business for themselves needs to learn the basics. This is why a school of business is on every college campus.

For these online courses, you may want to include proctored exams to test the student’s knowledge. Check out this article to learn more about online proctoring services.

11. Trade Professions

HVAC, plumbing, stucco, and many trade professions require testing at the county or state level. For these profitable online courses, you can teach the content for a sub or general contractor to obtain their license.
It is the perfect opportunity for someone with extensive contractor experience.

Are You Ready to Make Some Money?

Coming up with online course ideas is the easy part. Once you have your ideas, you’ll need to create the content and get it in front of your target audience. Perseverance is the key to your success.

Do you have a niche market with proven success? Contact us to learn how you can become a member of our service provider network.

Stay Secure: How to Do an IT Risk Assessment

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |IT Risk Assessment|Stay Secure: How to Do an IT Risk AssessmentThere is no question that IT security is a high priority for businesses and government organizations around the world. It seems like there’s a new major story of a security breach every day.

Universities and even the U.S. Coast Guard were attacked with ransomware. You may think that your business is small so it won’t be targeted. Every organization that has a network connection is at risk of an attack.

The best way to prevent an attack is to perform an IT risk assessment. Read on to learn what a risk assessment is and how you can perform one to improve your security.

What is a Risk Assessment?

Your first question is likely to be “What is a security risk assessment?” It’s an in-depth process where you analyze your entire network and databases to determine where your systems are the most vulnerable.

That allows you to prioritize your risks and take action to secure your systems. This is an important thing to do regularly because it can save your business.

A security attack or data breach can be incredibly costly to your business. You’ll experience downtime and lost productivity. Your business will also lose public trust, which can be very difficult to regain.

Your business may be exposed to class-action lawsuits. Those are very costly and could bankrupt your business.

How to Perform an IT Risk Assessment

You don’t want to wait until your systems experience an attack to strengthen the security of your network. An IT risk assessment is a preventative measure that can help you identify your most vulnerable areas and plug up the holes in your systems, policies, and procedures.

Here are the steps you should take to perform a thorough risk assessment.

Know Your Most Vulnerable Assets

Usually, when hackers attack your systems, they want a couple of things. They want to get your most sensitive data, and they want to make money from it.

Your first step is to identify the areas that are real threats that hackers could attack. For example, databases where you store payment information needs additional security.

Intellectual property, trade secrets, confidential documents with vendors, servers, and contact information all require a high level of security.

You want to ask yourself what types of data you collect, why you collect the data, and where the data is stored.

Review Current IT Policies

Most organizations have an IT policy that governs how internal networks and devices are used by employees.
Employees are often the biggest threat to businesses because they are targets of phishing attacks. They just need to click on the wrong email to bring your systems to a halt.

Another area that needs review is mobile device usage. Many employees are mobile and conduct business at client sites and coffee shops. You need to have a strict policy to protect these devices.

For example, a part of the policy could state that they cannot use a public WiFi connection to connect to your network. Instead, they have to use a VPN at all times.

What Would Happen If…

This step isn’t very fun, but it will help you figure out the worst-case scenario if you were to experience an attack.

Think through different situations, like what would happen if you got hit with a ransomware attack. What would the consequences and the costs be to your organization?

Other situations include data loss and compliance consequences. In some cases, a data breach could violate privacy laws and regulations. That could result in major fines for your organization.

Compliance Audit

As part of your audit, you need to make sure that your organization is in compliance with various privacy and data laws.

This will vary by industry, so you need to be aware of the laws and regulations that apply to you.

Prioritize the Threats

Your next step in the risk assessment is to prioritize the threats according to the cost to your business.
You want to have three levels of danger to your business – high risk, medium, and low risk.

For example, a denial of service attack would be detrimental to your business because it would bring down your servers. This would be a high-level threat.

A natural disaster could be a low-level threat if your building is far from a flood plain or is in an earthqueak-resistant building.

Create an Attack Strategy

You have to develop a plan of attack to shore up the security of your systems. This will help you take care of the most critical threats first and then tackle the low-level threats.

You should have a spreadsheet or document that outlines the threat, when it needs to be complete, and who is responsible. That will keep everyone accountable.

Educate Your Team

The one thing you can do to prevent security attacks is to educate your team. Not just the IT staff, but everyone who interacts with your networks. That could be vendors, customers, or employees.

The more they understand about IT security, the less risk they become to your business. That enables them to be on the lookout for threats and bring them to your attention.

Have a Response Plan

It also helps to have a response plan in place in case the worst does happen. Your response plan is meant to take quick action to minimize the damage.

Be Smart About IT Security

If there’s one major threat to your business, it’s your IT network. Hackers will try to get into your systems and steal data, which can be sold to the highest bidder.

The best way to prevent those attacks is to do an IT risk assessment. That is an in-depth overview of your systems and networks to identify the vulnerabilities and close them before it’s too late.

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