Belle Oberbrunner Great Ideas for your Small Business: Consider Telecommuting as an Option Telecommuting has tremendous benefits for workers and employers, but only if it’s handled right. Telecommuting can boost the productivity of workers who are independent self-starters. Motivated employees who live far from their offices can accomplish more by eliminating a long and stressful commute. Here … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire a Welfare Recipient You can complain about welfare recipients spending your tax dollars, or you can do something about it by offering an entry-level job to one person on the public dole. With training programs and sup- port in the form of public transportation vouchers or help with … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Perform a Personnel Checkup Business owners used to getting routine dental and medical checkups would benefit similarly by giving their businesses a periodic personnel checkup. The reason: Every year, thousands of unhappily terminated employees sue their former employers. Their complaints, justified or not, cost small business owners mil-lions of … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Use the BATH System for Hiring Jay goltz has been an entrepreneur since he got out of school in the 1970s. He’s learned a lot about hiring and now has about 140 employees at his framing and home-and-garden stores in Chicago. He’s found through the years that hiring good … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire Teenagers In response to the shifting economy, seven out of ten high school students want to start a business, according to a Gallup Poll. The primary motivation is to be their own boss, not to earn a lot of money. Although there are no firm statistics on how … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Hire Seniors as Employees One of the best salespeople i ever dealt with was a tiny woman in her late seventies. A few weeks before we moved into our beautiful, pre-war apartment, my husband, Joe, and I wandered into a suburban Westchester County lighting store, long shopping list in … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Work with People You Like John chuang, founder of boston-based Acquent, matches candidates with Mac and Windows expertise with companies that need temporary support. He has some contrarian advice for entrepre- neurs growing their businesses. “You’ve heard that two things you never want to do with friends is lend … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Look Far and Wide for the Best Person Finding the right person to help run your small business may mean hiring an out-of-towner and paying to relocate that person. Relocation involves a myriad of financial and emotional issues for both you and your employee. It’s a complex and expensive … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Recruit Good Employees A small business can’t afford to make poor hiring choices. Yet small business owners too often hire the first person who drifts through the door, even for key jobs. Casting the widest net possible before hiring is one approach, but it often pays to bring in … Read more
Great Ideas for your Small Business: Know What Not to Ask Job Applicants When 100 small business owners were asked if they had ever asked a job applicant any of the following questions during an interview, all of them said “yes.” Have you ever filed a workers’ compensation claim? Do you have any physical problems … Read more
