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Creating Employee Benefits Programs

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Employee Benefits Programs|Creating Employee Benefits ProgramsDuring these challenging times, organizations are scrambling to recruit, motivate, and retain talent. One important way to gain a competitive edge is by knowing which benefits these days matter to your people the most.

How you’re supporting your employees, current and future, in this topsy-turvy environment can mean the difference between a loyal and resilient workforce and one that’s noncommitted – to you or its work.

So, you must put a premium on setting up the best benefits program possible. After all, benefits are a key component of the overall compensation package. Here’s what you need to know about creating employee benefits programs.

A Budget Must Be Established

Regardless of what kinds of benefits you offer, you’re going to have to figure out how much you can spend on a benefits package. This amount will be based on how much you can handle and what employers are offering as standard.

When calculating your budget, it’s crucial that you conduct a cost analysis per benefit. To help guide you, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps data on all the differing amounts that employers shell out for various kinds of employee benefits such as health, dental, and vision insurance; FSA and HSA; retirement planning; commuter benefits; and life and disability insurance.

There Must Be Decisions About What to Include

Now you must figure out what goes into your plan. Employers usually choose among medical, dental, vision benefits; paid time off; retirement savings options; FSAs or HSAs; life and disability insurance; and work/life balance perquisites.

Note that while you aren’t required to provide all the above, those elements are still considered the basics, when it comes to benefits plans. More and more, to get a leg up on rivals, organizations are expected to go beyond the fundamentals and offer creative employee experiences such as free yoga classes or daycare services, pet-friendly workplaces, or free workplace snacks and drinks.

Total Compensation Must Be Determined

In addition to the paycheck and requisite benefits, total compensation lumps in employee compensation such as any commissions, bonuses, child-care and tuition assistance, profit-sharing distributions, IT reimbursements such as personal computer, public transit credit, employee assistance programs, or gym or club membership.

The Plan Needs Rechecking

Now that you’ve gone through all the major steps, scour the plan before you put it in place. If you aren’t using an external resource such as Mercer to help you, you’ll have to contact healthcare providers on your own to find the best employee benefit programs for your organization.

The Plan Gets Launched

Congratulations, as you’re now ready to communicate to your employees not only what has been developed, but how and why. This means that after notifying your staffers of the plan, but you’ll need to provide details and give people a chance to ask questions. Then you need to publish the program so that employees have a portal or some place to return to for points of clarification.

You should also be certain to add your new top benefits to your company’s online career page where prospective talent can see it. The new benefits should also be included in your job advertisements. After all, a Glassdoor survey found that about half of jobseekers reported being frustrated by the lack of online info about an organization’s benefits.

As you can see, creating an employee benefits program is more than a notion, but at least now you know what goes into it. To put a program in place, we recommend not only that you get outside help, but that you go with the consultant Mercer for its breadth of experience and expertise. The firm will work with you to produce health and benefits solutions that will benefit your employees and their families, as well as your organization.

Tips For Getting Your New Business Off To The Best Start

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting Your New Business|Tips For Getting Your New Business Off To The Best StartStarting your own business can be a daunting prospect, especially in the aftermath of a global pandemic. However, there are simple steps you can follow to ensure that your business gets off to the best possible start. Here are our top tips:

Research

Carrying out good, thorough research ahead of starting up your own business will set you off on the right footing. First and foremost, you must determine whether or not there is a market demand for your product or service. Once you’re satisfied that this is the case, try to identify and understand your target audience. There are lots of online tools available that can help you to build a potential profile of your customers base, as well as surveys to analyse your clients. Also determine who your competitors are and find out as much as you can about them. What mistakes have they made and how can you learn from them? What can you do different from them to give you that extra edge?

It’s also essential to learn about the industry you will be operating in, particularly about the trends, growth prospects, legalities, and any potential challenges. If market research will let you know more about your target audience, industry research will give you an idea about your competitors.

Also, consider doing extensive financial planning research. This way, you can establish a realistic budget for your business and determine the potential return on investment. Through this research, you can create a comprehensive financial plan for your business and develop a strategy for securing funding.

Check the formalities

Depending on where you live, you’ll have to notify the relevant authorities when setting up your business. If you live in the UK, you’ll have to register with HMRC for class 2 national insurance and self-assessment tax; while in the US, you’ll have to notify whatever authority your individual state requires. Make sure you devise a business plan to guide you through the process – this is vital if you’re trying to secure a loan or other investment for your business. Also make sure you have all the relevant insurance, you trademark any logo or slogan you’re intending to use, and that you start to document all records relating to your business.


Seek advice

While undertaking your own research is crucial to getting your business off to the best start, you can’t go wrong with listening to some expert advice. Speaking to a professional will not only give you an outsider’s perspective on your business plans, it will provide you with crucial market information that’s tailored to you and ensure that you don’t miss out on any essential formalities. If you’re UK-based, companies such as RX Global can offer expert advice on how to get your business off to the best start.

You can learn how to create a successful business or enroll in online classes facilitated by industry leaders. The experts can offer valuable insights that worked for them, which may also work for you.

You may also seek the help of a legal expert. Consult with an attorney to understand the legal requirements of starting a business, specifically when registering and operating. They can advise you on business structure, contracts, and other legal matters.

Use pre-launch marketing

Getting your brand known before it launches will get you off to a good head start. Social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, are an inexpensive way to market your brand and target your customers. Create a social media profile for your business ahead of its launch and start befriending and networking with potential customers. Make sure that you continue to use your business social media page after your launch. Social media, when used correctly, is a very effective marketing tool, so consider creating a strategy for it going forward. Once your business is ready to launch, use this event as part of your marketing strategy. You could give out merchandise, offer special discounts or promotions, or even host competitions. There are numerous ways you can take advantage of your launch that will help make sure people remember your brand.

Prelaunch marketing is a great strategy to generate buzz and build anticipation for a new product or service before it’s officially released. Try beta-testing to know how your product will most likely fare with customers. A beta test can help you gather feedback and make necessary improvements before your official launch.

Conclusion

While starting your own business can be stressful, there are ways that you can make sure it launches as smoothly as possible. With our tips, you should be able to get your business off to the best possible start.

How To Improve Quality in Construction/Building Projects

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StrategyDriven Project Management Article |Quality in Construction|How To Improve Quality in Construction/Building ProjectsWith so many construction and DIY projects on the go, there has been a lot of discussion as to the prevalence of cowboy builders and how you can ensure that your project stands the best chance of success. This article will outline the best ways to guarantee that your building and construction is the best that they can be. The rise of the solo worker and independent contractors has been steep and is expected to continue, so it’s worth making sure you do your research. It is a great business opportunity of the moment, yet one that will need thorough thought and planning.

Materials

The materials that you use for any building or construction work must first meet the standards that are set by national and international building regulations. If you expect the end product to be professionally made, long-lasting, and safe, you really need to start out with the best raw materials and use construction materials and products that are of the highest quality and standards.

Manpower

Having the right labor and skills on-site at the right time is one of the hardest aspects of the construction process to get right. It is all about making the best use of time and resources, as bringing trades onto the site when they aren’t needed is simply a waste of their time and your money. Labor can be one of the most expensive costs on a building site and, as such, it needs to be monitored and recorded clearly.

Ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation

The trend is to use an NEC Supervisor to monitor progress according to set plans and project milestones. You need to have made a booking and then have them come to do an inspection on site. The idea is to have a professional service that can advise as to the technical requirements and building standards.

The Right Project Management Apps and Software

If you intend all of the aforementioned to happen in a seamless fashion, one of the main aspects required will be project management software and skills. All works on site are time-constrained and will need to be planned and integrated. The best way to do this is online and via shared services where all those working on the project are able to see and share the latest works documents and everything that they need for their role in the project.

Utilities, Water, and Electric

The connection to utilities, water, and electric for the site is critical. Regardless of whether you have a generator to supply the power needed to run the site, you will need water and actual electricity to test and install any household goods.

Improving your building and construction projects is crucial, and partnering with professional home builders in Townsville can ensure that the construction is top-notch, safeguarding your company’s reputation against any substandard building outcomes. Furthermore, it can be such that these buildings cause harm or safety issues around improper construction. Therefore, the tips provided above will serve to ensure that your building and renovation works are as professionally done as possible.

How to Optimize a Paid Search Campaign

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Paid Search Campaign|How to Optimize a Paid Search CampaignPPC campaigns rely heavily on data, but often, there is so much data available that it can muddy the waters. All PPC campaigns need a goal. Otherwise, progress will be limited, and it will be impossible to verify how successful the campaign is/was. Read on to learn how to optimize a paid search campaign.

Budget Allocation

Before the campaign starts, optimize your budget, and decide how much budget you have allocated and where. It is usually sensible to allocate a reasonable proportion of the budget to your brand’s keywords but remember to allocate money to keywords that convert well, too. Regularly review the number of impressions you are getting and adjust your budget accordingly.

Allocate your budget according to which channel performs best. This is important when you are targeting multiple channels or running several paid search campaigns concurrently. Some channels will show a higher conversion rate, but there may be supporting channels that also play a crucial role in those conversions.

Adjust Bids for Time and Location

While adjusting bids for keywords is important, it can also be useful to adjust bid settings for time and location. Look at when you get the most impressions and exclude times when performance is low. This maximizes your budget and results.

Location performance data is equally important. There is little point in allocating a budget to a wide area if most of the locations within that area perform poorly. Focus on key locations that perform well and allocate more of your budget to them.

Search Partners

Whether you are using Google or focusing on a different search engine, like Bing, pay attention to your search partners. Low-performing search partners can be excluded.

Generally speaking, you have to work with both good and bad partners when you use Google and Bing, but tools like this Bing Syndicated Partners spam list from Digital Strike are very useful for identifying less valuable search partners that have no real traffic or fake traffic.

Optimize Landing Pages

Don’t overlook the value of a great landing page. After all, it is pointless spending time and money on a paid search campaign if a poor landing page kills your conversion rate. Bear in mind that a good landing page can really boost conversions, so it is worth investing some of your budget in making improvements to the layout, navigation, and sales copy.

Keyword Performance

Continually review the performance of your chosen keywords against your end goals. If some keywords are not performing as well as you had hoped, despite optimizing location and time, and also landing pages, it may be worth getting rid of them so you can spend more on better-performing keywords.

Review Your Audience Demographic

There will likely be some audience segments that perform better than others. For example, your brand might appeal more to women, or teens. Make adjustments as the campaign progresses and adjust your bids accordingly.
Other areas worth optimizing include how well pages perform on different devices and how your keywords are matched on search queries.

Have You Outsourced Your Marketing Yet?

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Outsource Marketing|Have You Outsourced Your Marketing Yet?When was the last time you took a close look at your marketing efforts? It’s one of the most important aspects of your business and when you don’t create the right marketing strategy, you’ll struggle with your branding and attracting new customers. What happens, though, if your in-house marketing team isn’t up to scratch? What happens if you have too many competitors and you can’t quite get your footing in the market at all?

You may not have the expensive budget and you may not have the know-how to know where to get started. You might not even have a team of SEO experts, or digital marketing managers. You might not know about how to get your brand into social media. There are so many things that you may not have a clue about because you are too busy running a business – and that’s fine! You’re a business owner, you’re not supposed to know everything that there is to know about marketing. However, you do need to consider hiring the experts. This brings us to the burning question: have you outsourced your marketing yet?

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Implementing the right digital marketing strategy is vital to your business, and we’ve got so many reasons below that you should look at outsourcing your business marketing to those who live and breathe it!

  1. Your resources are spoken for. The chances are that you have a limited budget for your business – and you wouldn’t be alone in that. As a smaller business owner, you might find it easier to manage your budget when you outsource your marketing. You’ll spend your money in a way that is easy to manage, and this will also ensure that you are carrying out the correct marketing strategies all run by the experts.
  2. You’ll benefit from expert knowledge. You don’t have to know everything there is to know about marketing when there are others who specialize in it and can know everything on your behalf. When you outsource, you entrust your marketing strategy to a team of experts who do nothing else but marketing in all of its forms. You will acquire a whole team of experts working on your behalf when you choose to outsource and this can be everything that your business needs.
  3. Saving money. There are far fewer costs involved when you outsource your marketing. Small business owners who realize that they lack the resources to hire a full time team then see the benefits in saving money with one smaller fee compared to paying for the annual salaries and benefits of a team of people. Outsourcing will transfer all of the costs to the agency, which frees your budget, saves you money and ensures that your projects are managed by one team of people.
  4. A fresh perspective. There is nothing quite as helpful as getting a fresh set of eyes looking over your marketing strategy and all of your planning. The chances are that you are passionate about your business and you want it to do as well as possible. For that to work, you need to know that your marketing has been given the ‘once over’ by the right people. Outsourced marketing experts are absolutely the right people and they will ensure that you don’t put out something in your plan that’s going to cost you too much or prevent you from getting the views and the audience that you need. That fresh perspective can make a huge difference to your business.
  5. They’ve got the talent. When you hire outsourced agencies to work your marketing for you, you’ll be paying for superb talent. You no longer need to spend time training your employees in marketing, because you are hiring people who already know what to do. Time spent training your staff can be a drain. Outsourcing your marketing services will allow you to depend on someone else who already knows what they are doing.
  6. You can concentrate. When you don’t have any interruptions to your services, you are going to be able to get on with the work you’re doing and let the marketing happen outside of your business. Small business owners like you won’t have to worry about further interruptions in the service, and it enables you to continue on with your planning.
  7. You get to help to scale up or down. As a small business you’ll have your own goals to consider and when you know that you have a strong expert team outside your business, you can ensure that you have experts who can help you to scale up or down as needed. You can change your budget to change how much you invest in your marketing plan, or you can change your goals and then your marketing changes as a result. You can work carefully with the agency and they will help you to keep a handle on your marketing, working with you as needed.
  8. You can manage the risk. If you are ever worried about the risk of marketing your business, you can feel appeased by the agency that is working on your side. Hiring a digital marketing expert to work with you is going to help you to avoid risks with your marketing and you’ll get to know how to balance your relationship with an agency, too. It’s always a risk – well, it feels like one – when you deal with an outsourced agency. You don’t know the people you’re dealing with just yet, so it takes some time.

Putting your marketing strategy into the hands of an agency of people that you don’t know is always brand new as an experience. With this, you can outsource your marketing and ensure that you feel comfortable and confident that you’re going to be making the right decision for your business in the first place. Marketing is a must if you want your business to succeed. If you want your business to do well, it needs marketing that matters, so let the outsourced agencies help you and you’ll see how far you grow!