Small Business Toolbox

A library of business management info


Other Benefits
  • Is Profit Sharing Right for Your Business?
    04/30/2008
    If you're looking for a way to give your employees a bigger stake in the company, fund their retirement plans or regulate year-end bonuses, a profit-sharing program might be the solution for you. Giving employees a larger chunk of your company's bottom line might sound risky, but it often gives employees a boost in motivation.
  • Break Room Necessities
    03/19/2008
    A well-stocked and comfortable break room benefits both you and your employees. Employees will see that you take their comfort into consideration and you'll gain a more productive staff if they aren't constantly running out for coffee. Even if your employees aren't big on taking time outs, you should encourage them to get up from their desk every so often. A 10-minute coffee break can do wonders to increase concentration and productivity.
  • Happy Hour Dos and Don'ts
    02/29/2008
    Inviting your employees out to an occasional happy hour can be a great way to boost morale and unwind at the end of the work day, but it's also a situation with some potential pitfalls. Here are some tips on how to do it right.
  • Crafting an Employee Recognition Program That Works
    02/01/2008
    How can you craft effective employee recognition programs? Cindy Ventrice, author of Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2003), offers these tips.
  • Establishing a New-Employee Orientation Program
    01/22/2008
    When you hire new employees in your small business, do you just throw them into their new position? If you do and leave them to their own devices to find supplies and wonder when their first paycheck will come, you might consider establishing a structured new-employee orientation program to set them in the right direction.
  • Thanking Employees When You Can't Afford Bonuses
    12/06/2007
    The end-of-year bonus can be a tricky thing for small-business owners. Let's say last year you had exceptional profits and shared the wealth in the form of cash bonuses. This year perhaps business didn't go as well, and you really can't afford those bonuses. Even if your employees know that you didn't make as much this year, they still may be counting on a similar perk. The unpredictability of profits from year to year is a main reason that many small-business owners avoid holiday bonus altogether. Yet this is still a perfect time of year to show employees that you appreciate their hard work and contributions to your business. Read on for tips about handling this tricky subject and non-monetary ways to thank your employees.
  • Legal Liability: The Uninvited Guest at Company Holiday Parties
    11/27/2007
    The holiday season is a great time to show employees appreciation for all their hard work, and to be honest, they expect this. But as you’re planning this year’s bash, there are some things you need to keep in mind so your company doesn’t end up getting more than expected—like sexual harassment lawsuits, discrimination claims, workplace violence and the legal liability associated with the alcohol-fueled misbehavior on the part of employees.
  • Rewarding Employees for Healthy Behavior
    07/27/2007
    Healthy employees are not only good for company morale, they are also good for the bottom line. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that employers' losses in productivity when employees are sick are four times greater than the costs of medical treatment.
  • For Smaller Firms, a 412(i) Retirement Plan Could be the Answer
    07/13/2007
    Retirement planning is one of the trickiest tasks a small-business owner faces. Your hands are already full ensuring your company thrives. Taking time from that to pick through the various pension possibilities is probably at the bottom of your to-do list.
  • Juggling the Work-Life Balance in a Small Business
    05/29/2007
    Work-life balance has become the new buzzword for companies seeking to create more employee-friendly work environments. Actually, to call it "new" is a bit of a misnomer; employers have been exploring this concept for several years, but lately the interest in establishing work-life policies has been accelerating as more companies jump on the bandwagon.
  • Recreating Company Loyalty
    04/13/2007
    Company loyalty, the once traditional bond between an organization and its employees, is rapidly becoming an obsolete concept. As the employment scene becomes more volatile, with manufacturers shrinking and folding and rapid technological change driving endless change in the business world, company loyalty is a thing of the past to many people in the workforce.
  • Employee Consideration Is Equal to Customer Consideration
    12/28/2006
    In 2004, a University of California at Santa Barbara survey of nearly 900 MBA graduates from 11 universities in North America and Europe determined that more than one-third were willing to sacrifice some financial benefits in order to work for a company whose employers were caring and ethical.
  • Creating a Retirement Plan to Attract and Retain Employees
    12/20/2006
    These days, employees want more than just a good salary. You can bet that even those fresh out of college or an MBA program are savvy enough to know that they can't rely on Social Security for retirement; they are looking for jobs that have perks that go beyond a good paycheck and health coverage.
  • Gift Cards and Gift Certificates: Watch the Fine Print
    12/11/2006
    One of the hottest trends this holiday season is the sale of gift cards and gift certificates. Gift cards are prepaid cards containing a specific amount of future purchasing value, designed to be bought by one consumer (purchaser) and presented as a gift to a second consumer (recipient). Gift certificates are, similarly, prepaid certificates that entitle the owner to a specific amount of purchasing value. Rather than making an agonizing selection, consumers enjoy the convenience of buying an item someone else can use to obtain exactly what he or she wants. Generally, the laws regarding gift cards and gift certificates are essentially the same. However, there are a few things small businesses need to consider before offering these choice items to their holiday shoppers.
  • Take the Grinch Out of Holiday Scheduling
    12/05/2006
    Holiday scheduling--and having to balance the needs of your business with the needs of employees--can be your worst nightmare. Every worker, business owners included, wants time off during the holidays, but for some businesses, it's the busiest time of year. Retail businesses, for example, can stay busy right up until Christmas, accommodating last-minute shoppers looking for last-minute gifts. Most of them reopen their doors the day after Christmas to welcome the post-Christmas bargain hunters. For the owners of these businesses, the holidays are a time when they need their employees every day, and in many cases, are able to offer only Christmas as a holiday. If they're giving extra days off, they probably can't give an extra day to everyone, so how do they decide who gets it?
  • Business Tips on Holiday Gift-Giving
    12/04/2006
    As a business owner, you do a lot of entertaining throughout the year. But when the holidays roll around, this aspect of doing business has much more significance. Not only is celebrating the season with your employees and clients a nice way to share the holiday spirit, the goodwill also can boost worker morale and reinforce business relationships.
  • Benefit Your Employees––and Your Bottom Line––With "Lunch and Learns"
    09/26/2006
    Looking for a way to broaden your employees' knowledge without spending a fortune on seminars? Look no further than your conference room. An increasingly popular way to teach your staff new tricks, "lunch and learn" seminars are a low-cost alternative to pricey seminars and training conferences.
  • Perks Without Pay
    09/20/2006
    Raises aren't the only way to reward employees
  • Point Given
    09/20/2006
    Do you have a lot of airline or hotel points piled up, but don't have time to use them on an exotic getaway? Many preferred travel programs allow you to donate your points to charitable organizations. Though donations aren't tax deductible, giving goes a long way.
  • Measure the Quality of Life in Your Workplace
    09/05/2006
    What's the quality of life like in your workplace? How welcoming, for example, is your place of business to employees, customers and visitors? How affirming is your workplace toward the needs and aspirations of the people you encounter each day? Just how positive is the tenor of your place of business?
  • Nurturing Your New Hire: Thirteen Must-Dos for Employee Success
    08/14/2006
    In some ways your new hire is like a newborn––fascinated by this exciting new world but in need of care and guidance. Nurture your new hire with these 13 must-dos, and the result will be long-standing workplace success.
  • Keeping Your Best Employees: Seven Tips for Retaining Talent
    08/10/2006
    Let's face it: Retaining talent is no easy feat in a workforce that's getting younger, feeling more entitled and switching jobs as fast as their high-speed Internet. Employers are continuously challenged to find new ways to keep their people feeling happy, healthy and—perhaps most importantly—appreciated.
  • Boost Your Business by Minimizing Stress
    08/02/2006
    It's been proven time and time again: A stress-free worker is a happy worker, and a happy worker is a productive worker. So how do you keep stress down without hurting your productivity, all the while keeping everyone happy? It's not an easy balancing act, but here are some tips that may prove useful.
  • Employee Appreciation: It's More Than Just a Paycheck
    07/03/2006
    Sure, you pay your employees twice a month. But beyond that, do they know how much you appreciate them and the work they do for your small business? Here are five ways (other than the all-mighty dollar) where a little bit of gratitude can go a long way with your employees.
  • How to Avoid Buying Fake Insurance for Your Business
    06/29/2006
    Every year thousands of consumers, including many small-business owners, suffer devastating financial losses when they discover that the health-insurance policies they purchased are worthless.
  • Retirement Plans Benefit Both Your Workers and Your Company
    06/26/2006
    Now that your business is booming, it's time to think about retirement. No, we're not talking about your last days running your company, but rather setting up a retirement plan for your business.
  • Quiz: Are You a Corporate Magnet?
    05/30/2006
    Many employees are leaving corporate America in disillusionment, leaving smaller companies with the chance to snag the best and brightest hires. Does your small business stand out to star employees looking to make the leap from Wall Street to Main Street? Take this quiz to see how you stack up to corporate employees looking to make a change.
  • The Lure of Small
    05/25/2006
    Ever feel second best when you're looking to hire a new employee? Compared to small businesses, large corporations have more money, name recognition and benefits to attract the best and brightest employees. But bigger doesn't always mean better.
  • New 401(k) Option
    03/29/2006
    A new kind of 401(k) is making it easier to save for retirement. Available for the first time in 2006, the Roth 401(k) allows participants to invest in these plans with after-tax dollars, which means the tax bill has already been paid on these funds (as opposed to traditional 401(k)s, which are funded with pre-tax dollars).
  • Scheduling Over the Holidays: Who Works, Who Doesn't?
    12/05/2005
    Whether as single days, the holidays themselves, or multiple vacation days, most working people want time off over the holidays. Staff scheduling during the period from the middle of Thanksgiving week to Jan. 2 can be anything from nonissue to nightmare depending on the nature of the business.
  • Santa’s Guide to Gifts for Employees, Customers
    11/29/2005
    While there is no formula for finding the perfect gift for every business associate, here are some guidelines that can make shopping for one less stressful.
  • Alternatives to the Ho-Hum Holiday Party
    11/28/2005
    Q: Instead of throwing our traditional holiday party, I was thinking that we might find a better use for that money this year. But what should we do? Do you have any suggestions?
  • Retirement Savings Advice for Small Businesses
    09/01/2005
    It’s never too early for employees to start saving for retirement. Though American small businesses employ over 40 percent of the private workforce in the United States, many do not have retirement savings programs in place for employees. Small businesses interested in offering their employees retirement savings benefits can learn more about the various options available by using a U.S. Department of Labor Web resource.
  • Is an Employee Assistance Program Right for You?
    04/27/2004
    An employee assistance program (EAP) is a program designed to operate in a work setting to aid employees in coping with personal problems that can negatively affect their job performance.
  • Do You Need a Professional Employer Organization?
    04/15/2004
    If you're trying to decide whether or not to outsource HR responsibilities to a PEO, consider the following.
  • Free Benefits You Can Offer Employees
    04/15/2004
    Large companies may have the finances to offer attractive employee benefits, including: retirement benefits, full-coverage health insurance, paid holidays and vacations, bonuses, and even paid funeral leave or jury duty.
  • Pros and Cons of Establishing a Profit Sharing Plan
    09/25/2002
    A profit sharing plan (PSP) encourages employees to become more involved in the company and take greater responsibility for increasing profitability, both short and long term.
  • A 401(K) for the Independent Business Owner
    08/27/2002
    Consultants, independent contractors and owner-only businesses can now have their own 401(k), enabling greater savings than SEPs and Keoghs, regardless of whether the business is incorporated or unincorporated.
  • Added Benefits: How a 529 College Savings Plan Can Attract Employees
    07/17/2002
    If you want to attract and keep talented employees without spending a lot of money, offering savings plans might be a good solution. One of the most recent ones to emerge is a 529 College Savings Program.
  • Help Out Your Sales Staff During Tough Economic Times
    04/02/2002
    The days are over when your sales staff could function successfully without the support of other departments. Here are ways to help your salespeople and your business-profit.
  • Employee Advancement Models
    03/28/2002
    Advancement at some organizations is based solely on seniority: the U.S. army, the Post Office, and a surprising number of Fortune 500 companies.