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Bright Office, Bright Future

How many films have shown the discontent office worker? He steps out of an elevator into a large room with copy and pasted rows of cubicles. He sits down in his own little dull tan or off white cubicle and clicks away at a keyboard. This is the repetitive recipe that makes up his weekdays. Everyday sitting in the same little dull colored cubicle listening to the crunching of keyboards. Just reading about his day kind of puts you in a worse mood doesn’t it? Take a look around, is your office the same way? A dull office or work environment can slowly drain productivity and the general lively feeling out of a person. Let’s face facts, no one wants to be that character in Cubicle 1-A.

How can you break free from the boring office environment and awkward small talk at the coffee maker while still being productive? The answer may be even simpler then you think. Some small changes can go a long way. If you are really looking to turn the office around, you can go as far as a new paint color or lay-out. Below are just a few ideas for bringing life to your both your office and your employees.

Encouraging Words: Employees know they are doing their job right when they get that paycheck every week or every other week. With a moment of your time you can make sure they know they are doing a great job. Post positive results as memos, such as how much profit your company made, or how many customers were served. When a mistake is made, don’t just correct the employee, compliment them at the same time. Find something they did well and blend it into the statement as you correct them. This shows them you notice more than just mistakes. It can demoralize an employee if you appear to focus solely on what they are doing wrong instead of what they are doing right as well.

Colors: Visually appealing offices can boost morale more then one may think. Dull colors can create a dull atmosphere. It is hard to feel energetic when you are sitting in an off white room. Light colors on the other hand can make a room feel larger. A baby blue is often considered an inspiring and spacious color. It has a calming effect and gives a room the illusion of being bigger than it really is. Light yellow can typically be better for concentration. Avoid bright or loud versions of colors, as they can be hard to take in and have a negative effect on people.

On top of a pleasant color scheme art work also encourages creativity. Incorporate art into your decor that blends into the colors of the room. Something that can be easily seen but not stand out. It breaks up the walls a little and gives a room more life. Plants are another great thing to add. They make any room feel less hostile and enclosed. It can also be beneficial to incorporate the local culture into the work environment. People in Ormond Beach Fl for example live beside the ocean, so an ocean themed office decor can help them feel less trapped and more relaxed.

Music: The crunching of keyboards, loud clicking of staplers, and the busy sounds of an printer can quickly get repetitive. The silence between them can be soothing for a bit yet even that becomes bothersome after a few minutes. We live in a technology driven society. People are use to constant movement and sound. This is one reason why music in the workplace can be useful. Music also has different effects on people. Various types of music can boost creativity, productivity, confidence, even emotions. Our entire state of mind can be altered by the music we listen to. Allowing an employee to listen to their own music via headsets or having a mutually agreeable radio station playing as you work can help boost morale and productivity.

Be Open to Ideas: An employee likes to feel important. Truthfully people in general like to feel appreciated by the people around them. Let your employees offer ideas on how to improve the office and boost morale. Try to implement them in some way. By doing this, you improve morale, productivity, and it makes the employee in question really feel like they are a part of the company, not just an expendable asset.

Allow Personal Touches: An office has to look professional, even when decorating it to boost creativity and morale. A desk must be clean and tidy, regardless if they work in a position where they face to face with clients or not. It makes the entire workplace feel larger and more organized. However it is good to leave room for an employee to add some small items to their work area. A family photo, a small plant, or even a trinket or book can make their desk feel more personal and in turn make them feel more comfortable sitting at it.

Lead by Example: Employees will look at you as an example on how to be at work. Be friendly, have conversations with your employees. Find common ground with them such as sports, cars, celebrities, music, etc. If they feel that they can be open and neighborly with their manager or boss, they can feel more open to converse with each other. Be the beginning link in a strong community chain within your own office.

Morale is important, and building strong morale all begins with the right mindset. Help place employees in a good state of mind by giving them a charming working environment. Clear up time for them and make things easier on yourself by letting Vision H.R. handle your payroll and human resource departments so you can enjoy those afternoon chats with employees in the break room.

Ormond Beach Management Training

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

Taking Weight off your Shoulders

Is your payroll growing faster than you ever expected? Maybe you are a first time business owner and didn’t know what to expect. It is even possible you never thought this idea of yours would take off in such a way. Regardless of how you got here, what matters is where you are going to be next. How do you deal with an expanding company? The first stage, as in any important process, is a good amount of research. This doesn’t simply mean look up information, you need to have direction when you do research, so ask these questions before you start looking for information.

What Can be Cut Loose: The company is going to look to you to lead it. Even if you have managers between you and employees, you are the face that they see as in control. You have to be able to handle them with a mix of authority and charisma. This is difficult to do when your attention is spread too thin. It causes stress, which can affect you visually and affect how well you do your job. So start finding responsibilities that you can cut loose from your burden. Examples of this are items such as payroll and management training. Important areas that can be taken off your heavy shoulders and placed on another with less on their plate. Maybe even an outsource companies shoulders.

What About Outsourcing?: You are most likely familiar with the idea of hiring managers to handle departments or responsibilities, but what about hiring companies to do the same. What does it even mean to outsource work? When you outsource work, you are paying another company to take over a responsibility associated with your own company. For example, hiring an outsource company to handle payroll means they handle everything to do with your payroll. All you have to do is make the revenue for the payroll. This doesn’t mean you are completely leaving payroll to another company. You will still be able to monitor payroll and work with them to make changes. It does mean that you get to have a little more breathing room in your company.

What Can be Simplified: Many times, we all share a common bad habit. We complicate things more then we have to. In the modern business office things can be simplified. A row of filing cabinets, the phone on the desk, the pile of clock-out papers, and the dry erase calendar that has been marked out and rewritten a few times too many can all be put into a single smartphone or online program. You will find pages upon pages of different programs and websites for organizing and saving information. Look at ways to bring your old office into the modern age.

What Loose Ends can be Snipped?: Trends and fads come and go. Sometimes when they lose popularity they become a hassle more than a profit. It is good to see what is making money and what is dragging behind you. Flip phones use to be the biggest trend in the mobile phone world, now they are outdated. Continuing to sell them as a major product would prove highly illogical for a company when smartphones dominate the market. Look at your own company and see if your products or services are keeping up with themselves. If not it may be time to let them go.

What are Other Companies Doing?: Every company is a unique entity in the world. It operates it’s own way, yet many of them will share common trends among them to achieve success. For example, many business owners may have a certain book they have read, or follow some tips from a certain business man. They may embrace common office practices that create a more productive office with better morale among employees. Some do personal rituals to boost their own productivity, such as take short breaks or adhere to some form of diet.

These questions will offer a good foundation to build your research on. Take notes and put together a plan for your company’s future. Don’t let the stress ruin your life or slow down your company. Look at all the possibilities that are open to you and make the most out of it. Most of all don’t be afraid to ask questions. Companies such as Vision H.R. that outsource payroll, human resource management, timekeeping, and more will gladly answer questions you may have refering to outsourcing and what plans would best suit your company.

Ormond Beach Payroll Services

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

Outsource Departments, Not Control

To run a successful business, one key feature is to stay in control of it. It doesn’t matter if you own a small town candy store or the Willy Wonka chocolate factory, you have to be on top of things. Focus too much on one aspect of business, and another can suffer and lose productivity, profit, or both. This is why several large companies work through levels and branches of management. Instead of directly overseeing a department, someone else oversees it and reports to the one above them on its status. In smaller businesses this system can still be observed on a more confined scale. Employees take care of departments and responsibilities instead of an entire department of managers and employees.

So if control is so important in a company, then why outsource control of payroll departments to an outside company? Because outsourcing your payroll department is not outsourcing control, but rather outsourcing responsibility to another company. Just as hiring an in house representative for your payroll, you are still in control of what happens in the department. Another company is simply performing the tasks and duties associated with the payroll.

When it comes to maintaining a company and changes made within it, companies such as Vision H.R. will work with you to find the best solution to your needs. They will explain their approach to performing payroll duties for your company so you can feel comfortable when they begin their work.

Daytona Beach Payroll Services

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

New Year Resolutions

New Years Resolutions

The year is coming to an end, and it is time to start looking at making a plan for the New Year. You got your business through 2014. Maybe it is time to take that success and push it even further in 2015. But how will you make that push forward? The idea of turning your business into a franchise is one large possible step. Expanding your product line or your serviceable area can bring in a larger profit margin. Maybe you are looking at making internal changes to your company to begin with and moving outward from there.

On top of planning for the new year you also have the Holiday season to worry about. Many companies have to go into overdrive to meet the demand of the Christmas holiday, and most times come out with the profit to show for it. Other companies see decreased sales and business if their product or service is not a typical Christmas or consumer product. Both of these points can lead to a single solution. Expand your company in the New Year and simplify the holiday madness by outsourcing Payroll and Human Resource departments.

Maybe you have heard of outsourcing these departments before but never really gave it a second thought. Maybe you just don’t really understand what happens when you outsource a payroll department. For the New Year, make it a point to understand the difference between an in house payroll department and an outsourced payroll department. Both come with their own pros and cons. Even with the cons though, outsourcing can be very beneficial.

In a study performed on 1,500 small businesses, 40% of them used an outsourced payroll service. Almost half of the 1,500 business use some form of outsource payroll department, and that number is only looking to increase. With the digital office taking over the modern business landscape you can send your payroll department to a different company, and still be connected to it. Yet you will not have to worry about changing laws and regulations or if your payroll is being done accurately.

The future is in a constant state of change. Every choice we make will shape tomorrow even more then it will today. Make the right choice, learn more about how outsourcing works and look into outsourcing your payroll with a company like Vision H.R.

Daytona Beach Payroll Services

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

From Clock-In to Paycheck

For an employee, the payroll doesn’t begin in the payroll department, it begins in timekeeping. Payroll may decide a person’s wages, but none of that has any effect until the employee clocks into their job. This is why for payroll to reach it’s full potential, a company must have an effective method of timekeeping. Luckily for growing companies, both payroll and timekeeping can be outsourced to one company to make the progress smoother and increase productivity.

There was a time before the digital office that timekeeping was done on paper. Many times done through time cards. These would have to be entered into any form of payroll manually. One can imagine that this would take up a good bit of time for a manager or business owner. Now, time cards are an archaic business practice. In the modern office even the most primitive timekeeping methods are done through a computer.

Even with the time saved by the digital office, someone still has to monitor the payroll. Print out and find a way to distribute paychecks to anyone not enrolled in direct deposit. They have to handle vacation and sick pay. It is their job to keep the entire department organized and look for anomalies in timekeeping. Make sure employees are working their appointed hours. This is time and resources that could be put somewhere else.

Instead of looking at allocating resources within your company, move these departments to an outsourced company. Vision H.R. comes with packages and options that will put payroll and timekeeping in their hands and free up yours. Other options include management training and human resource services. Taking full advantage of these services means you could have a wide range of freedom to breathe in your company. Best of all? Instead of feeling overwhelmed, you can once again feel in control.

Call Vision H.R. today and see just how much simpler running your company can become when you don’t have to carry the stress alone. Get a free quote and start looking to the future.

Payroll Services Lakeside Fl

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

Preventing Ebola in the Workplace, what employers need to know.

Preventing Ebola in the Workplace is something each employer needs to know. Now that Ebola has reached the United States and conditions are not improving internationally, the awareness and prevention of spreading this disease is very important. Employers not only need to know the steps of preventing Ebola in the workplace, but how to recognize Ebola in the workplace. Educating managers and employees on Ebola is the best way to understand the risks, how to identify and prevent the disease from entering your workplace.

preventing Ebola in the workplace

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a severe illness in humans. Without proper treatment it is fatal 70% of the time.

Symptoms are:

Fever
Intense weakness
Muscle pain
Headache
Sore throat
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Rash
Impaired kidney & liver function
Internal and external bleeding

Incubation period:

The period of incubation can vary from 2 to 21 days. Patients are not contagious during the incubation period but are contagious after the symptoms surface. There is no specific treatment for the disease. Patients must be managed in isolation facilities to prevent the spread of the infection.

Transmission of disease:

Ebola is transferred through blood and bodily fluids of infected persons. Additionally, from indirect contact by having broken skin or mucous membranes come in contact with materials or utensils contaminated with the body fluids of an infected person.

Preventing Ebola in the workplace:

Employers should collaborate with health authorities in the prevention and control of the Ebola outbreak. Healthcare workers are at the greatest risk and a special page has been posted for those work environments. Here are some resources to help you prepare:

Preventing Ebola in the workplace measures do not have to be overkill. Maintain good personal hygiene including hand hygiene, wash with liquid soap and water especially before touching your eyes, nose or mouth, before eating. Be mindful of surfaces like toilets, escalator handrails, elevator control panels, door knobs etc. Make sure to clean these surfaces with a bleach solution as recommended. Also, work with your facilities department or cleaning contractor to ensure that common use surfaces are cleaned thoroughly and often.

Preventing Ebola in the Workplace

Returning travelers are the primary concern. Affected countries are requested to conduct exit medical screening of all persons at international airports, ports and major land crossings for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. Those travelers returning from other areas should be notified of the symptoms and asked to be alert to their surfacing within 21 days after return. If symptoms occur they should call the department of health rather than going to the local health care facility.

It is important that employers remember the ADA’s prohibition on disability related inquiries. Employers may ask employees about a medical condition only if the injury is job related and consistent with business necessity. An employer’s inquiries may not be based solely on suspicions about an employee’s exposure to Ebola. Employers must keep all medical information confidential and should make every effort to keep the identity of an employee infected with Ebola confidential. At the same time the employers needs to take the step necessary to prevent the spread of the disease. This goes for any employees who may have symptoms or may have been exposed to the disease.

If an employee is diagnosed with Ebola, the medical privacy of the infected employee should be honored. Employers should seek guidance with counsel and follow the direction of the public health department. There will need to be communication with other employees for the protection of their health and safety.

Preventing Ebola in the workplace

Vision HR provides service for businesses to get help with Human Resources, payroll, timekeeping, commercial insurance, group benefits, 401k and recruiting services.

Making Human Resources Easier

Running a business is as rewarding as it is burdening. Like a tree, it starts as a simple idea planted in the ground. In time it grows and branches started going off in every direction. Those branches then expand into even more branches. What started as a simple idea is now expanding in every direction. How do you manage it all? You take care of the core of your company and let others help take care of the branches.

These branches can include departments such as payroll and human resource management. Payroll started as simply paying your employees. Now you have to deal with giving vacation pay, sick pay, subcontracted pay, and all these other kinds of pay. Human Resources didn’t seem important at first, but now with your growing company you are trying to learn all the regulations and practices. You could use Google to help with this. One of the 88,900,000 results is sure to have the answers. Another option is outsourcing these things to a Human Resource company like Vision H.R.

Trying to tackle this issue on your own can have negative effects on several parts of your business. You have to spend more time on understanding these topics and less time running your actual company. Mentally you can become stressed trying to take all this information in and implementing it into your business. Stress can lead to fatigue, headaches, illness, and a general downgrade in productivity. These are things that the owner of a company doesn’t have the leisure of stopping for. Rather you are in perfect health or feel your head pounding, employees are going to look to you for answers.

Outsourcing these issues however can free up both time and stress. You can let go of trying to retain all this information and let someone who is dedicated to payroll handle it. Instead of worrying where Human Resources is heading tomorrow, you can worry where your business is heading and leave Human Resources to an expert. Have a question about payroll or human resources? Instead of going through countless articles, a H.R. expert is a phone call away.

You didn’t start a business with the hope that it will bury you in stress and responsibility. Let Vision H.R. help you climb to the top with human resource management and payroll services.

Human Resource Management St. Augustine Shores

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

Management Training

A company is only as strong as it’s weakest link. When that weakest link is found in the management team, the effects can be that much more stressful. A manager can not just be dedicated, they have to be competent and experienced. They have to work with the employees while making sure the employees still understand the chain of command. If a manager acts too submissive, the employees can take advantage of them. Without fear of disciplinary actions, employees can disregard duties or ignore regulations. Being too strict or commanding and they can lose their employees respect which in turn lowers overall moral. In the business world moral is often times tied directly to productivity.

So how do you make sure a manager is up to the task at hand? Taking it purely on instinct can lead to negative results. Training them yourself can help set a firm foundation for their future in management. Another possible option is using an outsourced human resource company train them for you. Training an employee to become a manager can be time consuming and cost money. Allowing an outsourced HR company to train them still costs money, but allows you to continue taking care of your business without taking out time to train a new manager.

Companies such as Vision H.R. have programs that will train a new manager or a manager looking to further their effectiveness in the office to be better at their position. Training offered can include handling:

Hiring
Terminations
Discrimination
Sexual Harassment
Progressive Discipline and Documentation
Customer Service
Social Media Challenges
Diversity

There are also online training options through these outsource companies. Allowing the manager to learn from the home or the office with an online learning portal. This not only encourages the manager to improve their skills, it also helps them to learn and expand in areas such as:

Increasing sales
Sharpen Management Skills
Enhance Employee Retention
Improve Customer Services
Expand Employee Knowledge
Save Time and Money.

A manager is a part of the nervous system that keeps a business functioning. They are the hands that reach out from the central office. Acting as an authority figure between the employees and the owners. They are the first step in leadership that employees will typically see the most of in a company. It is important that they are competent and effective in their post or they can affect the reputation of all the individuals responsible for keeping the company running.

Call Vision H.R. today to see what options are available for training your new manager today. Also feel free to ask about our options involving payroll and timekeeping.

Palatka Management Training

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

Different Payrolls for Different Employees

Payroll is a part of a business that can cover a wide area of operations. Employees put in their hours, and payroll pays them their due. While that may be the basic principle of payroll, there are many complicated items that it must deal with. One being how to pay different types of employees. Not every employee is paid hourly wages. Even some who are have additional pay that must be taken into consideration.

What are these forms of employment and how do they affect payroll? More importantly, how do they affect you? The main ways that any form of employment affects a worker’s pay is on their regular paycheck and tax returns. The various forms of employment, and how they affect payroll are:

Salary: Salary pay is based on a fixed amount of income, paid over a course of time, which is not affected by the quality or quantity performed. This means someone is paid the same for working 20 hours a week or 30 hours a week. If someone is paid a $30,000 yearly salary, then it could be broken down into 12 parts. Each part paid to the employee once a month. It could be broken down into 24 parts, paid twice a month to an employee. Unless exempted, overtime has to be paid for salary. In some positions, such as executive or administrative, an employee can be exempt from overtime pay.

Salary has taxes taken out from it. Most times, the pay number given (ex. $30,000) is the amount before taxes are removed.

Hourly Wage: Hourly wage pay is based on a fix amount to be paid for each hour of work. The final amount placed on the paycheck is determined by how many hours are worked by the employee, minus taxes. Each state has a different minimum wage that must be paid to each employee, and a overtime limit. If an employee works overtime, they are typically paid time and a half for each hour over.

Waiter/Waitress Pay: The pay for a waiter or waitress is done the same as an hourly wage, but can be paid below the normal employee minimum wage. Every state has their own minimum wage for waiters and waitresses. The reason they can be paid less is because their pay is supplemented by tips. (Extra money given directly to the worker by customers or clients).

Besides the normal taxes taken out of a wage based paycheck, tips received are also subject to taxes. If a waiter or waitress receives more than $20.00 in tips in a calendar month, rather received directly from a customer, from a coworker under a tip sharing agreement, or from a credit or debit card, they will be taxed on the total amount.

Commission: Commission pay is pay received based on the number of items or services sold. Often times in the automotive dealership business, salesman are paid based on every vehicle they sell, and what additional items they sell with it, such as warranties and insurances. Commission pay is taxed similar to salary and hourly wage. Even though not paid hourly, unless meeting the requirements to be exempt, a business or company must compensate a commission based worker for overtime work.

Some companies will pay an employee an hourly or salary, with possible commission pay as well.

Subcontracted: Subcontracted pay can work the same as the above mentioned methods, but no taxes are taken from the subcontractors pay. The subcontractor may be treated as a part of the company, but is typically not a part of the company itself.

Because no taxes are taken from the subcontractor’s paycheck, come tax time the subcontractor or worker must pay the taxes out of pocket.

It is important for both the company and the employee to understand their employment and how it affects the payroll department. If done incorrectly, hefty fines and penalties can be brought against a company. For help in understanding these differences, consider outsourcing payroll and human resource departments to a company such as Vision H.R. They are trained in handling all forms of payroll matters and stay current on trends and regulations concerning payroll.

St. Augustine Payroll Services

Vision HR | The Human Resource Experts

How Can You Save a Good Employee? Actions to take.

An employer asks: What should we do with an excellent employee who has an attendance problem? Is it time for the employee to shape up or be terminated? This type of dilemma often faces workplace managers. If a good employee has some faults which keep showing up and interfering with performance, is termination the only option? How can you save a good employee?

Question: We have an employee who is abusing our attendance policy. She is an excellent employee when she is here. But she has an erratic attendance record. We’ve tried a number of things to get her to take responsibility for getting to work when scheduled. We’ve cut her pay. We’ve even put her on unpaid suspension and gotten her to agree in writing she would change. One moment, I want to fire her. The next moment, I want to keep trying to keep her since she shows so much potential when she is here. How can you save a good employee? What should we do?

Answer: Dale Dauten, the “Corporate Curmudgeon” columnist for King Features Syndicate, once gave advice on how he might deal with an employee who had performed well but

who lied about his educational achievement when getting his job. First, he quoted Wayne Dyer, “In a choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.” Then he concluded: “…it is okay to forgive.”

Yes, it is okay to forgive. But from what you describe, it sounds as though you are about to forgive one time too many.

When dealing with an employee who isn’t accepting personal responsibility, what’s right for the employee is for you to show “tough love.” The tough love idea in child rearing is this: The parents enforce tough rules so the child learns there are consequences to her actions. In a case like yours, the kindest thing you can do for this employee is to set standards of performance and behavior and stick to them.

You’re about to go beyond forgiving. You’re close to condoning — and thus encouraging — this employee’s wrong behavior.

Perhaps you’ve been bending your rules hoping she would get her personal life in order. That’s good. That’s being kind. But at a certain point your kindness turns into condoning poor behavior. Ultimately, then by condoning you are doing the employee harm.

Consider also the harm to your business. If the work the employee is doing is critical, you can’t tolerate poor attendance because the important work isn’t getting done. What to do then? If the work is critical, the employee has to shape up immediately. Or you terminate.

If the work is not critical, tolerating the employee’s poor attendance still can have a negative impact. It will in time affect the attitudes of her coworkers. Some may begin mimicking her attendance pattern. They’ll start to think, “If she can get away with it, so can we.” When this begins, you’ll have an even greater challenge on your hands.

What to do: If this employee’s work is not critical, your approach so far is about right. You’ve cut her pay. You’ve put her on unpaid suspension. You’ve gotten her to agree in writing to change. Now, you live up to the agreement. The employee agreed to change, and you agree to terminate her if she did not. So, what to do next: Terminate her. Kindness is good. But tough love is sometimes better. Sometimes, it’s the only form of kindness.

These type of situations are emotional and sometimes hard to do on your own. How can you keep a good employee? If you would like to be able to get help to these and other HR situations that you are dealing with, Contact Vision HR and talk with an HR experts to see if a partnership with Vision HR is right for your business.

Daytona Beach, FL

How can you save a good employee ?

Source, Thompson Reuters / Biz actions.