Why Your Business Needs Workforce Management Systems

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Entrepreneurship | Why Your Business Needs Workforce Management SystemsWorkforce management systems are some of the most revolutionary features that can handle everything online from HR to hour registration and scheduling with one single tool. Handling paperwork for an organization is something that the HR department can confirm is not that interesting, not to mention the small errors that can lead to taking a whole day to discover why the books are not adding up.

HR is one of the departments that do not directly contribute to profits or productivity, yet it can take a huge chunk of a business’s operating budget. With a workforce management system, you do not have to print a handful of paper copies or place scanned pages in a hard to organize folder on your computer. This saves the labor needed to operate this department and you can save a lot of money. Here are some of the reasons why you should consider installing workforce management systems in your organization:

Cutting costs

It requires dozens of people to prepare the paperwork that is necessary for calculating and making the payments for labour in good time. You can save this labor and reassign those employees to more productive tasks. The workforce management system pays for itself through the savings you make from reducing labor costs. You can get this software from Synel-Americas and integrate it into all of your management systems.

Higher employee morale

The systems allow your organization to automate almost all of the payroll and timekeeping functions. The software captures the employee’s data to calculate payroll more accurately to eliminate mistakes with pay and benefits. Mistakes in benefits and payments are among the things that demotivate a workforce most and many unhappy workers cite it as a reason for attrition. It can also lead to workers organizing for collective bargaining rights, which is not a good image for the organization.

Compliance

HR is responsible for making and keeping records for legal and financial purposes. This provides the statistics necessary to prove that the business is in compliance with its legal obligations. This data is also needed by unions, individuals with employment contracts, and by company policy. A small gap in compliance can cost your business a huge sum in fines and the organization’s reputation.

Analytical function

Workforce management software helps management to obtain accurate and comprehensive data. This data can be used to evaluate the actual performance against the budget to measure the success of the management. Data management can help you discover interesting trends in your business to make better decisions. Having available data at all times and in a simplified form also saves you the time you need to react to sudden changes in the business.

Customer satisfaction

A well-motivated workforce will always give satisfying services to your clients, which is crucial for business growth. The system can be used to evaluate the employees’ performance and the organization can give rewards in a fair and justifiable manner. This leads to healthy competition within the organization and increased customer service performance.

Conclusion

Workforce management systems offer a lot of important benefits for business whether large or small. The software helps companies to move forward with the best human resource technologies available. The money saved also enables the company to attain ROI and direct the resources to more investments.

Don’t Have Your Own Website Yet? These 5 Arguments Will Make You Reconsider

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Don't Have Your Own Website Yet? These 5 Arguments Will Make You Reconsider

The online world has become lucrative for businesses of all sizes and localities. When looking at the sheer number of businesses with websites, it might be shocking to find out that some businesses have yet to go digital.

If your business has not opened a website, the time to do it is now. There are several business-friendly reasons to start your own website. Once you are ready to go, let Decisive Sites help with the entire process.

1. Everyone is Online

Nearly everything is online today. Consider the size of social media platforms and the growing reach of online banks. The immense amount of people are either watching or creating a streaming video on the Internet. If your business isn’t there, you are missing out on opportunities that you might have never considered.

Without a website, your business does not exist online. No one can find you and no one can add to your coffers. Everyone is missing out if your business isn’t available to an online audience.

2. The Internet Never Closes

If you have a brick-and-mortar shop, your business most likely has limited hours. Yes, there are some businesses that are open 24-7, but they require expensive staffing during that time. This isn’t necessarily the case with a website. The Internet never closes, so your online business would be available to anyone at any time. You don’t have to be online if someone wants to buy something from your site. You could wake up in the morning and deal with sales then. But, if you don’t have a website, your sales can only happen when your doors are open.

3. It’s Cheap to Make and Maintain a Site

Websites are not expensive to run. You can get started for much less than you expect. Of course, you can always upgrade to bigger and better things. But, to get started, you don’t need much. It is just as cheap to maintain the site, too. Business owners can do it, or you can hire someone to do that for you. Business owners quickly realize that their website is worth every penny, especially when they start seeing sales add up. As well as being fairly cheap, it’s also very easy to maintain your website as long as you choose the right provider. There are numerous debates surrounding Squarespace vs Wix, but it’s really up to you to see which you prefer. They both offer simplistic, but professional templates that will make your website user friendly and effective.

4. Your Reach Grows

If you have a mom-and-pop shop in your community, your reach is rather small. But, once you open up a website, your reach can grow exponentially. Customers in other states and countries can find you and place orders. This can be an exciting prospect for many business owners.

5. Your Customer Demographics Grow

Along with growing your reach, you can grow your customer demographics. With a website, you make yourself available to people who shop online. Your brick-and-mortar shop might have a customer demographic that is older in age, as older people tend to frequent local shops. But, once you open up a website, your business immediately attracts a younger demographic, simply because young people use the internet. If you can make your website design mobile-phone friendly, then you are certain to grow your demographics to a younger customer base.

A Small Business Owner’s Emergency Preparedness Checklist

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | A Small Business Owner's Emergency Preparedness ChecklistIf a natural disaster were to impact your city or town, would your small business be prepared for it?

Many small businesses are, unfortunately, not ready for emergency situations. It’s why about 40 percent of small businesses end up closing down following natural disasters and other emergencies.

You can avoid this fate by creating an emergency preparedness checklist for your small business. You should be especially mindful of doing this if your small business is located in an area that gets hit with a lot of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other weather-related emergencies.

Take a look at some of the things you should do as a small business owner to protect your property and, more importantly, yourself and your employees.

Identify Potential Emergency Situations

There are some emergency situations that will pop up out of the blue and catch small business owners completely off guard. If, for example, a car drives through the front of your business, that’s not something you would have been able to predict.

But most of the emergency situations that small businesses face have to do with the weather. And while some of these situations can catch small business owners asleep at the wheel, most of them should be things that are on your radar.

Depending on where your small business is, it could be subjected to:

  • Hurricanes
  • Tornadoes
  • Earthquakes
  • Blizzards
  • Flash Floods
  • Wildfires

Your emergency preparedness checklist should include details on how you’ll respond to each of these things. But it all starts with identifying which of them are most likely to impact your small business.

Figure Out Ways to Respond to Each Specific Type of Emergency

Once you know which types of emergency situations your small business could potentially face, the next order of business will be to figure out how you’ll handle each one. This will require some careful planning on your part.

Sit down and take a look at each type of emergency situation and think about how it could affect your small business. This will help you decide what you’ll need to work your way through an emergency situation.

For instance, if your small business is positioned right in the middle of a city that gets hit with bad hurricanes every few years, you’ll need to find the best ways to respond to hurricanes. You should plan to do it by:

  • Boarding up windows and doors prior to a hurricane touching down in your city
  • Moving electronic equipment to a place where it won’t get wet if water makes its way into your small business
  • Securing anything that could get washed away during flooding in your area

Every emergency situation is a little bit different and will require you to take different steps. The key is outlining a detailed response plan for each individual situation.

Outfit Your Small Business With the Right Tools to Handle Emergencies

In order to respond to emergency situations, you’re going to need to have more than just response plans in place. You’re also going to need a series of tools that will help you carry your plans out.

Prior to a hurricane, for instance, you’ll need to have everything from hammers and nails to plywood and sandbags on hand to prepare your small business. Without these things, it’s going to be difficult to get your small business ready for an emergency.

Yet, you would be surprised to see how many small business owners wait until the very last minute to try and obtain these tools. Some end up not being able to get the tools they need to shore up their small businesses and make emergency situations worse for their businesses.

See which tools you will need to respond to different emergency situations and invest in them long before you ever have to pull them out. It never hurts to have these tools stored away since you never know when you could need them.

Put a Communication System Into Place for Emergency Situations

Communication is going to be of the utmost importance when an emergency situation strikes.

You’re going to need to communicate with your employees to let them know what you need them to do to keep your small business safe. You’re also going to need to communicate with other small business owners in your area so that you can lend a hand to one another.

And of course, you’ll need to communicate with your local police station as well as your local fire station in many cases. You might need to have them come out to assist you with an emergency.

Figure out who from your small business is going to be communicating with others during an emergency situation. Whether it be you, your general manager, or someone else, there should be a point person in place for all communication efforts.

Get Out Ahead of Emergencies as Best You Can

As we mentioned earlier, it’s impossible to predict all emergency situations. There are going to be emergencies that sneak up on you from time to time.

But you can get out ahead of many emergency situations by paying close attention to what’s happening in the news. If there is a hurricane threatening to touch down in your city, you can map its progress and see how much damage it could potentially do to homes and businesses in your area.

This will help you prepare for emergencies so much better than you would be able to otherwise.

Start Checking Items Off Your Emergency Preparedness Checklist Today

You don’t have to allow a hurricane, an earthquake, or another type of emergency to cripple your small business. By creating an emergency preparedness checklist, you can limit the amount of damage that an emergency does.

Use the tips listed here to formulate your own emergency preparedness checklist based on the potential emergency situations your small business might face. You won’t have to worry about an emergency shutting your business down for good when you prepare for it ahead of time.

Read the articles on our blog to find out more about the emergencies that could bring your small business to a halt.

The Services That Can Pull Your Business Together

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There are many services that you should be trialing for your business, with trialing being the key word here. Your business should have a lot of services that it relies on, and these will grow over time. From the moment you establish yourself as a trading business, you will begin building those connections. You’ll find yourself an accountant who can help you manage your books. You’ll dabble in companies that offer marketing solutions. And one by one, you’ll have a team of people who you rely on to keep your business ticking, without even thinking about it. But there are no doubt going to be some services that you might be missing out on at the minute, simply because you’ve been managing it in house, or haven’t thought about it before. But it’s these services that might mean the difference between steady growth, and struggling growth. So, keep on reading, and we’ll show you what services we think you should look into.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Business Services | The Services That Can Pull Your Business TogetherCustomer Related

Customer related problems are ones that we’ve all experienced at some point or another. In fact, the biggest headache we often have problems with customers, is trying to retain them, and trying to bring in new ones. And that’s often because we don’t understand how to build and secure that relationship with them, and work on it so that your customer base only keeps on growing. WhiteOwl is just one company that can help you to do so if you choose their CRM service. CRM stands for customer relationship management, which will be right up your street if this is what you’re struggling with. It will focus on customer relationships, and building bridges with them so that you can progress. The more your business grows, the more important this is going to become simply because there’s just so much to try and understand in terms of customer relationships and how to keep them strong, and you might have so many age ranges to try and connect with, that will require different tactics to be used.

Financial Saviours

Financial saviours are what nearly every small business is looking for. It’s hard to find a small business that has not long been established, that isn’t struggling financially. Often the investment can be crippling, especially when profit is slow to build. So, the perfect people to liaise with, are business financial advisors. These can help you to decide where your money should be going, where you might be able to get more from, and how to progress your business financially. All you have to do is find a trusted one that can understand how your business works.

Investment Gurus

Investment is one you should be thinking about as soon as profit starts to build. It’s so easy to find an investment route that will suit your business. From small investments to big investments, you can use them all depending on the profit you have to play with. But an investment broker can help you properly manage them, making sure that you’re getting the most out of them, rather than losing out all of the time.

Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)Promoting your hotel to your target audience, increasing occupancy rates and online bookings, maximising your ROI and engaging with guests can often be an overwhelming task. This is where hotel marketing comes to the fore, because it includes a range of strategies that can be combined into one cohesive marketing campaign. These strategies include internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing, but basically it’s all about understanding how to make your hotel stand out from the competition.

Larger hotels can afford to employ individuals who specialise in just one of these strategies, building a team of marketers who design specialised campaigns to promote specific aspects of their hotels. Smaller hotels however, usually rely on one or two individuals to organise all their hotel’s marketing strategies. If you are feeling overwhelmed with the concept of hotel marketing and don’t have the backup of a team of marketing professionals, your first goal is to identify your hotel’s target market and then explore the different types of vehicles you can use to run your campaigns (including internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing).

Who is your target market?

Unless you can clearly identify your target market, any marketing campaigns will likely have limited success, at best. It’s essential that you know the type of guests you want to attract to your hotel, their likes and dislikes, and where they hang out online. Once you have this information at your fingertips, you can craft numerous campaigns to specifically target different sub-groups of this audience, pushing their buttons and giving them every reason to book accommodation at your hotel.

Your target market will depend on your brand, whether it’s young and trendy, modern, conservative or traditional. It will also depend on the size of your hotel, whether it’s part of a big chain or a small and independent boutique establishment, even whether it focuses on luxury or budget accommodation, and it’s location.

Once you understand your brand, you will start to understand your target market and be able to identify the type of holidays they prefer, their budget and their reasons for traveling. For example, your target market might be couples with young children who have a limited budget and like to visit the beach, researching hotels online and avidly reading reviews to help them make their decision.

Alternatively, your target market might be empty nesters or single people who have a large budget and look for luxury accommodation in unique locations and are willing to pay for a one-of-a-kind experience. Then there are groups of friends or large family groups who love company and socialising with others of like mind. If they have children they look for accommodation that offers child minding services and plenty of activities to keep their kids occupied. If they are groups of friends, they look for lots of exciting activities and trips they can do together from one location.

Understanding your brand and your target market is only the first step in creating a successful hotel marketing plan. Let’s take a look at online marketing, email marketing and social media marketing and identify how each of these can have a significant impact on your hotel’s success in a very competitive market space.

Online marketing

With the massive increase of online shopping, it’s no surprise that hotels need to market their brand online to their target audience. Many travellers now research their accommodation online, reading reviews, researching the area and once they have made their decision, actually making an online booking. With more than half of all bookings made online and half of these bookings made using mobile devices, you can understand the importance of online marketing to the success of your hotel. In fact, without an online presence and a professionally crafted marketing campaign, hotels don’t have much hope of outwitting the competition and increasing their occupancy rates.

Online marketing is actually an umbrella term for a variety of marketing vehicles, including email marketing, social media marketing, SEO and video marketing. This wide variety of platforms gives hotel marketing teams the opportunity to flex their creative muscles and find unique ways to engage with their target audience. For example, some people are visual and respond to images or videos better than to text, whilst others are happy to settle down for a good read. All of this information comes from thoroughly understanding your target audience and what motivates them to travel.

One of the most important aspects of online marketing is that it must be tailored to your target audience and it must come across as a personal message, rather than a generic promotion. People like to believe that they are special and by personalising your marketing messages you will be speaking directly to their goals, motivations, needs and desires. Ignoring these needs or simply not understanding what your target audience wants from their accommodation often leads to low occupancy rates, fewer repeat bookings and poor reviews.

Email marketing

Email marketing, if it’s done correctly, can make a massive difference to your occupancy rates and repeat bookings. This is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available to hotel operators, because it’s estimated that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you receive a return of $38, which is a massive ROI.

Your first step is to put together an email list of potential guests who may want to stay at your hotel and guests who want to be kept informed of any special offers. You can encourage people to sign up to receive your promotional emails by simply adding a sign-on box to your website or Facebook page, as well as asking them in person during their stay at your hotel. Research has shown that it’s much more cost-effective to spend your budget on repeat business, rather than trying to attract new guests to your hotel, and email campaigns are the perfect vehicle for engaging prior guests with an offer.

If you personalise your email marketing campaign to your target audience, you might be quite surprised at how many recipients will make a booking, simply based on the information in your email. This type of marketing is ideal if you know that there is a quiet period coming up and you want to increase your occupancy rates. Here are a few tips for putting together this type of email marketing:

  • Target repeat guests.
  • Focus on peak times.
  • Personalise email promotions.
  • Identify the best days and times to send your marketing materials.
  • Create engaging subject lines.
  • Use stunning photos to increase engagement.
  • Optimise your CTAs to encourage direct online bookings.

Social Media Marketing

With the popularity of social media, using this vehicle to promote your hotel is a given and the most popular platforms are Facebook and Instagram. This is where your guests and potential guests will spend a lot of their time online and where you can engage them with your marketing promotions. It’s well-known that people tend to trust the opinions of their friends, so it’s no surprise to learn that more than half of Facebook users are inspired by holiday snaps they see on Facebook. This is a huge opportunity for hotels to build a loyal following online and to increase their occupancy rates using engaging promotions aimed specifically at their target market.

To make the most out of social media marketing you will need to create a large online following on Facebook and Instagram, both of which can be achieved by adding share buttons on your website and asking guests to write reviews and ‘like’ your online content. Writing quality content with great photos and videos of unique locations in your area will all help to engage your target audience with your promotional materials.

You can even include links to your social media sites as part of your email marketing campaigns, encouraging recipients to visit your Facebook or Instagram page. On the subject of video marketing, you can create videos and upload them to your own YouTube channel or website, even ask guests to create their own videos that they can post on their own Facebook page or allow you to upload them to your website or Facebook page.

Facebook marketing

On Facebook, you can not only post your own content to engage your target audience, but you can also create and promote paid ads that will reach thousands of people, all over the world. For example, you can offer exclusive accommodation offers or discounts to people who have ‘liked’ your page, if they book online within the next five days.

To further enhance your social media offerings, you can now add a BOOK NOW button to your Facebook page and even your Facebook ads, which connects directly with your booking engine. The great benefits of Facebook marketing is that you are only limited by your budget and you receive virtually instant feedback from your ads.

Instagram marketing

With a focus on high quality images, Instagram is the perfect platform for hotel marketing. Travellers and holidaymakers love Instagram because they can view thousands of images that help them to decide on their next trip. You can advertise your hotel on Instagram by including a BOOK NOW button on your Instagram page and also respond to customers enquiries via Instagram.

Although Instagram has mainly been popular with a younger demographic, it’s now becoming popular with an older audience who appreciate its functionality. Here are some examples of images that will engage your target audience:

  • Hotel staff interacting with guests.
  • Guests enjoying themselves at the hotel.
  • Highlight your hotel’s facilities – spa, pool or beach.
  • Guests dining in your restaurant.
  • Local attractions and scenery.
  • New menu items.
  • Guest and staff selfies.

It’s also a good idea to engage with posts from other operators in your area, for example travel operators or local attractions. Don’t forget to use hashtags in your Instagram posts, as this will make your content searchable and you can identify people who use these hashtags, commenting on their accounts and promoting further engagement.

Take home messages

Internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing are all vital strategies that will help your hotel to engage with your target audience, increase bookings and improve your ROI.

However, you also need to make sure that your website is responsive, so that it opens correctly on all mobile devices and allows people to book online using their smartphones. Also invest in SEO as this will help to increase the visibility of your website in Google and other search engines, encouraging more traffic to your website. If you combine all of these strategies together, you will soon see a significant increase in engagement and bookings at your hotel.