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Do You Need A Control Account For Your Business?

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If you have been exploring the world of business accounting services, you have come across control accounts and learned about the benefits that they offer. This can leave you wondering: is it worth having control accounts for small businesses? The answer differs for each business but, in general, you can benefit from asking your accountant to create control accounts in your general ledger.

What Is a Control Account?

Control accounts contain summary-level information in a general ledger. They are used to display the aggregated totals of the transactions that are listed in subsidiary accounts, which contain an extensive list of daily, monthly, or quarterly transactions. Control accounts are often utilized to summarize accounts payable and accounts receivable, although they can also be used for other types of accounts. It is important to note that the ending balance in control accounts should match the respective subsidiary ledger to ensure that your records are in good standing and that all your transactions for the day have been properly recorded. Learn more by checking out www.cbs-cbs.com.

The Benefits That Control Accounts Can Bring

The primary purpose of having control accounts is to ensure that your general ledger is not too cluttered with minute details. By creating control accounts, you can keep your general ledger clean, tidy, and easy to scan while ensuring that it contains accurate balances and can provide correct information for your business’s financial statements.

However, aside from keeping your general ledger neat and clutter-free, control accounts can also provide you with a way to check the accuracy of your subsidiary accounts. Since you will have to check that your control accounts’ ending balances accurately reflect those in the subsidiary accounts, you can easily detect if any transactions were not recorded. This, in turn, will help you make sure that your accounts are always in good order and prevent costly mistakes along the way.

 

Another benefit of having control accounts is that it can help you save time. If you are confident that your control account balances, you can use them to produce management accounts reports without having to go through each subsidiary account and wait for individual balances to be reconciled. If you are looking for ways to have general management and financial reports without any fuss, consider asking for control accounts when signing up for professional accounting services.

A lot of companies even use control accounts to prevent fraud. Since these accounts must be balanced with subsidiary accounts, they provide an additional barrier that fraudsters will have to overcome before they can successfully conduct their plans.

Should Small Businesses Have Control Accounts?

Many tax and accounting services providers recommend control accounts for large companies, which often have hundreds of daily transactions that will instantly clutter up the general ledger when recorded on it. Smaller organizations, on the other hand, have fewer transactions and will not need to create subsidiary accounts that are linked to control accounts.

However, just because your business is on the smaller side does not mean that you cannot benefit from having control accounts! If your business has started to boom and you find yourself dealing with more transactions per day than usual, consider asking your accountant to create control accounts and subsidiary accounts so you can easily track these transactions. This will also make it easier for you to grow your business into a mid-size or even large company since your general ledger is already ready to manage numerous transactions and you are used to balancing control accounts and their subsidiaries.

How To Get the Most Out of Your Business Tax Returns

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Here is a trick that not a lot of business owners know about. Tax returns. As a business owner, it is well known that you must play distinct roles to keep your profits coming in. However, it is impossible to be a free-kicker and a goalie at the same time. You must complete different tasks, on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. But some of these tasks must be completed for you, usually by a third-party provider who knows what is best for your business. An expert strategic tax planning company can help you out. Here’s how it goes and why you should work with a third-party provider like Corporate Business Solutions Inc. to get the most out of your business tax returns.

Tax Expertise

The most crucial factor why you should be working with a third-party provider is their expertise. There are tax professionals out there that simply know the ins and outs and all the loops of business tax returns. They can easily represent you to the IRS concerning taxes, as they stay updated with all the new state and federal tax laws and policy changes. The policies change every year, and as busy as a business owner is, it is time-consuming to keep updated.

When you work with a well-versed strategic tax planning provider you always stay on top of your game, as you are also making sure you come clean through every audit, and you do not miss any tax opportunities. An expert will help you get the most out of your business tax returns while also assuring that you do not pay more than you should be paying.

Business Credits and Deductions

Your local CPA is focused on tax preparation and by nature is looking at past transactions to keep you right with the IRS.  However, there are often opportunities for tax savings by working with a firm that utilizes attorneys who specialize in tax matters who bring an entirely different level of expertise than the CPA who prepares your returns.  These specialized attorneys can prepare a strategic tax plan that can take advantage of certain tax credits and deductions for future returns by making changes to the operation of the business.  Sometimes this may involve creating multiple entities that can provide both asset protection and tax savings that result from the re-organization. Business owners may also find tax savings in changing the way they compensate themselves from a simple paycheck.  Tax attorneys can provide a level of expertise that is now available to small business owners which heretofore were only available to large corporations.

Donations

Donations to any charitable organization that qualify under the law are usually deductible. So, consider developing a list of charitable organizations the business would like to support to contribute to the social good of the community. Receipts are mandatory for all the donations that you make for cash or goods, as evidence of the value of the cost of the materials that you have donated.

Tax Returns

Keeping track is a must if you are to get the most out of your business tax returns.

Every business owner should consider getting a strategic tax plan done by a firm that specializes in tax planning for small and medium-size businesses by tax attorneys.  The IRS is not going to tell you what credits and deductions you may be missing!

Is Income Protection Worth having if you are Self-Employed?

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For the self-employed in the US, you are the business. Every day you feel unwell and can’t go to work is a day when no income is generated.

Of course, that isn’t true for every self-employed individual. You may have staff who can continue working and generating income without you, so a day or two absences won’t matter too much.

But what if your illness or injury is more significant, and the period you will be unable to work could be several weeks or even months!

It won’t happen to me

Maybe you’ve always maintained good health so a scenario like that will never happen to you?

Maybe.

And maybe not. Up to a third of US, workers have a period during their working life when they are unable to work for three months or more.

How would three months of no income affect you and your family?

This takes us back to the question of whether Income Protection is worth having if you are self-employed.

What is Income Protection Insurance?

If you suffer from any illness or injury that stops you from working, you will receive a monthly payment until you are able to return to work.

There will be a stand-down period before you can claim, e.g., 4 weeks. A waiting period of 13 weeks may halve the cost of the insurance, but if you are off work for 12 weeks only, you would receive nothing.

On the other hand, most policies will keep paying right through to age 65. Although you can choose shorter payment periods, as little as two years. Again, that could almost halve the cost). Some policies may even pay for longer periods, beyond 65, recognizing that many intend to work longer these days.

Another key benefit of Income Protection insurance is around when payments stop.

If you are considered well enough to return to work, payments will cease.

However, most policies have an ‘own occupation’ definition.

Let’s assume you are a builder and spend 80% of your time doing physical building work, and 20% of your time doing paperwork or marketing duties.

If you suffer a back injury that permanently prevents you from ever doing physical work again, then even though you could return to work and do 100% just paperwork, the insurance company can’t make you. You can continue to receive your monthly payments until age 65 or whatever your payment period is.

You can choose to return to work part-time or even full-time and just do administration work, but that is your choice. If you earn the same amount as your monthly benefit or more, your payments will stop. But if you earned less, perhaps because you aren’t working full hours, the insurance may still pay you a pro-rata payment to top up your earnings.

How much will I get paid?

The amount you are paid may also be increased each year to keep pace with inflation.

The amount you can typically cover varies between a maximum of 50% to 75% of your income.

If self-employed, you may need to be able to show your three most recent years of income and ensure a percentage of the average income across those years.

If you take advantage of various tax deductions to reduce your taxable income, this does not help you with Income Protection, as you can only insure your taxable income.

Like all insurance, Income Protection is worth it if you become eligible to claim. You need to understand your policy and find the right balance between cost, what you would get paid at claim time, and for how long.

If you can ensure a suitable income, and you do suffer some illness or injury that has you off work long-term, then Income Protection guarantees ongoing income that could keep your business going until you can return to work. Alternatively, it enables you to close down the business, but still, receive a suitable ongoing income to pay your everyday ongoing family living expenses.

Corporate Business Solutions provides business analytical, consulting services and strategic tax planning to the owners of small and medium-size business throughout the United States.

What you Need to Know About Starting a Business Partnership

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Going into a business partnership is like going into a marriage but without any of the “fringe benefits’’.

You could argue that you should know more about your future business partner than you need to know about your future spouse!

Before the partnership begins

You need to know if your partner has any skeletons in their background, as well as why they want to get into this business with you, and what their vision is for it.

You will almost certainly vet any employees you hire, so vetting your business partner is even more crucial.

If there are issues, make sure you are fully aware of them and discuss each one fully. If you and your partner cannot get on the same page over each of the issues, walk away.

Make sure you both understand all the paperwork you are signing and use different lawyers.

If any business partner is married, or they get married, ensure their spouse also signs all partnership and operating agreements. This is to protect both partners and the business in the event of a divorce.

The partnership agreement

Make sure all parties clearly understand who is responsible for what, and what each can and cannot do on behalf of the business. These duties and responsibilities need to be written down and agreed to.

Make sure that all contributions of capital are noted and updated, who receives the profits, distributions, compensation, and losses from the business, and under what circumstances might a vote on some issue occur.

Exit strategies and buy-sell agreements are prepared and fully understood. Don’t forget to utilize the various insurances developed to protect small to medium-sized businesses.

Be aware of what situations might trigger expulsion from the business, and if a partner does leave, will a non-competing provision be put in place, and how will that work.

Successful partnerships

Businesses that do operate successfully are usually set up as limited liability companies as this provides many protections for all parties concerned with the business.

Other common features of successful partnerships include accurate recording of all communications and retention of all documentation. It sounds boring, but it can be a real business saver when things might seem to be turning sour.

Ensure all tax information and bookkeeping duties are handled professionally and legally. Don’t ignore this. Too many businesses have run into problems because of a trusted employees taking 100% responsibility for all the money transactions and secretly pocketing a small fortune for themselves.

This leads to the most important factor in achieving a successful business partnership.

Do not think that the business will ever get to a point where it practically runs itself. Once you take your eye off the ball of running the business something unexpected will almost certainly crop up and you will be unprepared for it.

Checks and balances must be maintained, each partner must keep an eye on the other partners to ensure they are still pulling their weight and taking their business responsibilities seriously.

For professional advice to make sure your business will always stay on the right track, you can always talk to Corporate Business Solutions Inc. for assistance.

 

Employee Incentives: Professional Development

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Employee incentive programs are highly effective methods of boosting employee morale and driving engagement. This leads to higher rates of retention and increases in productivity.

Worldwide, this is a $100 billion industry, with $46 billion being non-cash incentives.

The value of employee incentive programs

These programs work because they leverage human behavior. Employees who get rewarded regularly are more motivated to complete associated tasks. Organizations using employee incentive programs have a 79% success rate in achieving their established goals because of offering rewards to their employees.

Your organization needs to embed employee incentive programs into your everyday culture and move away from simply recognizing workers for years of service.

Incentive programs have been shown to increase employee performance by as much as 44% and can motivate up to 66%of employees to remain with their company. In professional careers, those employees satisfied with their benefits are more than twice as likely to also be satisfied with their work.

Professional Development

One of the top incentives employees in knowledge careers seek is the opportunity for continuing professional development. Those organizations that do not invest in this, are not seen to be valuing their employees.

Career professionals who are not continuing to learn and stay up to date in their profession will stagnate and become less employable in their career field. Employers who want to grow, and retain top talent, will help their employees with the opportunity to gain experience and progress.

There are many ways you can run a Professional Development Incentive.

Training Budget

Some organizations assign a specific amount each year for each employee to use towards the costs of undertaking some form of professional development that they source themselves. This could be attending a professional conference or completing specific training courses, etc.

However, too often most employees fail to take advantage of this

Because it is budgeted for, don’t make it difficult to be approved, though it should add value to the employee’s knowledge within their career, or the organization. To ensure the budget is used by most employees, including a professional development plan in their annual performance review.

Financial Support for Earning Certificates

An alternative to the training budget, or to run alongside it, is where the employee is financially rewarded for completing courses that are relevant to their career or the organization’s goals.

Again, if you have included this in your budget, it is money you expect to spend each year and each employee only gets rewarded up to their budgeted amount.

Make it easy for your employees by giving them access to training platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera, etc.

Targeted Internal Training

Supply courses you develop yourself on subjects relevant to your organization and all employees. Utilize the skills and knowledge of existing employees to run these courses

These could be on subjects like:

  • Health and safety in the workplace
  • Health and well-being
  • How to develop a professional development plan
  • Learn the basics of a language the organization regularly encounters
  • How to remain motivated at work
  • How our employee incentive program works

Professional Development is not only for those employees in ‘professional’ careers. Some of your best employees in the future may start as employees with few skills and education. However, they might be some of your most promising workers, and with the right guidance and opportunities to gain experience, they could move into leadership roles.

Corporate Business Solutions can help you with advice about how to develop a professional development plan that is a good fit for your organization.

Employee Incentives: Health Insurance

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The current and continuing increases in medical costs can be a major issue for many Americans, especially when they require medical treatment.

Group health insurance plans are offered by an employer of a member organization. Members of the plan usually receive coverage at a lower cost because the risk to the insurer is spread across multiple members.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), businesses with 50 or more full-time employees must provide health insurance to full-time employees and dependents under the age of 26 or pay a fee.

Employers with fewer employees might also choose to have a plan as part of an Employee Incentive Scheme.

Approximately 50% of Americans with health insurance coverage gained this through group plans provided by their employer. However, many of them have little idea how their plan works.

Group health insurance provides many benefits, but when your insurance plan is tied directly to your employment, you will usually lose this cover if you change jobs. In 2017, 22% of uninsured Americans reported losing their health insurance due to job loss or change in employment status.

The 2002 movie John Q, starring Denzel Washington, is an example of one of the traps of employer-provided health insurance. In the movie, due to a downturn in business, his employer changed health providers to save money, and when John’s hours were reduced temporarily, he became classified as a part-time employee.

This resulted in him and his family no longer having full cover. When his son suffered a significant medical event requiring ongoing treatment. The plan in place when he began employment would have covered everything, but the new cheaper plan and his temporary part-time employment status meant only some of the initial medical costs were covered, and none of the major costs would follow.

Benefits of Group Health Insurance

Many employers provide supplemental health plans, which include dental coverage, vision, and pharmacy coverage, either separately or as a bundle.

The main benefit is lower premiums. A 2018 study found the average premium cost per individual in a group health insurance plan was $41/month cheaper than an individual plan. The same study discovered small group health plans had an average deductible of more than $1,300 less than individual plans.

Family members and dependents can be added to group plans at an additional cost to members. These assists families with sole providers, or where other family members don’t have group health insurance with their employer.

Group health insurance plans provide numerous tax benefits to both the employer and employee. Employers’ costs are tax-deductible, and employees’ premiums are made before tax, reducing their total taxable income.

Smaller businesses may also qualify for the small business health care tax credit.

Who can get Group Health Insurance?

To be eligible for an employer’s group health insurance, an employee must be on payroll and the employer must pay payroll taxes. Independent contractors, retirees, and seasonal or temporary employees are not eligible. If you take unpaid leave, you may be ineligible for group coverage until you return to work.

Make sure you know what cover you are entitled to if you work less than full-time hours, even if only for a temporary period.

Coverage must also be offered to an employee’s spouse and dependent children until age 26, though some employers may increase the age, provided children are still dependents. Unmarried partners of the same or opposite sex, may also be eligible for the same cover as their spouses.

Without a doubt, job seekers favor employers with a group health insurance plan, but it is important to fully understand what the plan covers and any changes.

Check out http://www.cbs-cbs.com as a starting point for advice on how a group health insurance plan could be a great fit for your business as part of an employee incentive scheme.

Is Your Business Maximizing the Power of Mobile Devices?

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A 2020 study found that on average, workers waste 8 hours/week on non-work activities, mostly on their mobile devices.

Now calculate the average hourly pay of your business, multiply that by eight, then multiply that answer by fifty-two and you get the money your business is paying each staff member each year to do nothing on company time.

Now multiply that number by the number of employees – and don’t forget to include yourself – and you get the dollar figure your business is wasting each year on unproductive time. Most of it is wasted checking personal emails and social media on mobile phones.

So, what should you do? Ban phones in the workplace, and fire people caught receiving personal calls?

You might have to fire yourself!

And does that calculation tell the whole story about mobile phone use in the workplace?

Of course, there are workplaces where a “no mobile phone” policy makes complete sense. For example, factories and worksites where workers may be around dangerous equipment or need to all be working at a fast pace all the time. Or medical operating theatres where the environment must be distraction-free as well as spotlessly clean.

But for some businesses, banning mobile devices may be causing fewer problems and lost productivity than you think. Making mobile devices MORE available in the workplace could improve productivity.

Make sure you are sitting down because the facts you are about to read may just blow your mind!

  • There are over 27.1 billion devices connected to the Internet – more than three devices for each person on the planet. [Cisco, 2021]
  • 22 billion people (66.6% of the global population) use a mobile device. [Datareportal, 2021]
  • 97% of Americans own a cellphone, with 85% owning smartphones and 53% own tablets. [Pew Center for Research, 2021]
  • More people use mobile to access the internet than a desktop. [Comscore, 2018]
  • 15% of American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – they do not have home broadband. [Pew Center for Research, 2021]

What do those facts tell you? Mobile devices are here to stay, and their use is only increasing.

What about mobile devices at work?

Today’s employees rely heavily on mobile devices at work. Here is how employees are currently using their mobile devices in the workplace.

  • The average mobile worker works 240 hours a year longer than the general population. [iPass, 2017]
  • 84% of mobile workers have checked their smartphone in bed, while 72% admit to having checked their smartphone on the toilet. [iPass, 2017]
  • More than half of mobile workers say that a lack of Wi-Fi when working remotely would negatively impact their ability to do their job. [iPass, 2017]

Mobile productivity statistics

How are mobile devices affecting productivity in the workplace? This is what happens when employers give their workers mobile phones.

  • 75% of workers say their smartphones make them more productive. [Google, 2017]
  • 97% of the users say productivity apps are the most dominant kind of apps on their smartphones. [GoodFirms, 2019]
  • 82% of IT executives said smartphones are incredibly important to employee productivity. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]
  • 64% of leaders say technology investments have led to gains in productivity. [Celerity, 2020]
  • 53% of executives said apps improve business processes and increase productivity. [Apperian, 2016]

BYOD & mobile app statistics

Given the potential of mobile devices to increase productivity, businesses are asking employees to use their own devices at work and providing them with business apps.

  • Only 26% of U.S. companies provide employees with mobile phones — the lowest number for any country. [Steelcase, 2016]
  • 87% of companies expect their employees to use their devices for work purposes. [Syntonic, 2016]
  • 72% of companies have a bring your device (BYOD) policy. [Tenable, 2016]
  • 80% of IT executives said employees cannot do their jobs effectively without a mobile phone, and 75% said mobile devices are essential to workflows. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]
  • Businesses with BYOD policies pay employees a stipend of $30 to $50/month to use their mobile phones. [Samsung/Oxford Economics, 2018]

Mobile security statistics

With more employees accessing business data from personal mobile devices, security is becoming a major concern.

Without appropriate security software installed, personal mobile devices could easily expose businesses to threats from hackers and noncompliance with security mandates.

  • 67% of respondents reported that remote workers’ use of personal mobile devices negatively impacted their organization’s security. [Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security, 2020]
  • 55% of respondents say smartphones are their biggest security headache. [Ponemon Institute/Keeper Security, 2020]
  • Fifty-seven percent of technology executives worry about the security of non-managed devices. [Apperian, 2017]

If you need help maximizing productivity through the use of mobile devices suitable for your business, check out Corporate Business Solutions at http://www.cbs-cbs.com.

Monitoring Your Staff

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An essential task of running a business and ‘being the boss’ is the monitoring of your staff and how to go about it without making it obvious you are checking upon them.

If done the wrong way, you can engender fear in your staff as they could feel you don’t trust their abilities or work commitment.

If done the right way, employees will not be aware that they are being monitored and will accept monitoring tasks as simple methods of safeguarding staff, protecting resources, or improving productivity.

Employers monitor their employees in several ways; dedicated software is increasingly being used, but more traditional methods are checks of emails and voice messages, recording telephone calls, and the use of CCTV.

Who do you Need to Monitor Your Staff?

Some of the reasons for monitoring staff include:

Cybersecurity

Most IT security breaches happen through employee negligence. By monitoring and restricting employees’ online activity, a business can protect its systems and information from outside attacks.

Data protection

Globally, there has been an increase in hackers gaining access to the personal information of clients and blackmailing the business, requesting money or the information will be released across the internet. Tracking employees’ actions can help ensure that employers become aware of any data breaches as soon as possible and that relevant rules are complied with.

Leaks of confidential information

Monitoring may not prevent a leak, but it can help spot one and gives the business a fighting chance of damage limitation.

Internal rules

Monitoring can help employers ensure that many policies and internal procedures are followed correctly, and any misconduct is detected immediately.

Remote working

With the increase of remote workers, employers need to make sure they are not being taken advantage of. By tracking communications and login details they can confirm that employees are performing their job appropriately.

Boosting productivity

Some data generated from monitoring can be analyzed to help devise strategies that could increase production.

Many of these issues may seem to apply only to large businesses with hundreds of staff and thousands of clients.

However, in an SME with lower staff numbers, the key knowledge within the business is retained by a very small number of the staff. This places even greater emphasis on ensuring that knowledge is not shared where it shouldn’t be, whether accidentally or on purpose.

In a small or medium-sized business, it becomes even more important that staff is aware of the monitoring and the reasons behind it. So, make sure your business has the following:

  • Have policies in place that clearly explain the extent of the monitoring being undertaken, with an explanation of why it is needed
  • Regular check the policies are up to date and have been brought to the employee’s attention
  • Regularly review alternative, less intrusive options for monitoring as part of a risk assessment
  • Develop processes to ensure that the information collected is kept securely, is seen by as few people as necessary, and gets deleted when no longer needed
  • Do not jump to conclusions when the monitoring reveals potential misconduct. Sometimes all that is needed is a reminder of policies or some retraining.

Take care when monitoring employees, infringing their rights could result in claims, fines, and reputational damage that has a lasting effect on the business. Corporate Business Solutions Inc. can help you understand your rights and those of your employees.

What are Your Employees Posting on Their Social Media?

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Have you ever looked at the social media accounts of your employees or those who are applying for a job role with you?

NO doubt you have heard stories from time to time of people posting stories and images on their social media accounts that have affected their jobs.

A couple of stories that quickly come to mind for me include a young lady who worked in an extremely strict religious school and posted photos of herself slightly worse for wear at a party on a cruise ship holiday. On her return to work after the cruise, she was fired.

Another example was a graduate student applying for a job with an adventure tourism company. They checked out his Facebook page and saw a photo of him canoeing down an overflowing city stream during a heavy rainfall without a life jacket or helmet. Personal safety of clients is a No. 1 priority in any adventure tourism business. He did not get the job.

Have a Social Media Policy

Now imagine one of your employees has publicly posted something that would harm your business in some way if enough people realized that person worked for you.

How do you react? How would you learn about it in the first place?

To limit the possibility of anything like this happening, it would be extremely wise to have a social media policy. This can make your staff aware of what they should not be expressed on social media where most of the world can potentially see what was posted.

Here are some topics that you need to make your employees aware of to reduce the risk of this information becoming widespread across the internet to negatively affect your business.

Violating Company Policy

Sharing warnings or personal company information – do not post about staffing decisions, new products, or any private or proprietary information if your company has not shared the information online.

Supplying references/endorsements on LinkedIn – if your policy does not supply references for leaving staff, will you allow your staff to make references on social media for former colleagues?

Negative comments about the job or clients – even with privacy settings in place, anybody can repost these sorts of comments on their account or take a photo or screenshot and repost.

Deceptive posts – taking a sick day from work and posting photos of you at the beach or a sporting event, etc.

Off-color, racist, sexist, or inappropriate comments – this is especially bad if they refer to a co-worker or client, but even if the target is unrelated to the workplace an employer does not want to be associated with someone making these kinds of comments publicly.

Have a Policy on Computer Use

Job Searching or Doing Other Work while at Work – scanning job search sites, preparing your resume and cover letter, or doing work on your side gig on the employer’s time is non-productive from your employer’s perspective and unethical behavior.

Misuse of email – use of the work email for personal communications is rarely appropriate. I know of a young married Director of a stockbroking firm who used his business email address for accessing dating sites and arranging meetings for “coffee” during the workday. He even emailed one of his personal “contacts” several times a day and in their online conversations, he would regularly criticize the other company Directors.

This was a prominent business in a small city, so it would not be difficult for many of his “contacts” to work out who he and his company were and post something embarrassing and damaging to the business. He was the son of one of the business founders and when his emails were discovered, his promising and privileged career ended abruptly.

Any employer is well within their rights to limit or restrict access to various corners of the internet, including social media sites, dating sites, pornography, and personal communications.

Provide Guidelines for Smart Social Media Use

Rather than restricting your social media policy to telling your staff what they can’t do, also provide guidelines so they can see how to use social media without accidentally doing something wrong.

Post smart – before posting, take a moment to think if your content could affect your employer in any way

Keep it confidential – don’t disclose any news about your employer – good or bad – unless you have asked first. Sometimes your employer will want their staff to spread the good news, but not always.

Be intelligent – if you are job searching, use your account and details for all communications

Think Before You Post

This is the best and simplest advice you can give your employees.

Once something is posted online it’s hard, if not impossible, to take it back. Even a deleted Twitter or Facebook post can be preserved through screenshots.

If there is any doubt about what you can, or can’t say, keep it to yourself. Ask yourself whether you need to say that and what you’ll gain from it. The answer is probably not enough to take a chance of losing your job.

Corporate Business Solutions can provide you with advice around preparing appropriate documentation to cover these situations and have many satisfied clients.

College Graduates Must Find the Business and Role that is their Best Match

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Every year a new group of graduates enters the job search market armed with resumes of varying quality and a brand-new shiny certificate saying they have an appropriate qualification to work in your business. Filled with excitement and anticipation of their first ‘real’ job, graduates are tempted to take any job in their career field with any company.

But have they thought about the work environment that best suits their working style? To get the best value out of any new graduate employee, you need to make sure they are aware of how your business and the role being offered are a good match for them. A graduate might see your advertised job as their dream job, based solely on the job title. But if you are a small business, a start-up, or a long-established company with hundreds of staff, their experience will potentially be vastly different.

You need to understand what aspect of their career field they want to specialize in, and what are their long-term career goals. A start-up company might be exciting and mostly employ people in their age group. That could have some advantages for their social life. But will that environment provide the experience to help them grow within their career field and gain greater experience to enable them to get where they want to get in their career?

Can the new graduate be assured the business will still be thriving a year from now? Starting a business during the current pandemic, or any time when the economy is struggling is always going to be challenging.

In a business with many staff, what sort of professional development and mentoring is provided? Will the new graduate feel just like a number, left with little support to grow? Perhaps most staff are much older, and they might struggle to develop workplace relationships. Other factors a graduate need to consider when seeking their first job after graduation include:

  • Where do they want to live?

A business in a bigger city might mean higher living costs. It might mean moving away from family, friends, and partners.

  • What type of industry do they want to work in?

They might want to work in sales, but do they want to sell items like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, etc.? Or does the business have a bad reputation for some reason? Do they want to work for a company that has structured training programs, or would they prefer to learn on the job from more experienced colleagues?

  • Work-life balance.

Are they happy working long hours and weekends, or do they value being able to get to that evening exercise class? Are they working in one location all the time, or do you often have to travel around the country spending many nights away from home? Or will they work from home? How would that affect their personal life?

Are they after the highest pay rate possible to live a luxurious lifestyle or pay off that student debt as quickly as possible? Or are you comfortable making less money knowing they will be doing meaningful work?

If you can uncover the answers to these questions, you will increase the likelihood of finding a new graduate who will stay with your business for the long term.

Viewing the Corporate Business Solutions Reviews you will find help with recruiting new graduates.