Part Time Working: Friend or Foe?

A part time working model can be a great asset for companies and businesses to adopt, over the next few weeks we will be running a series of blogs examining the world of part time working. This first blog will examine structures and formats that we found helpful when looking into hiring part time staff and adapting our working model.

There are many reasons why people chose to work part time, at Office Loro our reasons range from family commitments, suitability of fewer hours, or coming to work with us as a way to top up a pension. According to a TUC report, during the years 2008 – 2014, 26 out of every 40 jobs were being filled by part time workers, only one in every 40 jobs were considered full time.

Business Slow Down During Summer Months

Working within a company that have a lot of schools and colleges as part of our customer base, it can often seem quieter during the traditional school summer holidays. We have less email traffic and phone calls coming in. It is not just the effect of schools being on holiday, a lot of the buyers for our other companies and customers take their annual holiday within the same period.

This leads to varying buying trends. Some companies are very well organised and will stock up on their essentials in one big order, others seem to order as and when something runs out! This shifting level of enquiries and orders coming into us can sometimes leave staff with a quiet phone line and inbox and with a bit more spare time on their hands. I am sure many companies will go through similar altering trends over the year.

Team Building For Your Business

Team building has long been the groan of many employees. It is often seen as a waste of time and stopping them from completing vital jobs. However, this can be a vital component to harmonise offices and create an environment that will be highly productive.

For most businesses, there are six main reasons why they would want to conduct team building in the office. These include:

• Improving communications.
• Boosting morale.
• Motivation
• Getting a team to know each other better.
• Improving productivity
• Learning about everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.

Should You Trust Your Applicants’ CVs?

When it comes to business, one of your greatest costs is hiring staff. Research has often found that hiring a new member of staff can cost between 6 and 18 months worth of their wages in recruitment and training. This can lead to huge losses if mistakes are made when searching for new team members and they don’t work out.

One of the major problems is that recruitment is not always a speciality of business owners and mistakes are made on the recruitment journey. A common error is that the owner concentrates on the skills of the applicants and ignores the cultural fit. Skills can be trained and provided whereas personality is not so easily changed.

Is Your Star Employee Leaving? How To Recover From The Loss

As a small business owner you may have many problems to contend with, including limited resources at your disposal e.g. people, finances and knowledge of the marketplace.

Sometimes, you will rely on one or two “star” employees who without, your business would not function.

An example of this would be the employee who knows exactly what you have in stock or the person who can deliver the best customer service that will impress even the most hardened customer. However, the world can turn upside down when this star employee decides they want to move on and try another challenge.

Business owners sometimes worry about how they will cope with the loss and what will happen to the business. So here is a guide on how to cope with the loss of that all important employee.

Are You Suffering From Business Burnout?

Running a business is not an easy task. There are many challenges that you will face every single day. Sometimes these problems can cause you to become stressed and can affect how you work.

A little stress is required in our lives, it helps us seek solutions and to be innovative. But when it all becomes too much and we start experiencing excessive levels of stress for too long it can cause a burnout. This will have a major impact on the work that you produce. Studies have shown that excessive stress will decrease production and lower the quality of work significantly.

Ways To Fill The Summer Staffing Gap

With the summer holidays fast approaching, many businesses will find that they are going to be short staffed when employees go on holiday. It is the busiest time of the year for holidays as many of those with children are unable to take their vacation at any other time.

While the lack of freedom can be annoying to the parents, it can also be frustrating for you. It normally means that those left behind have to do the same volume of work in the same amount of time. This can sometimes lead to a backlog of work, poor quality finishing and low morale throughout the office.

The only other solution is to find a way to plug the staffing gap during the holidays. Here are some ideas for you to consider.

Is Overtime Killing Your Business?

Every business has moments when they suddenly have a lot of work on and need staff to work longer hours in order to finish a project. For many staff this could mean extra pay, for others it could be just part of their contract.

Whatever the financial situation of your business is there a just cause for extra hours being requested by your staff or are you just dragging your business down?

How Is Time Wasted In The Office?

We spend a lot of our time working. During an average week, we spend a quarter of our time at work. This can be draining on us. Natural instinct is not to sit at a desk or do tasks repeatedly. Therefore it is of no surprise that at some point, our staff wastes some of their working hours. A survey conducted last year found that 89% of staff admitted to wasting at least some time every day. What was more interesting in the survey was that a small number admitted to wasting at least half of their working day.

While some people may not think that half an hour wasted every day matters, this does equate to 130 hours every year, or three full weeks working. At the UK’s average wage, this equates to £1,500 worth of staff investment for just one employee per year.

So how is time wasted at work? What can you do about it?

Should Social Media Be Part Of Your Recruitment Strategy?

Social media is becoming one of the most used, free online tools for businesses, both large and small, to recruit new members of staff. Many of these organisations find there are many benefits to using social media to find new team members; but that doesn’t mean that the strategy is always a positive one.

About a third of businesses have found a reason why an otherwise ideal candidate had to be rejected. Such reasons include:

• References or images to being drunk or using illegal drugs.
• Comments which are aggressive, discriminatory or unprofessional.
• Comments which are defamatory to a previous employer.
• Images that connect the candidate to an undesired group (e.g. fascist).
• Lying on their application.