A boom lift, also known as a cherry picker or man lift, is a type of aerial work platform that provides temporary access to inaccessible areas, often at height. It operates with a hydraulic arm that extends outward and upward, with a platform or bucket at the end for the operator. Boom lifts are commonly used in construction, warehouse management, maintenance, and other industries that require high-reach tasks.

Three Main Takeaways about Boom Lifts:

1. Safety: Boom lifts present significant safety concerns. Operators need to be properly trained to handle these machines, which are large, heavy, and capable of causing serious harm if misused.
2. Versatility: One of the most significant advantages of boom lifts is their versatility. They’re extensively used in construction, maintenance, film, and many more industries. Their extendable arm and bucket allow users to access hard-to-reach areas, making them invaluable for various tasks.
3. Maintenance: Routine and proper maintenance is key to prolonging the lifespan of a boom lift. Regular inspection from certified professionals is necessary to keep the system performing optimally and prevent accidents.

Featured Partner for Equipment Parts Learn More on EquipmentShares's website Shop OEM and Aftermarket Parts  Sorted by Manufacturer Fast Shipping and Customer Service

The Significance of a Boom Lift

A boom lift, also known as a cherry picker or man lift, is a critical piece of equipment in construction and maintenance due to its functionality and safety features. It’s primarily used to safely lift workers to elevated, hard-to-reach areas, reducing the risk of accidents that ladders or scaffolding might pose. A boom lift promotes efficiency as it can smoothly maneuver and reach heights with versatility and precision, preventing delays in tasks such as painting, cleaning, repairing, or installing fixtures.

Without the boom lift’s lifting and reaching capabilities, certain jobs would be impossible to complete or take considerably more time and effort. Therefore, the boom lift is significant in various industries and is often vital for ensuring project success and safety.

See Also: Mini Excavators: Type, Importance, How to Use

Safety Tips with Boom Lifts

Operating a boom lift requires careful attention to safety to prevent accidents and ensure the well-being of operators and others in the vicinity. Here are some safety tips for operating a boom lift:

1. Proper Training: Only trained and certified operators should operate a boom lift. Comprehensive training should cover equipment operation, safety procedures, and emergency protocols.
2. Pre-Operation Inspection: Before using the boom lift, conduct a thorough pre-operation inspection to check for any damage, leaks, or malfunctions. Ensure all safety devices, including harnesses and guardrails, are in good working condition.
3. Stable Ground: Set up the boom lift on firm and level ground. Use outriggers and stabilizers as needed to increase stability.
4. Weight Limit: Never exceed the boom lift’s maximum weight capacity. Consider the combined weight of operators, tools, and equipment to stay within the safe limits.
5. Harness and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Always wear a full-body harness and attach it to the boom lift’s designated anchor point. Additionally, wear appropriate PPE, including a hard hat, safety glasses, gloves, and high-visibility clothing.
6. Clear Work Area: Ensure the work area is clear of obstacles and people. Keep bystanders and non-essential personnel at a safe distance during operation.
7. Weather Conditions: Avoid operating the boom lift during adverse weather conditions such as high winds, storms, or lightning.
8. Smooth Movements: Make slow and controlled movements with the boom lift. Avoid abrupt starts, stops, or rapid movements to maintain stability.
9. Be Mindful of Overhead Hazards: Watch for overhead obstacles such as power lines, branches, or other structures. Maintain a safe distance from these hazards.
10. Stay on the Platform: Never stand or climb on the guardrails or attempt to reach outside the platform while the boom lift operates.
11. Communication: Establish clear communication between the operator and ground personnel. Use hand signals or two-way radios to convey important information.
12. Emergency Procedures: Familiarize yourself with the emergency procedures for the specific boom lift model you are operating. Know how to lower the platform in case of power failure or other emergencies.
13. Battery/Energy Source Safety: If batteries power the boom lift, follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for charging, storage, and handling of batteries. For fuel-powered lifts, handle fuel safely and keep fuel containers away from ignition sources.
14. Travel with Boom Lowered: Lower the boom and secure all equipment before moving the lift to a new location. Avoid moving the boom lift with the platform raised.
15. Parking and Storage: When not in use, park the boom lift in a designated area and engage the parking brake. Store the boom lift in a secure location.

See Also: When Will We See Autonomous Truck on Construction Sites

How Boom Lifts are Used

A boom lift, a key construction and maintenance equipment piece, is critical in various tasks requiring high-reach applications. It is designed to help workers safely reach elevated and hard-to-reach areas, thus enhancing efficiency and productivity.

A boom lift is typically used for construction, window cleaning, painting, installation, tree trimming, and many other tasks involving high areas. Not only does it maximize safety by reducing the risk of falls, but it also expedites the job by providing a stable platform to work from. The boom lift is more than just a high-reach device. It’s an essential tool that optimizes operational efficiency by enabling tasks to be completed quickly and effectively on a large scale.

One particular advantage is its versatility and flexibility, maneuvering in various directions – up, down, and sideways. Bigger versions of this equipment can extend to great heights, with some models reaching up to 185 feet. It’s important to note that using this equipment requires proper training to ensure the safety of operators and those in the immediate vicinity.

Featured Partner for Equipment Parts Learn More on EquipmentShares's website Shop OEM and Aftermarket Parts  Sorted by Manufacturer Fast Shipping and Customer Service

Examples of Boom Lift Use

1. Building Maintenance and Repairs: Maintenance crews often employ boom lifts to repair or clean the exterior of tall residential or commercial buildings. For example, if some window panes of a high-rise building need to be replaced or if some outdoor light fixtures need to be fixed, a boom lift would be employed to bring the crew to the appropriate height.
2. Construction Industry: In a new high-rise structure construction project, boom lifts might transport materials and workers to higher levels of scaffolding. They can lift heavy materials to higher floors, assist with installing windows or ventilation systems, and provide a secure platform for construction workers operating at heights.
3. Tree Care Services: Tree surgeons often use boom lifts to trim tall trees. A tree surgeon can safely reach the desired height using a boom lift and carry out their work effectively. This process maintains the tree’s health and ensures the safety of people and property beneath it.

See Also: Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM): Meaning. Examples, and More

Differences between Boom Lift and Scissor Lift

Featured Partner for Equipment Parts Learn More on EquipmentShares's website Shop OEM and Aftermarket Parts  Sorted by Manufacturer Fast Shipping and Customer Service

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: What is a boom lift?

A: A boom lift, also known as a cherry picker or man lift, is a type of aerial work platform that allows workers to reach high or inaccessible areas. It has a platform or bucket at the end of a hydraulic lifting system attached to a grounded base.

Check out boom lift parts from our featured partner – EquipmentShare!

• Telescopic Boom Lift Parts
• Articulating Boom Lift Parts
• Genie Lift Parts
• Skyjack Lift Parts

Q: How high can a boom lift reach?

A: The reach of a boom lift greatly depends on the specific model, but they can typically reach heights anywhere from 30 feet to 180 feet.

Q: What is the difference between a boom lift and a scissor lift?

A: A scissor lift can only move vertically and is limited to working directly overhead, whereas a boom lift can extend in all directions, providing more flexibility and reach.

Q: Who can operate a boom lift?

A: Only trained and certified professionals can operate a boom lift due to safety precautions. Operator certification usually involves both classroom and hands-on training.

Q: What safety precautions should be observed when using a boom lift?

A: Operators should always wear a harness, ensure the lift is on stable ground before ascending, keep the work area clear of people and obstacles, and never exceed the weight limit.

Q: Can boom lifts be used indoors?

A: Yes, boom lifts can be used indoors, provided there is sufficient space. However, certain boom lifts may require ventilation due to emissions.

Q: What types of tasks are boom lifts used for?

A: Boom lifts are commonly used in construction, maintenance, warehouse stocking, painting, tree work, and any tasks that require reaching high or inaccessible areas.

Q: Which type of boom lift should I use for my project?

A: It depends on the specific requirements of your project – the height, reach, indoor/outdoor setting and weight limit would determine the type of boom lift required.

Q: Is the boom lift electric or diesel-powered?

A: Boom lifts come in both electric and diesel models. Electric ones are quieter and better for the environment and are typically used indoors, while diesel models are used for construction where more power might be needed.

Sources for More Information

• JLG Industries
• EquipmentShare
• Genie Lift
• Skyjack
• Construction Equipment Guide

Image Credit: EquipmentShare; Thank you!

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Before writing your essays, you must be certain that you have the best topic to work on. Many candidates encounter challenges working on their tasks because they can’t pick the correct topics for their papers. With this post, we will look at different methods to assist students in picking a topic for a synthesis essay. Please read on for more!

A synthesis essay is a document that utilizes information from multiple sources to develop new ideas, concepts, or arguments. Individuals should first understand this paper to identify the best topics to work with.

Drafting a reliable synthesis essay topic requires one to focus on their coursework. This enables the individual to detect the best approach for their papers. Sometimes, you’ll get a topic from your tutors to work on. Writing your essay should be simple if this is the case because you’ll only need to research relevant data to back up the topics provided.

However, many tutors would want to test the competence of their students by subjecting them to the task of developing a topic for their essays. Developing multiple synthesis essay topics by engaging a reputable paper writing service is much easier. Such a platform can present you with sample essay topics besides providing a pro writer to draft one for your essays.

3 Factors to Consider When Searching for the Right Synthesis Essay Topic

Your essay report should revolve around the topic you are handling. It is incumbent upon students to draft flawless copies with logical flow after reading through the theme of their writing. There are various factors to consider for developing a good topic for a synthesis essay. These will include:

Nature of the audience

Who is going to read your essay? What audience do you anticipate? Knowing your readers will enable you to develop a subject that satisfies their demands. A marketing student will introduce different advertisement contents when selling their services to an audience. Similarly, writing synthesis essays would require the same approach. A writer should know what the audience demands. However, many tutors provide students with the topics for their tasks. It can be possible to tailor your essays per the audience only if you develop your topic besides what the tutor provides.

The scope of your essay

The length of a synthesis paper can vary depending on various factors. This also affects the topic you will use for your assay. A longer synthesis essay requires a wider topic. A longer essay requires a lot of backup information. You can prepare well by securing the research resources before engaging your papers. It is incumbent upon scholars to secure enough time to write a longer essay because you’ll explore multiple sources and evaluate the content before selecting the right one for your papers.

A short synthesis essay, on the contrary, will contain a narrow topic. First, you will introduce a subject and then narrow it down to multiple sub-topics. Ensure that you pick the right one from these subtopics for your essay. A narrow topic will enable you to focus on a particular area.

Understand first the scope of your writing to determine the type of topic you will consider for the synthesis essay. Luckily, students can research various academic websites to secure reliable tips on how to develop such topics.

Type of essay

A short essay will indicate the introduction, body, and conclusion sections. On the other hand, a longer one can include these three sections and various others depending on the essay type, writing guidelines, and tutors’ instructions.

Utilizing a narrow topic for a short paper will be best because you don’t have to explore more backups for your papers. You’ll have to utilize a broader topic for longer papers like research papers, term papers, or theses. Remember always to determine the writing style for use in your synthesis essay. This should guide you in determining the type of your essay, besides giving you a heads up on how to format the final documents.

Steps in Writing a Synthesis Essay

Before engaging with your task, you’ll evaluate the topic at hand. What is the aim of your writing? You can determine this by rechecking the topic sentence.
Many students fail to draft their essays accordingly because they lack prior information about the task. Your topics should be simple to avoid confusion when searching reliable websites for backup data. See Forbes guide for how to write an essay.

Additionally, students can inquire about a particular subject from their tutors after reading without understanding the writing instructions. Sometimes, your tutor might be away, so you’ll have no option but to rely on websites offering online writing solutions.

Research

Researching is crucial for securing enough data to back up your writing. However, you can also research when searching for the best topics for a synthesis essay. Multiple academic websites offer first-hand information that can be relevant to your writing. It is crucial to select a genuine platform for such help.

Research also enables students to engage in multiple research work related to their writing. By this, individuals can securely utilize such information as backup and cite the sources as references. Always consider the topic of your essays when researching.

Outline

An outline should guide your entire writing process. It also enables one to complete the assignment using less time.

When considering the outline of your papers, you must understand how to present the various sections included in synthesis essays. You will include the introduction, body, and conclusion sections for a short essay.

An introduction explains the aim of your paper to an audience. You will capture the thesis statement in this section, which signifies the topic you are working on. The introduction helps to hook the audience to your writing.

The body section captures the relevant backup data for your essay. Each paragraph will present a different approach or opinion selected by the writer. Moreover, the backup should always support the topic of your paper. Always separate ideas from different paragraphs and link them with transitional words or phrases.

The conclusion is a summary section for an essay. It expresses the final thoughts of the writer. It should be short in length. Always indicate your final judgment in this section. Remember always to reintroduce the thesis statement of your essay. Doing so helps to relate your work to the topic.

Remember always to relate your content to the topic when outlining these sections. Every section plays a major role in ensuring that you achieve the aim of your writing.

Proofreading

Why is it necessary to proofread your topic or the entire synthesis essay? One primary aim of proofreading a document is to check for errors. The topic should be simple and easy to understand. Sometimes, students go outside the topic and present unworthy reports. Proofreading your synthesis essay lets you determine if you presented the right report.
Proofreading the entire essay allows one to identify blunders and amend them asap. Use reliable platforms to countercheck your documents if you have a larger report. Grammarly, for instance, allows free checks for documents. Ensure that you quickly edit the essay before presenting it to your tutors.
Topic selection for various documents can be challenging, but this should never compromise your general performance. Writers working on synthesis essays can engage multiple websites offering sample copies. You can utilize such examples to detect the right direction for your papers. Online samples are relevant because they will also provide the recommended format for your documents. With the sample, you’ll know how to draft topics and support them in your papers.

Qualities of Worthy Synthesis Essay Topics

What qualities should you consider when writing essay topics?

• Simple – A simple topic is easier to engage. You don’t have to research multiple sources to get a direction for your writing. Besides, simple topics don’t confuse the audience who will review your work.
• Educative – Use a topic that educates the audience. Readers should find valuable data when reading your synthesis essays. It is thus crucial to research multiple sources before selecting one to back up your topics. The sources should be genuine, and this will prevent you from plagiarism accusations, which is gross misconduct in academic and professional settings.
• Current – A current topic can be interesting to engage with because you will interact with facts that interest the audience. Constantly evaluate multiple educational websites to ensure that you can capture current affairs.\
• Debatable – A debatable topic allows the audience to contemplate the matter. A good synthesis essay should enable the readers to think. However, it must relate to your career discipline and adhere to the recommended writing guidelines.

Summary

It is always vital to constantly submit genuine essay reports. By so doing, you prove that you are competent. Besides, this shows that any reader can utilize your work for educational or research purposes.
Moreover, becoming a pro writer requires hard work and patience. Be quick to master the proper writing guidelines. Also, consider using the right topic for your synthesis essay, which should be possible with the above tips. With all the effort, you can constantly submit worthy essays and improve your academic performance.

The post Drafting Top-Notch Synthesis Essay Topics – Guide for Beginners appeared first on ReadWrite.

New technologies have the potential to make supply chains more efficient and more transparent than ever before. Unfortunately, implementing the right technologies in the right way is often easier said than done. Here are tips for selling smart supply chain solutions.

Every company is filled with people who have different opinions about which technologies can boost performance, and most are eager to share theirs.

If you’re selling smart supply chain solutions, talking with the right people is essential to your success. On the other hand, talking with the wrong people can cost a Fortune 500 company billions of dollars.

Know Your Audience

There’s a lot on the line when it comes to making supply chains smarter, and two kinds of people will usually influence the process. First, there are techies. I know techies well because I was one. Coming out of college, I had two engineering degrees and zero knowledge of the way a supply chain operation worked. Techies have a seemingly instinctive inclination to try to force new technology into use, but that’s not always productive.

The ultimate litmus test of any new technology is whether it can be used in a real-time operations environment consistently. 

The people who end up making that call are in the second group. These are the operations people. They’re typically the end-users, and if you get them to buy into new technology, getting buy-in across the value chain becomes a relatively straightforward process.

Get to the End-User

In my own career, I’ve been fortunate to be a part of teams that achieved pioneering feats in biotech and the oil and gas sector, and now at ThroughPut, where we’re building artificial intelligence-powered supply chain solutions. I’ve found that the key to successful technology implementations is getting to the right end-user fast.

You want to involve people who understand your goals and the challenges you face because they’ve seen them before. Anyone who is not the end-user will end up being a bottleneck in the implementation process.

I’ve worked with probably 25% of the global Fortune 500 supply chain over the past three years, and I’ve noticed that people will often introduce you to someone they think is an end-user, but it’s rarely the person you actually want.

Recently, for instance, I met with a client’s innovation team, which should have been followed by a meeting with operations. Instead, the organization brought in its techies to audit our software platform and see whether we had parallel capabilities to other systems.

The problem with the above scenario is that the techies aren’t the end-users of our tool. The operations people — who said they were “fighting for their lives” in the face of pressing operational problems — needed a solution fast.

Ultimately, we were able to get the technology to the people who needed it, but the process took 10 months. Had it started with the right introductions, it could have been wrapped up in three.

Straight to the Top

ThroughPut has worked with clients in more than 15 industries, and I’ve observed patterns that not many companies are in a position to see. That’s why I can confidently say that if you want to demonstrate the value of the smart supply chain, skip the techies. They assess tech, not operational problems.

Don’t waste time with supply chain and procurement departments either. Supply chain managers and professionals aren’t typically working with operations in real-time, so they often have an incomplete picture of operational needs.

Instead, go straight to the C-suite. Family business owners, CEOs, and chief operating officers are doers; show them how your technology allows them to do more, and they’ll embrace it. No one understands the pain of missing deliveries, unhappy customers, and critical delays like the ones steering the ship.

Similarly, chief financial officers care about return on investment. They have real problems to solve, and they understand how more responsive supply chains can improve earnings per share or cash flow. Demonstrate the financial value your solution adds, and they can make all the decision bottlenecks evaporate.

State of the Supply Chain

While some forward-thinking companies are starting to explore the impact of AI on logistics, most tech firms aren’t yet having serious conversations about smart supply chain.

A recent Forrester survey found that AI is used far more in marketing, product management, and customer support than in supply chain management despite the fact that businesses are losing thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on supply chain inefficiencies each year.

According to Gartner, 87% of businesses lack business intelligence maturity, meaning they don’t have the infrastructure to take full advantage of AI solutions. Most tech firms are moving in the right direction: digitizing assets, migrating IT infrastructure and data to the cloud, and maybe even working with blockchain ledgers. None of this is exactly groundbreaking, and we still have a long way to go.

If you’re selling smart supply chain solutions, follow these tips to save time and help drive the smart supply chain revolution forward:

1. Focus on end-users.

If there isn’t an operations person in the room — a true end-user of your technology — don’t take the meeting. Everyone is part of a digital transformation these days. Make sure you’re talking to someone who has real-world experience managing freight and a real understanding of operations.

Otherwise, the conversation isn’t worth your time. You might be educating an audience on the future of supply chain, but you’ll see very little immediate impact.

2. Identify problems and solutions.

You’ll need to come prepared for meetings with decision-makers. Make sure you’ve identified a part of the supply chain that has a persistent problem and demonstrates at least three ways your technology can help. Show your expertise and ask good questions about alignment and specific pain points.

3. Avoid ‘innovation managers.’

Like techies and middle management, innovation managers tend to be people with little experience in operations. That’s often why they’re scouting new technology instead of making critical operational decisions.

4. Find Kaizen AI experts.

These are people who are responsible for continuous improvement of business processes. They’re always looking for technology that can save money and time and increase throughput.

Getting your supply chain solution into the right hands can be an exhausting process, but it doesn’t have to be. Be strategic about the conversations you have and focus on getting your technology in front of the people it can help the most. Chances are, they’ll be glad you did.

Try Out Productivity Tools We Are Using

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Any business owner will tell you there is a massive chasm between “concept” and “execution.” More than half of the time, business owners and entrepreneurs will come up with amazing concepts — foolproof plans. And more than half of the time, it’s the execution phase that kills them. Here’s how OKR’s completely transformed our culture.

The new startup using OKR’s.

As a relatively new startup, we, too, experienced a fair amount of struggle during our execution phase. We fell prey to some of the more common “new business killers.” Business killers are the roadblocks that could, if left unaddressed, send a brand new startup careening off the road.

We lacked the foresight we needed to successfully predict the potential challenges we would face once we started expanding our team and we focused too much on the “big picture.”

These oversights very nearly shot us back to square one.

Thankfully, we stumbled across the concept of OKRs—an exciting system, and one that merited a trial run. Not going to lie; it was bumpy at first (as is par for the course when implementing something new), but we kept going.

The process took less than a year for us to realize that OKRs were the solution (and salvation) we’d desperately been looking for.

WHAT ARE OKRS?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. Founded by Intel Corporation and now widely used by industry giants like Google, Dropbox, Oracle, and Twitter, these three simple letters can be considered actual game-changers.

By definition, an OKR is a tool used by organizations to set company-wide goals and measure productivity through milestones. As the name suggests, there are two parts to this tool: (1) the objectives and (2) the key results. Both must be clearly defined in order for the OKR to work.

Objectives

Objectives are short-term goals that are quick, simple, and straightforward. They should also be achievable but ambitious, realistic but inspirational. For example:

• increase profits by 20%
• improve profit margins by 15%
• diversify and grow revenue streams.

Although objectives should be clearly defined, and in fact, can often be summarized in a sentence or phrase, it is extremely challenging to choose the best one for your company—which is why many managers often choose three to five high-level objectives per department, per quarter.

Key Results

Key Results are numerically-defined expectations or deliverables you can expect from each objective. They are the milestones you use to measure your progress and how close you are to reaching your goals.

Just as an employee or department can have three to five high-level objectives, each objective should have—ideally—two to five key results. And all of these results must be measurable.

Objectives “increase profits by 20%” could be broken down into key results like:

• find a company to outsource distribution operations to and effectively reduce distribution costs by 15% – 25%
• create a marketing campaign to promote this years’ season-end sale to double revenue from online stores
• launch promotional materials or reward referrals to increase sales in physical stores by 10% at the end of the quarter

The point of key results is that they are measurable. Quantifiable. They cannot be broad, vague statements like “reduce distribution costs,” or “increase in-store sales.” Those kinds of statements are better suited to be objectives.

Key results need to be quantifiable and subjective so that you can track your progress and know how close (or far) you are to hitting your goals.

WHY USE OKRS? (OUR STORY)

Ours is a digital marketing agency that offers a bunch of online marketing services (think SEO, social media management, email campaigns, and the like). We started with limited resources, a handful of members, and one shared goal.

Because of our humble beginnings, everyone needed to move in the same direction. We couldn’t afford to have one member doing their own thing over here while two others did their own job over there.

There had to be constant communication and accountability—otherwise, we knew we wouldn’t last long. With smaller numbers, it was easy enough to keep everybody in check.

But as the company grew, so did the challenges.

Pre-OKRs

Before we introduced any organizational tool or system to track our progress, most of our members had their own ideas or preconceived notions of how they could contribute to the overall success of the company. This meant that they were all working on their own individual goals that the managers frankly knew nothing about.

We had many short-win successes. However, because these achievements were so disconnected from the company’s own goals, they barely made a dent in the greater scheme of things.

Success in the wrong areas led to people feeling disheartened, feeling like they weren’t doing enough, or feeling like their own achievements didn’t matter. Enter a couple of years of absolute chaos and minimal progress.

Everyone was going in 20 different directions in the hopes of making some advancement. Our team was exerting so much time, effort, and energy to make something stick.

But without any clue what we were trying to achieve and no milestones to direct us, we felt like we were always back at square one. We were working harder, not smarter, and it was taking a toll.

Do you know how ducks always look so calm and serene above water, but then you go beneath the surface, and you see that they’re paddling madly to get around? That was us. We were doing so much to stay afloat. Sound familiar?

What Went Wrong?

We wanted our team to be accountable for their own tasks, but this practice encouraged isolation. We didn’t have a unifying goal in place, which means members of the same department had different ideas of “success.” Doing their own thing meant they were working to achieve vastly different objectives.

While we, as a company, value initiative, and accountability, we realized almost too late that our current business model was not scalable. We could still encourage independence within a system of goal-setting and productivity, but we didn’t have that system in place.

We first introduced OKRs into our model as a means of survival.

Post-OKRs

When we first came across OKRs, we saw them as merely a way to pull the company together. By giving each department one or two objectives to work towards and specific key results to mark their progress, we were able to get everyone roughly on the same page. After a month or two of using this system, we managed to pull our heads above water.

Once we achieved that sort of stability, we realized that we could take this system even further. We could continue to use OKRs as a viable and verified system to keep our company objectives simplified—and thus, in order.

Company Objective —broken down Team Objectives broken downà Individual Objectives

By breaking down our overall objectives into smaller Team Objectives.

We were able to give each department something to focus on. For instance, before we were giving the Copywriting Team a vague, loosely defined goal like “increase registered website users,” or “close more sales.”

Round two, we gave them more specific objectives that were tailored to what they knew—for instance, “improve blog engagement,” or “drive more traffic through keyword usage and placement.”

From there, these Team Objectives were broken down even further into Individual Objectives.

Each member of each team now had objectives that were short-term, attainable yet challenging, and would help the team as a whole reach the overarching goal.

For instance, one objective could be “increase main keyword usage in each blog from three repetitions to six repetitions.” Alternatively, another purpose could be “start ending each blog with a thought-provoking question.”

By breaking one huge goal down into smaller, bite-sized goals, people were able to sync up their successes and contribute

REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS: IMPLEMENTING OKRS

We’ve already seen some incredible results. And we would love for other businesses to experience firsthand just how powerful this simple system can be.

We’re going to share a couple of things we learned regarding OKR implementation:

Stick with two (2) to five (5) items per list.

Early on, one of the biggest mistakes we made when listing our OKRs was listing too many objectives. And underneath those objectives, we’d have about seven or eight Key Results.

You want to keep your objectives and key results straight and to-the-point, regardless of how many teams you have or how many individuals are in each team. Too many items can make it hard for people to focus on each goal, especially since they need to work within a timeframe.

Let’s put it this way: two groups are given 15 minutes to answer an essay test. The first group gets a test with only three essay questions. The second group receives a quiz with ten essay questions.

Which group do you think will yield better, more eloquent answers?

We recommend two (2) objectives (three, max), with three to five (3-5) critical results under each. On the website Medium, former Google employee Niket Desai shared Uber’s OKRs as an example of “OKR best practices.”

You’ll see in the lists that follow that Uber only has two (2) significant objectives and no more than three (3) key results for each.

Objective #1: Increase drivers in the Uber system.

Key Result #1—increase driver base in each region by 20%

Key Result #2—increase driver average session to 26 hours/weekly in all active regions

Objective #2: Increase geographic coverage of drivers

Key Result #1—increase coverage in San Francisco to 100%

Key Result #2—increase coverage for all active cities to 75%

Key Result #3—decrease pickup time to <10 min. in any coverage area during peak hours

Regular check-ins are a must.

As a company, we greatly encourage independence and self-assessment; we also believe that regular team meetings are a crucial part of staying productive. We feel it’s a good way for everyone—from the admin to the team leads to the project managers—to get caught up in the company’s status and progress as a cohesive whole.

We’re not big fans of daily meetings that eat up 30-40 minutes of everyone’s time.

Think: just because every single employee has to give a five to eight minute report of what they accomplished yesterday and what they’re hoping to accomplish today. Such daily practices are fine within groups or within departments, but scheduling a company-wide meeting for it could do more harm than good.

Daily updates through team message boards, EOD email reports, or shared calendars work just as well, too. As a business owner, project manager, or team leader, consistent communication and up-to-the-minute reports are crucial for keeping people in-line and on-track.

We highly recommend regular check-ins; weekly meetings, end-of-the-month all-hands meetings, bi-monthly team lead check-ins, quarterly OKR planning sessions. These only need to last 20-30 minutes.  These short reports can do wonders to keep your team—and yourself—accountable. But keep them short.

OKRs must be ambitious.

OKRs go hand-in-hand with improvement. One of your overall, long-term goals must be continuous improvement—otherwise, this system isn’t going to work for you.

Let’s look at the Uber OKR example again. Note how the word “increase” shows up in almost every line. That’s because OKRs are all about helping your company do better than it did in the last month, year, or quarter.

If your objectives don’t entail pushing your business’s resources or improving areas that are already performing well, then you need to sit down and choose new ones—ones that preferably focus on bringing in more value to your team.

John Doerr, the author of Measure What Matters, makes it a point to mention that OKRs are being used by at least a dozen industry giants: Google, AOL, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Oracle, Twitter, Spotify, Disney, BMW, and Intel.

It’s worth taking a step back and mulling it over; if these powerhouses are using OKRs to scale their businesses and keep their productivity and check, why can’t small- and medium-sized businesses do the same?

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It’s a great time to work in IT, with companies in nearly every industry scrambling to hire more tech talent. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for software developers and software engineers is projected to increase 22% between 2020 and 2030, outpacing the predicted 4% growth rate average for other occupations.

To look at it from another perspective, the U.S. job market currently faces a shortage of 472,000 software engineers, which is why hiring tech talent is one of the biggest challenges employers face.

The IT talent gap has been well documented; it made headlines before the pandemic forced companies to accelerate digital transformation initiatives. Back in 2019, CNBC reported that roughly 918,000 IT positions were unfilled in companies across sectors. That number is undoubtedly higher today, with organizations of all kinds increasingly dependent on software to work, collaborate, and communicate remotely.

Given this shortage, it seems absurd to think that any developers are being underutilized at work. But, unfortunately, at many companies, that’s exactly what’s happening. If you find yourself in a similar situation, it might be time to reassess your staffing strategy.

Ensuring Developers Are Better Utilized

Not every company with a roster of developers “on the bench” is mismanaging talent. For example, some large corporations can afford to keep IT talent on standby for when new initiatives arise. But if you’re leading a company with fewer than 200 people on staff yet have a surplus of idle developers, you’re doing something wrong (e.g., sales, hiring, staffing, allocations).

The Failure to Maximize Employee Productivity

A failure to maximize employee productivity is bad for business, and it can be anxiety-inducing for developers. When these employees see their skills not being utilized at work, they wonder whether they even have the right skills. They start to question the quality of their work and whether their billable rates are too expensive.

It takes 66 days to find good developer talent, and it’s 50% harder to find than other skills and competencies. That person on the bench? They could be doing something more rewarding. If you don’t want to miss out on opportunities or potentially lose talented employees, you’ll need to engage developers who are underutilized at work. Here are a few tips:

1. Look inside.

Business owners with a surplus of IT talent should seek opportunities to utilize their skills. To facilitate this search, a growing number of companies are exploring a relatively new concept: the internal talent marketplace. This approach allows organizations to connect developers with new opportunities — both internal and external. (After all, many companies are outsourcing developer work.) This improves engagement and retention.

Of course, you can also use periods of downtime to upskill developers to better prepare them for future objectives. Leading global enterprises have invested heavily in future-proofing their workforces, but upskilling doesn’t have to be a costly initiative. For example, roughly 73.7% of developers are autodidacts, so simply giving them time for self-directed learning can open up new opportunities.

2. Consider cross-training programs.

When assessing your workforce, it’s essential to understand that some key skills are not as easily quantifiable as a software developer’s job listing requirements. Chances are good that the developers you have on your bench are hungry to learn (see point above) and would likely be great candidates for managerial and leadership roles with a bit of soft-skill training. By the same token, employees who weren’t originally hired for a developer position might have the aptitude to learn basic programming skills.

Implementing a formal cross-training program within your organization could give your entire team new and exciting opportunities for professional growth.

When deciding who is the best fit for internal training programs, focus on the skills you want your employees to have in the near future rather than their past experiences and credentials. Just like in hiring, you’ll want to prioritize ability over qualifications to avoid creating unnecessary barriers to entry for capable employees.

3. Implement new internal initiatives.

You might’ve heard that Slack was originally developed as an internal tool for a small gaming company or that YouTube began as an online dating service. While you might not ideate the next big thing in tech from a conference room in your office, allowing otherwise idle developers to work on internal projects can open up a world of opportunities. This is true even if those projects fail or aren’t immediately profitable for your business.

Time on the bench should never be idle. You should always have internal projects to pursue when timely work isn’t straining your resources. Give your developers a framework for joining these initiatives, lay out a clear path for professional development, and foster an environment that rewards learning.

What now? Let your developers get to work. Then, everybody will feel a whole lot better.

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Today’s businesses need to be prepared for unforeseen impacts on their work. A Business Continuity Plan is an excellent way to do this; it consolidates everything you need to do when an outside event disrupts your business. But, of course, any Business Continuity Plan also needs regular testing to ensure it’s fit for purpose. 

We’ll be taking a look at an explanation of what a Business Continuity Plan is, what testing looks like, and how often you should be testing it.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

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A Business Continuity Plan explores how a business works after a disastrous event. It offers procedures in the face of fires, natural disasters, mass disease outbreaks, or data breaches. 

A key concern of today’s plans is data backups. Since many industries (like content marketing for saas) require extensive planning, we need to know our protected data. Other critical components of the plan include comprehensive contact details for staff and maintaining productivity on a short-term or long-term basis. 

If you employ a manual QA tester, you can understand a business continuity plan isn’t static. They require regular testing to ensure that they do what they’re supposed to. Testing also helps to spot any blind spots or areas for improvement.

Do I Need a Business Continuity Plan?

If the last few years have proved anything, it’s that nobody can really predict the future. As a result, unexpected events can completely upend our daily lives, and businesses can be severely compromised or go out of business altogether.

Invenio IT reported that in 2020, 51% of businesses worldwide didn’t have a business continuity plan. Given how dramatically the world of work has changed, that’s an oversight we literally can’t afford to make. As a result, 90% of businesses fail within a year if they can’t recover quickly from a disastrous event. 

A business’s inability to keep working in the face of adversity is a threat to customer acquisition. Even if you have a detailed customer onboarding template, customers will likely reject you if your business isn’t reliable. 

Business Continuity Plans demand significant investments of both time and resources. But they can be the difference between a business’s survival and its collapse.

How Do I Test My Plan?

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Today’s businesses can approach business continuity plan testing in several different ways. It’s important to understand that different test types share the same fundamental tasks—understanding your plan, putting it into practice, and identifying potential improvements. The difference lies in how closely you look at your plan and the resources you can commit.

You might want to take some inspiration from the quality assurance process of software testing. First, have a clear idea of what you want to look at or improve. Then, involve everyone who needs to be involved, and has a dedicated team of people assigned to the task.

Business Continuity Plan Review

A Business Continuity Plan review is the most straightforward approach to plan testing. It acts as a basic audit of your plan with key personnel—the main BCP (Business Continuity Plan) team, department heads, and some management staff. During the review, participants simply read through the plan and see if there are any obvious flaws. 

The rise of cloud services means it’s relatively easy to preserve modern-day business data. For example, if we’re calculating CSAT, we might use a cloud-based graph to track our progress. Although, don’t treat these as a silver bullet; make backups and keep a record of what cloud services you use.

This kind of test is easy to arrange and helps introduce your plan to new BCP team members. However, this test is also very lightweight. As a result, it lacks an in-depth assessment of a plan’s effectiveness and doesn’t communicate procedures (or benefits) to the broader workforce. 

Tabletop Testing

Also known as a structured walkthrough, tabletop testing is a simple roleplay scenario. A business’s key stakeholders come together to simulate a risk to the business, and see if they understand how to respond. A continuity plan needs human eyes on it; the more hands-on you can be, the better.  

Tabletop testing usually looks at a few different scenarios; participants review response procedures, outline responsibilities more clearly and see if they can improve the overall plan. If you’re just starting out, begin with something relatively simple like hacker attacks; these are both commonplace and relatively easy to thwart.

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This testing type is a great way to bring employees up to speed on what’s required of them. It takes an in-depth approach to the plan and usually brings together multiple departments. This makes understanding and amending the project much more straightforward.

At the same time, tabletop testing has significant requirements. It takes a long time to do properly, and it needs thorough documentation for it to be of any use at all. It’s also not as hands-on as other testing types; in many cases, you’re more talking about the plan rather than putting it into practice.

Walk-Through

This is the most ambitious form of continuity plan testing. Participants in a walkthrough carry out recovery actions (such as restoring backups and testing redundant systems), and anything else a business thinks is relevant. This involves the plan’s critical personnel and any relevant employees. 

It might also require traveling out of the office (for example, external data storage locations). Just as localization testing examines an app or website in different places, a walkthrough ensures all the components of your plan function wherever they’re located. 

This hands-on approach to testing gives you the most precise idea of how effective your recovery plan is. That said, it’s also the most resource-intensive. For example, carrying out a walkthrough demands a lot of investment from a business. It can also be quite challenging to arrange if you need several different colleagues to participate.

How Often Should I Test My Plan?

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Testing frequency depends on your business’ needs and the resources you have to work with. As you can see, detailed plan testing isn’t something you can do every day. Even at a basic level, it requires several people from several departments to be genuinely effective.

You also need to consider what you are testing for. Today’s businesses face multiple threats, but some are likelier than others. For example, if you work in an area susceptible to flooding, you may want to focus on your business’s flood response. That said, remember to consider commonplace threats, such as data breaches, to which a security assessment is a good response.  

At a minimum, it’s best to conduct one tabletop test per year for each key area of concern. This includes recovering from likely disasters, business continuity, incident response, to name but a few key areas of potential agitation. You should also aim to carry out an in-depth walkthrough every two years. Time-intensive tests like tabletop testing might need to be carried out on weekends to ensure you don’t compromise your work schedule.

What Else Should I Consider?

The essential part of any testing is documentation. Record your testing, with particular emphasis on anything actionable. You also need to follow up on these actions for the testing to be worth doing at all.

If you’ve made any significant changes to your business (like moving premises or changing the size of your workforce), make sure you increase the frequency of your testing—at least in the short term. These major shifts can have a dramatic impact on what your continuity plan looks like. 

Make sure you tell your wider workforce about your plan and encourage people to take part where necessary. This could shed light on new, valuable ideas, such as wiping sensitive files from your hard drives. 

By treating your Business Continuity Plan as an organic element (such as one that is open to revision and evolution), you’ll do an excellent job of keeping your business safe in the future.

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Coding boot camps have soared in popularity since their inception in the early 2010s. Course Report, an organization that conducts yearly market studies on boot camps, reports that nearly 25,000 coding boot camp graduates entered the job market in 2020 — up 39% from the previous year.

With the growth in popularity, however, has come an increase in price. Course Report also reports that the average coding boot camp costs more than $14,000. As costs increase, new opportunities for students to defer payments have surfaced, such as income share agreements, or ISAs, in which students don’t pay tuition until after they land jobs.

Rising Costs Mean Greater Risk

But many payback models come with risks. For example, a recent lawsuit filed against a coding boot camp is based on claims of false advertising around job placement rates that directly impacted students’ ISAs. And throughout history, there have been many predatory educational programs that have sold lies to bring in more revenue. Such instances resulted in rulings and regulations to protect students. However, it’s still true that tech training programs in the U.S. from for-profit enterprises face a complex balance of wanting to help students access better careers but needing to generate profits and returns for investors.

The bottom line is that the tech industry needs to look to new models for teaching coding skills that reduce students’ risk and financial burden.

Workforce initiatives and skilling pathways need to be more accessible to all Americans. While traditional college or university career pathways are an excellent option for some, there’s a large and growing pool of people in the U.S. for whom earning a four-year degree is unfeasible. The cost and risk of taking out student loans is a huge barrier, and many students can’t commit the necessary time while they work other jobs or care for families.

It’s Time to Create Realistic Opportunities

Workers today are interested in reskilling for new opportunities, and companies need more skilled tech workers.

But the time and money it takes to get a degree or go through a for-profit boot camp is often not an option for many.

For similar reasons, the same individuals who can’t take the traditional higher education pathways are still being left on the sidelines by boot camps.

It’s time to make opportunities more accessible and realistic for all. Exploring the following strategies can help the tech industry reduce the risk and financial burden of gaining new skills:

1. Create and support accessible, accelerated skilling pathways.

Coding boot camps do create a great talent pool. Still, to widen that pool for tech companies and create more accessible opportunities for job seekers, the tech industry needs to support other skilling pathways, such as free and accelerated digital job training courses, that open doors to individuals often shut out of other options.

Some options are not only free or affordable, but they also offer opportunities to learn skills part-time.

Because this format breaks down barriers presented by traditional education pathways and for-profit boot camps, it’s more accessible to those looking for career changes. It can produce a more diverse talent pool for tech companies.

Plus, getting more career changers into tech means bringing a wide and diverse set of transferrable soft skills into the industry.

2. Formalize apprenticeship programs.

Apprenticeship programs are great models for opening the door to more people. They allow entry-level workers to gain the specific skills they need to fill roles at a company while on the job and earning a wage. In this way, it minimizes risks for both employees and companies.

As employees learn precisely the skills they need while on the job, they can be sure they’re not risking time, money, and effort to learn potentially irrelevant skills or skills that could become irrelevant in the near future.

Companies benefit because they can mold apprentices to whatever skill sets they need. Instead of hoping candidates’ past experiences and education will serve them well in filling open roles, companies ensure candidates can do exactly what they need to fulfill current or future job responsibilities.

3. Upskill existing workers.

Even people who are already employed with a company might be interested in educational opportunities to learn new skills or sharpen their existing skill sets. Companies looking to fill tech roles can benefit from looking within their companies first to see whether anyone desires to learn new skills and move into a more technical career path.

When companies provide upskilling opportunities to current employees, they retain the talent they already have, provide accessible opportunities for employees to develop their careers, and contribute to a talent pool that will be able to fill future skills gaps.

Conclusion

Pursuing a career in technology has long been a hefty financial commitment for students — whether they’re following traditional university pathways or paying for coding boot camps.

Meanwhile, the tech industry has struggled for years to fill its skills gap and find adequate workers. Closing the gap will require the tech industry to support more accessible, financially viable opportunities for all.

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The pandemic altered everything about people’s lives, including how they interact with voice technology. The Smart Audio Report from NPR reveals that more people use their smart devices daily; the number of people using voice commands at least once per day increased by 6 percentage points from December 2019 to April 2020.

Before COVID-19, many workers were outside of their homes for eight hours or more. They didn’t have access to their smart devices, and they generally felt more comfortable using voice commands in private. But the shift to remote work meant more time at home and more opportunities to explore the technology.

This trend toward voice-activated tech shows no signs of stopping. More than 50% of employees would like to keep telecommuting, and about 25% want a mix of in-person and remote work, according to a study by Office Depot. As the routines people formed over the past year become firmly cemented, smart speakers and voice assistants will become mainstays of hybrid work.

How Voice Tech Can Evolve to Support Hybrid Workplaces

Voice technology has come a long way since Siri was first announced. During the pandemic, grocery stores and other retailers added voice tech and touchless payment options to self-checkout kiosks to provide safer experiences for customers. Researchers are also exploring how voice assistants can support the healthcare industry.

The future of voice technology is undoubtedly bright, but it will need to keep evolving to become a staple of the new hybrid workplace. People expect voice tech to fit naturally into existing workflows, so any obstacles or errors that dissuade adoption could spell trouble for the continuing uptake of voice-first technologies.

Here’s what will have to change as more remote workers purchase and use smart devices:

1. Algorithms need to be based on a variety of voices.

It’s clear that some voice recognition technology has been trained and programmed using perfect diction, “standard North American English,” and crystal-clear recordings. Unfortunately, these algorithms aren’t very useful in the real world.

Smart speakers and other devices need to be able to navigate ambient noise, background voices, regional dialects, international accents, imperfect pronunciations, speech impediments, and more before they can be helpful in the hybrid workplace. 

Thankfully, some companies are tackling these issues directly. I recently spoke with a woman whose child had a speech disability. They had spent hours in a Google recording studio to help improve the programming of the company’s assistants. Additionally, Apple has amassed a database of nearly 30,000 audio clips of speakers stuttering. Perfect voice recognition won’t happen overnight, but accounting for different ages, voice pitches, and other idiosyncrasies should help algorithms become as accurate as possible.

2. New users need a superlative experience.

A lot hinges on first experiences. When someone turns on their smart speaker or voice assistant and asks to place a call, they expect it to go through without issue. If the tech botches that first exchange, users will be less inclined to try it again in the future. This all ties back to basic learning behaviors.

While smart speakers tend to get all the press, the adoption rate of voice tech by smartphone users remains substantially higher. For smart devices to become more useful to hybrid workers, companies will need to prioritize the “wow” factor and pull out all the stops to make a great first impression.

For instance, can the tech be integrated with laptops and computers? Can devices be remotely controlled? These are the questions workers will be asking moving forward.

3. Voice technology training will need to become more diverse and inclusive.

There are plenty of examples of algorithms taking on biases, such as Amazon’s hiring assistant favoring men and a recidivism prediction tool called COMPAS misclassifying Black defendants as more likely to commit additional crimes. These inequities demonstrate that technology as a whole needs to do better as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In one study that looked at speech recognition tools from Amazon, Google, IBM, Apple, and Microsoft, the collective software was 16% more likely to misidentify words if the speaker was Black. This might not seem like a high percentage, but think about having to correct four out of every 25 words that you speak or type. Unless it’s addressed, this issue will prevent people from embracing voice technology.

As it did in numerous other areas, the pandemic accelerated the adoption of voice-activated technologies. With employees around the world demanding increased flexibility and safety precautions, voice tech has likely secured a permanent spot as a mainstay of the future of work.

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Workers today are displaying discontent with their jobs at unprecedented levels. In late July, for example, protesters in St. Louis congregated in an otherwise bustling drive-thru of a local McDonald’s. They were there to demand the corporation pay them at least $15 per hour — about $5 more than the current minimum wage in Missouri.

Worker discontent isn’t a problem unique to my home state, though. From Charlotte, North Carolina, to Detroit and Houston, workers are going on strike for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. And who can blame them?

As many of us transitioned to remote work during COVID-19, employees in low-wage, low-opportunity jobs like fast-food workers had to hunker down.

This often meant pulling longer hours under dangerous conditions with little to no hazard pay or sick leave.

The Hiring Problem

Walkouts aren’t the only issue employers are battling, though. As fast-food chains expand locations to match consumer spending, hiring can’t keep pace. “Help wanted” signs abound, but the restaurant industry was still 1.2 million employees short in March.

The internet has no shortage of pro-business pundits blaming the labor shortage on unemployment benefits. Stimulus payments, they’d like you to believe, have incentivized people to stay home and collect from the government.

Beyond further stigmatizing minimum-wage workers, this line of thinking is just plain wrong.

Missouri, for instance, was one of the first states to end federal aid, yet our labor market remains sluggish at best. And even though a quarter of Americans earned more money from unemployment than they would’ve by working — one-third still struggled to cover basic expenses like food, housing, and medical services.

When people can’t pay basic living expenses — it says a lot more about American employers than employees.

Done With Dead-End Jobs

The workforce needs a reboot, and it will take a serious culture shift among employers. Instead, many have turned to token offerings like signing bonuses and free iPhones in attempts to lure workers back. But these kinds of solutions simply won’t work because the problem extends far beyond incentivizing employees.

During the pandemic, many people realized that doing the same low-wage, low-skill job every day was no longer going to cut it.

The dead-end job has to die for people to reenter the job market.

We need to first examine the current skill sets of American workers and then determine how to equip them with more in-demand skills — something workers desperately want. A BCG study found that 68% of workers would retrain for a new role, but that willingness was closer to 70% for occupations hit hardest by the pandemic. Most people, however, can’t afford to get a second college degree or pay thousands for a training program. This is where employers can step in.

Upskilling in Practice

Last year, for instance, Amazon announced it would invest $700 million to upskill 100,000 employees (about one-third of its workforce). Similarly, Comcast created a program to upskill its customer support staff into software developers to fill open roles.

Programs like these are built to provide upward mobility, helping adults move from lower – to middle – to higher-skill work. When that blueprint is replicated throughout the market, it creates a more fluid and vibrant workforce. Offering a one-time material perk like a free phone won’t make a company a better place to work — and it certainly won’t create a self-sustaining talent pipeline.

Time to Prioritize Upward Mobility

There’s no returning to a pre-pandemic U.S. workforce. While it was once possible to make a living working in a fast-food restaurant, that hasn’t been the case for some time now. In St. Louis, for example, an MIT analysis shows the living wage for a single, child-free adult is $14.23 an hour. That number doubles with even one child in the household.

Upward mobility has stalled, and it simply doesn’t exist in most cases.

It’s no wonder the resignation rate was 2.4% in March. The writing was on the wall before COVID, though: A January 2020 report found that a lack of career progression was the top reason people were quitting their jobs — followed by low pay.

It’s Up to Employers

The gap we see between unemployed Americans and the rising number of open jobs tells us that employers aren’t offering workers what they require.

We need to build a workforce that opens up new opportunities for those just entering the market and regularly moves people into higher-skilled jobs — a career escalator if you will.

Employers who consistently and strategically move employees along a learning path, generating long-term success for them will reap great benefits for themselves as well.

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Business process automation, or BPA, is one of the more exciting movements in the business world. BPA promises greater efficiency, better output, lower costs, and all of the other secondary benefits that go along with these.

But until technology catches up, things will continue to lag behind. So the question is, what’s in store for 2022?

What is Business Process Automation?

As the business world becomes more technologically advanced, so do the tasks and processes that growing organizations use to remain competitive in the marketplace.

According to Laserfiche, “Business process automation (BPA) is the use of technology to automate repeatable, day-to-day tasks. It accelerates how work gets done by routing information to the right person at the right time through user-defined rules and actions. As a result, BPA helps organizations streamline processes such as employee onboarding, accounts payable, contract management and more.”

For a process to be “qualified” for BPA, it needs to meet certain criteria and factors. For example:

• The process should require consistency throughout the organization.
• It should be repeatable.
• The process should be somewhat predictable.
• It should be free from error (every single time).

The objective of BPA is to make processes more streamlined and cost-effective. In other words, these processes should reduce costs, lower inputs, increase profitability, and simultaneously require less manual effort and/or person-hours.

The Difference Between BPA and BPM

While the terms are used interchangeably, business process automation and business process management (BPM) are not the same thing. Whereas BPA uses technology to automate repeatable tasks, BPM is a collaboration between the business and IT to model and optimize business processes to meet larger strategic goals. To put it another way, BPM is a practice that looks at the organization as a whole, while BPA is a strategy for improving particular processes. Thus, BPM is the overarching ideology, while BPA refers to the individual action steps.

“A BPA and BPM combination can be powerful, as BPM outlines and provides an architecture for all of the business processes to be mapped and automated,” Red Hat explains. “When applied within a BPM practice, BPA can be used to continually monitor and improve process efficiencies.”

It’s always a good idea to have a BPM framework in place. Still, as we move into 2022, leading organizations are more focused on implementing specific BPA technology to improve efficiency and profitability in key areas of their businesses.

As such, that’s where innovation is focused right now.

The Top Trends in Business Process Automation

Innovation is booming in the BPA space. So while we could highlight dozens of individual ideas and innovations, we’ll keep it simple and focus on the biggest trends we see as we prepare to turn the calendar from 2021 to 2022.

1. End-to-End Organizational Visibility

From a management perspective, having gaps in your organizational visibility is dangerous. It allows small issues to fester under the surface and potentially proliferate into much larger problems down the road.

Thankfully, BPA solutions make it easier to enjoy end-to-end organizational visibility with few (if any) gaps.

For example, FinancialForce has a cloud-based professional services automation platform that allows businesses to easily manage teams across the entire organization with rich, real-time insights.

This includes the ability to schedule the right people with the right skills for the right projects at the right time. It also streamlines the traditionally finicky handoff that exists between sales and service. Departments can work together through a shared view of the customer pipeline instead of working in silos.

Platforms like this are becoming more commonplace in organizations of all sizes. Because once you get a system in place, it’s totally scalable and adaptable. (They’re so effective that you’ll wonder how you ever did without.)

2. Better Employee Onboarding

Your business is only as good as the people you have on your team. And if you want to have a productive team, it all starts with a strong onboarding process.

The onboarding process is where you make your first impression as an organization. If things get off on the wrong foot, it’ll compromise your ability to get maximum value out of your employees. However, if things start positively, it gives you a nice launching pad for bigger and better things.

BPA paves the way for streamlined and automated employee onboarding by eliminating endless paperwork, disjointed tasks, employee dissatisfaction, and low productivity. In addition, it ensures a smooth transition from one onboarding task to the next, which fully integrates employees into the organization in a way that stabilizes the organization.

3. Proactive Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity threats are a big deal for small businesses and large organizations alike. (In fact, many hackers are actually targeting small businesses because they tend to be more vulnerable.) But thanks to advanced BPA solutions, it’s possible for any organization of any size to be more proactive with its cybersecurity efforts.

When implemented correctly, automation can proactively detect cyber attacks at the very first sign of a threat. This ensures attempted attacks only make it to the “front porch” and never actually “inside.”

BPA is quickly becoming an essential component of any company’s cybersecurity blanket. The best tools have validation technology in place and require multiple levels of authentication.

4. Voice-Activated Automation

We see significant growth in the voice-activated automation space (and you can expect it to explode onto the scene in 2022). This technology, which is also growing quickly in the consumer marketplace with technologies like Amazon Alexa, Siri, and Google Home, is perfect for increasing flexibility and productivity in the workplace.

The key to voice-activated automation in the workplace is to implement it in ways that promote greater efficiency (rather than convoluting existing processes). Examples include:

• Turning lights on and off in areas where employees are likely to have their hands full (like storage rooms).
• Recording notes and video in meeting rooms.
• Unlocking doors and other access points.

Voice-activated automation is especially powerful when it comes to connecting different platforms. For example, when you combine a tool like Google Home with an application like IFTTT or Zapier, the possibilities are endless.

5. Reallocation of Human Labor

For decades, people have been worried that automation and robots will eventually steal jobs away from humans and make employees obsolete. But the more we watch BPA advance, it becomes clear that this is not the case. In fact, the opposite is true.

What BPA will do in 2022 is simply reallocate human labor to more strategic positions. In other words, automated technology streamlines menial, repetitive tasks (which are expensive for businesses and frustrating for employees). In turn, these employees are able to reallocate their energy, creativity, and talent to tasks that require human input. This makes them more valuable to their employers, while also ensuring employees spend time doing more enjoyable work.

6. AI Tech Stacking

Artificial intelligence will become much more commonplace in organizations in 2022. More specifically, we expect to see different tools layered and integrated together in a way that increases their value. This includes machine learning, image recognition, natural language processing, and even intelligent optical character recognition.

By creatively and intentionally combining multiple AI technologies together, businesses will be able to use these tools in ways that were previously thought impossible. This will fundamentally transform digital workflows and dramatically increase productivity across the board. It’s going to be a game-changer, to say the least.

Looking to the Future

It’s impossible to know which specific technologies will take root over the next three to five years. (So much can change so fast.) However, this much we know to be true: Business process automation will continue to be a core focus for growing organizations that want to improve productivity, ramp up their output, and bolster their bottom lines.

If you want your organization to enjoy these tantalizing perks, you’d be wise to place a similar emphasis on BPA in 2022 and beyond.

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No two companies are exactly alike. Neither are two digital transformations.

Organizations will spend an estimated $2.3 trillion per year on digital transformations by the middle of the decade, but they will spend it in drastically different ways.

Therefore, while it can be tempting to follow the lead of others (especially into the digital unknown), doing so can easily guide digital transformation in the wrong direction.

Three Different Realities

Consider three hypothetical companies.

The first has outdated technology, so “digital transformation” means bringing the tech stack up-to-date and investing in the strong technical foundation required for a digital-first future. The second has invested in technology for years but is uncertain how to adapt its business model to leverage that technology. For this company, “digital transformation” is about finding ways to deliver and derive value in a technology-driven world. Finally, the third company has the right technology and the right business model. Still, it lacks the experience to complete the transformation, so “digital transformation” is all about turning new concepts and capabilities into a viable operational model.

The Only Option

These companies illustrate that digital transformation can look vastly different across industries and enterprises.

One size does not fit all

For a successful transformation, a custom approach is the best — and really the only — option.

The Best Strategy for the CIO

Understanding that all digital transformations are not created equal is the unfortunate reality for most CIOs. They face mounting pressure to make progress on this issue and show results.

It would help them to follow a proven playbook — but that doesn’t exist.

Instead, intrepid CIOs have to figure out what their company needs (technology, strategy, and/or experience) before building a plan around that goal.

Time and Money

To make matters more difficult, digital transformation must happen while daily operations continue running as normal. That means CIOs have to fight for funding on top of their typical budgets and they must find time to handle new responsibilities without neglecting their old ones.

Instead of turning all their attention and resources to digital transformation, CIOs must fit it in wherever possible.

A Holistic View

They must also think in terms that go beyond cost-efficiency.

It’s easy to justify digital transformation initiatives that offset their own costs, but those are just cost-neutral — and not necessarily beneficial.

A better approach takes a holistic view of ROI and prioritizes whatever initiatives deliver the highest value, even if that means spending a little more upfront.

The Necessary Evolution

Another factor to consider is the dynamic role of people and processes in digital transformation in addition to technology.

CIOs will need to consider how mature they are on each of these three fronts — and then plan upgrades accordingly.

Full transformation isn’t complete until every part of the company evolves — from the C-suite downward, and from the IT department outward.

Navigating Your Transformation

CIOs may not have a road map to follow or the ability to take inspiration from their peers when it comes to navigating a successful digital transformation. However, they can employ some best practices to make digital transformation equally effective no matter what form it takes:

1. Map stakeholder expectations.

Digital transformation may have one overarching agenda (update technology, gain experience, etc.), but it doesn’t have to be single-minded.

Speaking to different stakeholders across departments and levels of leadership can help uncover what people want (and don’t want) from digital transformation.

Recording and then mapping these expectations helps whatever strategy gets put into action have the biggest impact possible.

2. Plan long-term.

Regardless of whether a company needs to focus on technology, strategy, or experience, it will need to address all three during the course of a comprehensive digital transformation.

It’s unrealistic to think any aspect is “transformation-ready” on its own.

Furthermore, updating one affects another (adding new tech requires a rethink of the business model, for instance).

A long-term plan will identify the highest priority and dedicate resources accordingly without neglecting other areas.

3. Keep changing.

Here’s one way that digital transformation is equal across companies: It’s never complete.

From now on, companies will need to constantly evaluate their technology, strategy, and experience level for signs that things are falling behind.

Digital transformation will be a key competitive differentiator. Some companies will use it to surge ahead; others will neglect it and suffer the consequences. Once again, every company will need to evolve and adapt in different ways moving forward. That said, no company can afford to call the process complete and end there. It’s time to stop thinking of digital transformation as a shared experience that companies are going through collectively.

On the contrary, every transformation is unique in its own way.

The more that CIOs blaze their own trails, the better.

Image Credit: john schnobrich; unsplash; thank you!

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IT leaders have been some mighty unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. When social distancing required millions of Americans to work remotely — IT managers were the ones who made it all possible.

The IT Managers kept the economy afloat and created a sense of normalcy amid unprecedented circumstances. We need to thank them — they don’t get nearly enough credit for making a bad situation better.

The bad situation was make better especially since rising to the occasion has meant taking on vastly more enterprise IT work than before.

Ransomware attacks have increased 800% during the pandemic, and working from home has created countless new security vulnerabilities because users are more susceptible to social engineering (among other things).

As the stewards of cybersecurity, IT managers have defended against this onslaught while juggling dozens of other responsibilities that expanded and evolved in 2020.

Mission-Critical Work

IT managers have contended with the urgent need to select, implement, and deploy new technologies like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Shopify. These tools were helpful before, but they have become mission-critical during the pandemic.

Keeping these solutions fully functional — and dealing with any fallout when a tool or new system falters — has multiplied IT managers’ responsibilities.

On top of everything else, IT managers are the ones tasked with helping their companies use tech to cut costs and increase efficiency in the face of an uncertain economic outlook. Consider that 80% of companies plan to use chatbots to automate customer interactions and internal support by the end of 2020.

A new generation of digital technologies promise to transform what companies can accomplish — especially during and after the pandemic — but it puts a heavy burden on IT managers to make these technologies work ASAP.

How IT Management is Poised to Evolve

Some of the pressure facing IT managers will let up as companies find their stride — hopefully in 2021. However, things will not simply return to the way they were before. Enterprises and technology have a fundamentally different relationship due to the pandemic, and it will transform the role of IT managers for the foreseeable future. Here are three ways the position is changing:

1. IT managers will learn to trust.

Historically, IT decision makers tend to lock down enterprise IT assets as tightly as possible. That makes sense from a security and governance perspective, but it’s incompatible with the shift toward remote work happening at companies across the country.

As vastly more people are disconnected from their IT departments and rely more heavily on their own devices and home networks for work, IT managers will need to trust those users/assets.

Part of that will be an attitude shift — part of it will involve embracing technologies for managing remote IT security and visibility. Moving forward, IT managers will need to trust more yet verify whenever possible.

2. Chatbots are here to stay.

Chatbots and automation will become permanent features of enterprise IT. They will overlap with multiple departments and affect widespread workflows, creating vast new IT manager responsibilities in the process.

Given the complexity and consequence of automating things, IT managers may be tempted to resist this trend; that will be much harder once customers get used to the convenience of AI and companies see the cost savings. IT managers will need to identify workflows ripe for automation and select the best technologies to handle the work.

3. Customer experience is paramount.

IT teams are more important than ever in an era of remote work, but they’re also less accessible than ever as people work outside the office. Since IT managers can’t deploy a technician to interact with a machine directly, they need to become obsessive about the customer experience of anyone accessing IT services.

That means responsive support requests and effective fixes, functional IT system deployment, smooth infrastructure changes, and free-flowing and accurate information.

Put differently, IT managers need to think a lot more about the humans who use the technologies they coordinate.

The pandemic has been a tipping point  for all of us, but especially the IT Manager. One era suddenly gave way to the next.

IT managers have made an admirable — at times heroic — effort of adapting thus far. Looking ahead, they just need to keep up the stellar work.

Image Credit: anete lusina; pexels

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No business is an island unto itself — companies need strong partnerships to survive. Every contract you sign, and every hand you shake represents the beginning of a relationship, one that can have an immense impact on how you do business. 

It can be difficult to know ahead of time how a certain partnership will affect your company. While you may never be able to know for certain whether or not a partnership will be symbiotic in the long-term, you can start by identifying the partners most crucial to your operations. While every company is different, they all need a key group of allies to survive, such as:

1. Accountants

You may make money, but accountants are the ones who help make that money work for you. Considering the key role that accounts play in making businesses work, far too many leaders don’t feel their trusted partners are doing enough. According to a report published by payroll services company OnPay, only 61% of small business owners are delighted with the range of services their accountant provides. If you want that partnership to work, you need to find an accountant ready to meet your needs.

Businesspeople tend to think of accountants as a homogeneous group, but this is far from the truth: up to one-third of accountants now consider themselves specialists, with even more on their way to becoming ones. Don’t feel the need to settle for the first accountant you come across; do a thorough search for an individual with specialties that match the way you do business.

2. Vendors

Your company needs stuff, and your vendors get you the stuff you need — simple, right? As most business leaders know, the reality is far more complicated than that. Working with vendors means managing logistics, costs, and establishing a healthy rapport, sometimes with dozens of different companies at once. It’s no wonder that, according to a survey done by TechRepublic, 57% of IT departments are now spending more time on vendors than they did just two years ago.

Working successfully with vendors means finding the right fit early on. While you may be tempted to jump on a good deal when you see one, you’ll have to work closely with a vendor for what may end up being years into the future — not even the best prices can save a doomed relationship. Ensure that other factors like location, company size, and client number all check out; the result will be better procurement for you in the long run.

3. Lawyers

While corporate spending on outside lawyers may be plummeting, most small and many mid-sized businesses simply can’t afford to have an in-house legal team. If you’re forced to have your legal work done outside the office, you know that the right lawyer can do wonders for your company — and the wrong one can hurt big.

Lawyers are even more likely to be specialized than accountants, so there’s no excuse not to find someone fully capable of taking on any challenge you may throw at them. Because most charge by the hour, you can also have several different lawyers, each prepared to take on whatever challenges they’re best suited for — whatever makes the most sense for your business.

4. Property Management

Never before has the importance of having a good relationship with your property manager been so clear: 25% of small businesses have not paid full rent on time since March, according to referral network Alignable. In times like these, having the right property manager is the difference between operation and eviction — a difference that can mean the whole world for some companies.

As with vendors, never choose a location based on price alone: you may be able to afford it now, but what will things look like if you have to delay payment for a couple of months? Connect with a property manager interested in more than just on-time payments; if you can find someone invested in your company’s mission, you’re bound to have a better relationship in the long run. 

If you can learn a lot about a person by meeting their friends, you can learn more about a business by researching their partners. The agreements you enter into will define your company for years to come, so be sure to choose them carefully.

Image credit: fauxels; Pexels

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There are a lot of situations where being smaller is an advantage, but negotiating with suppliers isn’t one of them. While giant corporations can negotiate on the strength of their purchasing power, smaller companies must find strength in numbers.

A group purchasing organization leverages the collective buying power of its members to secure deep discounts with vendors and distributors. Just as it’s cheaper to buy in bulk at Costco, a GPO can slash costs for your business and streamline procurement.

There are several factors to consider before joining a group purchasing organization. Here are seven questions you should ask when deciding whether to partner with one:

1. How big is your company?

In general, small- and medium-sized businesses benefit the most from joining a group purchasing organization. Large corporations typically have their own dedicated purchasing arms and massive buying power that allows them to negotiate the best prices.

McDonald’s, for instance, is the single largest purchaser of beef, which gives it enormous influence over suppliers. Unless your company has McDonald’s-level sway, a GPO can likely negotiate deeper discounts than your business ever could.

2. What are your company’s biggest expenses?

For most businesses, employee wages, benefits, and payroll tax are far and away the biggest expenses. If you’re looking for ways to cut costs without cutting jobs, you have to go farther down your P&L statement. 

One sneaky expense that can really cut into the bottom line is the cost of shipping and fulfillment. These costs can make up 15 to 20 percent of net sales, and many companies don’t realize that they’re overpaying for shipping. Joining a group purchasing organization could lower your shipping costs dramatically — even as much as 20 percent.

3. Do your employees travel frequently or use ride-share services?

The pandemic might have put widespread business travel on pause, but experts predict that those trips will ramp up again this fall. One study found that the average business trip costs companies $1,425 per traveler. (The largest expense was the employee’s hotel stay.) 

If your team travels frequently for business, you can save a lot of money by joining a GPO. Many group purchasing organizations have relationships with hotels, airlines, car-rental companies, and ride-share services. They’ve pre-negotiated the best rates for their members, which can save your business big. 

Another advantage to booking through your GPO is that it saves your team members time combing through hotel reviews. Finally, most GPOs take care of the billing or allow companies to prepay, which saves your team the hassle of submitting expense reports.

4. Does your company have a problem with maverick spending?

Just because your organization already has a procurement process in place doesn’t mean your team follows it consistently. Oftentimes, employees will book hotel rooms through popular discount sites or make small purchases without going through the correct process. 

Research shows that maverick spending can increase purchasing costs by up to 40 percent. Going through an unapproved vendor may also be a breach of contract under an existing company agreement.

Even the most rule-conscious employees can become maverick spenders if your current procurement process is too time-consuming. Working with a GPO can help discourage maverick spending by simplifying procurement for your team.

5. Has your business ever struggled with quality control due to a bad supplier?

Our world is more connected than ever before. Increased global competition drives down prices, but it also means that there are more low-quality products on the market.

Just recently, Peru purchased a large amount of cheap antibody testing kits from China to diagnose cases of COVID-19. Many of these kits were rejected by the United States because they didn’t meet standards for accurately detecting the virus.

For most businesses, quality control isn’t life or death, but poor-quality components can erode brand trust. If your company has experienced quality-control issues with suppliers, a GPO can help by providing a list of trusted vendors.

6. Is your business concerned about possible supply-chain disruptions? 

If the past year has taught us anything, it’s how fragile our supply chains really are. Global pandemics, natural disasters, and trade wars all pose a potential risk to supply chains. Since 2018, the US has been locked in a trade war with China. Talks for a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU are still ongoing.

While no one can predict the future, there’s safety in numbers. Joining a GPO gives your business more buying power whenever supplies are limited. If a particular vendor can’t get what you need, a GPO can work on your behalf to find a new supplier.

7. Could streamlining procurement free up crucial bandwidth for your team?

There’s a reason group purchasing organizations are great for the little guys. In smaller companies, the responsibility of procurement generally falls on one person’s shoulders. 

Vetting suppliers and developing those relationships takes time. So does drafting RFPs, reviewing supplier contracts, and renegotiating the terms of agreements. This is one reason why so many companies have informal supplier agreements rather than written contracts.

One benefit of a group purchasing organization is that it does the legwork for you. A GPO will comparison-shop and negotiate on your behalf. Many provide reporting and analytics, as well, which makes it easier to track company spending.

It’s difficult leading an organization in these uncertain times — particularly when you’re looking to reduce company spending. Small- to medium-sized businesses just don’t have the leverage of their giant corporate counterparts — at least not on their own. But by joining forces with a GPO, you can save money on the things your company already buys.

Image credit: Pexels

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Onboarding a new remote developer is arguably one of the most important things you can add to your core competencies if you want to assure your new hires’ success. Here is how to onboard remote engineers — with a practical guide from an expert.

Today, with COVID-19 making every new hire remote, excellence in onboarding has become even more crucial. Unfortunately, I don’t see nearly enough companies with a structured step-by-step approach to bringing new team members online.

Have you failed at onboarding?

Failed onboarding usually looks similar regardless of the company. Most of the time, companies that do a bad job fail to do the following things:

• The new engineer isn’t briefed on the company, what they’re building, or what the mission is
• The company hasn’t communicated KPIs and OKRs
• Daily scheduling and communications policies are loose or absent
• Failure to have the new hire meet with key people in the company to get them up to speed
• The company hasn’t assigned a buddy to shepherd the new hire through their first three months.
• No one has made it clear to the new hire what success looks like in their position
• Checkpoints to evaluate onboarding success have not been established in advance, and the developer doesn’t know what’s going to under evaluation

When things go wrong with an onboarding process, the problems usually start one the very first day when critical information doesn’t get transmitted. Once things get off-track, you will lose hours of productive time for your team and the person you’re onboarding.

By the time you know you have an issue, a mutual loss of confidence between you and the new team member is likely. By then, you might be better of starting with a new candidate from square one. To avoid a predictable outcome, I recommend, and personally implement, a highly structured approach.

My company, Turing, specializes in the sourcing, vetting, and management of remote developers. We have over 160,000 developers on our platform from over 140 countries capable of writing code in more than 50 programming languages. We want to make sure that every time we match an engineer with a company, individuals get up to speed and seamlessly integrate into their new team as quickly as possible.

Here’s how we do it:

Remote Developer Team Integration Done Right

When I think of onboarding, I look at the process along three primary dimensions. The first is making sure they have the right business context. The second is making sure they have the right “people context.” And the third is making sure that you have the proper checkpoints in place to verify that the new hire is ramping up at the rate that you expect them to.

Business Context

First, let’s talk about the business context. When I’m preparing a company to onboard new engineers, I want them to provide their new employees with certain key information. These include:

• A short description of what the company does and what product they are building
• The mission & core values of the company
• What is the strategy to accomplish this mission
• The high-level quarterly OKRs or goals for the business
• A copy of the org chart

Communicating this information makes certain your new additions will have the right kind of business context about what’s essential to succeed at your company.

I also verify that the right kind of communication expectations in place in terms of time zones. It is imperative to establish working hours, so everyone knows the hours during which the developer will be available and when they will be working.

Communication synchronization is of the utmost importance when you’re working with distributed talent. You want the developer and your team to be calibrated on the time window during which everyone is going to be available and reachable.

People Context

One of the most important things you could share is your company’s org chart in terms of the people context. You can also use high-level visualizations that show all the different projects in the company. The goal is to convey how those projects connect.

Who’s driving those projects, and who are the people in those various projects. Giving a developer this conceptual understanding of all the different projects that might be going on in a company is very important.

During onboarding, I also ask our clients to tell us who are the four people in your company that this new developer has to speak with in the first month to get fully ramped up.

Make sure that the developer has an assigned buddy and knows who that person is. Having a buddy for the first three months is incredibly helpful. A buddy is a person that the developer can ask any questions about the company that they might not know who or where to go.

Who managers this new developer? Have they been introduced? While I realize this should be obvious when someone is remote, this isn’t always the case. It’s good to be explicit by specifically letting the developer know, for example, who will be doing their weekly one-on-one, who makes sure that weekly one-on-ones happen, and how they will be evaluated.

New engineers should also know when performance reviews will happen. What’s the cadence? What’s the format? And essentially, the answer to the question, what does it take to succeed in this organization? You want the person that you’re onboarding to have a good idea of what to expect.

Checkpoints

And third, in terms of successfully checking how well this person has ramped up, you want to do 30, 60, and 90-day check-ins with the person that you’re onboarding. You want to let the person know who does that check-in, and what will they evaluate during that point.

Conducting regular check-ins gives you a valuable opportunity to course-correct in case something hasn’t gone per plan.

Beyond Basic Onboarding

You’ll save yourself and your company from future headaches if you make sure that any new hire has completed any forms and that you’re aware of any regulations specific to that person or the country where they reside.

Also, decide if your company needs any confidentiality or IP assignment agreements. Is this expertise is outside the skills within your organization? Then invest in the services of a company that specializes in navigating what can be tricky territory. At Turing, we like Remote.com for this service.

Mundane Details

As part of my communications onboarding process, I also deal with the somewhat mundane details of provisioning the new hire with all the team’s technology. Including setting up the developer’s email and ensuring they have access to the company’s Github account, Slack channels, Trello, Jira, Google Docs, Zoom, and any other mission-critical software you expect the developer to use as part of their workflow.

Think through security, access privileges, mailing lists, etc.

Another part of setting your new hire up for success includes making sure they know about staff meetings, company-wide meetings that this person has to attend, and Slack channels they should join.

You should also try to communicate to your developer what your company culture looks like and what’s unique about your company. By making sure that all these types of nuts and bolts are tight, your new hire will be more confident in their interactions with their team, and they’ll integrate more fully into your company from day one.

One of the biggest challenges you’ll typically face is developing and maintaining company culture when a large portion of your company is remote. Company culture is a tricky territory that deserves a separate post.

The most important thing I do to instill culture is to make sure people understand my company’s core values. For example, a Turing, we have three core values. The first is to move fast. The second is continuous improvement. And the third is a relentless focus on long-term customer success.

Know your company’s core values and make sure you communicate them clearly to the person you’re onboarding.

Finally, it’s crucial to make sure that any new hire has access to all the tools they need and is confident in their use. It doesn’t hurt to check to verify that your new hire is familiar with the tools you use and to train them if they’re not.

If you require a very high degree of proficiency for certain positions, be sure to demand and vet for that skill before making a critical hire.

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The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t just been hard on people. Supply chains everywhere are struggling. 

Shortages of masks have made headline news. Meat processing facilities around the country have closed, causing grocery stores and restaurants to run low. Across the business world, companies are having trouble getting the goods they need to operate. 

The good news is, shortages also present opportunities. You may not see weak spots in your supply chain until a shipment is late, or the cost of something you take for granted, like paper or ink, skyrockets. 

Seize the silver linings of this crisis. To shore up your supply chain:

1. Map it Out

In our globalized world, supply chains are complex. The first step to strengthening yours is to understand its full scope. 

You know your first-tier suppliers, but what about those down the line? How would your company be impacted if a second- or third-tier supplier shut its doors? Does that first-tier supplier have backups?

Beware that vendors may not tell the truth about their own suppliers. The reason is that they don’t want to show weakness. If customers worry about their ability to deliver, they may take their business elsewhere.

Supply chain security and simplicity are popular reasons companies work with group purchasing organizations like Una. A direct purchasing strategy is simply too complex for all but the biggest procurement teams. Plus, GPOs always have backups in case a supplier of a certain good goes bust. 

2. Avoid Risky Suppliers

If you do decide to stick with direct procurement, check your mapping for risky suppliers. These suppliers are likely to be adversely affected by economic or political conditions. They may engage in deceptive or immoral practices, such as child labor. 

Another place to look for risk? Product recalls. Suppliers who tend to ship a lot of defective products have weaker foundations than their peers. Not only is something they send you less likely to be usable, but they may not be in business for long. 

When in doubt, work with regional suppliers. With regional shipments, there are simply fewer miles and national borders to cross. Proximity is a primary reason why 33% of global supply chain leaders have moved their operations out of China, or plan to in the next few years. 

3. Digitize Your Supply Chain

Despite the trend toward paperless offices, many companies still rely on paper invoices and book-keeping. Not only does that make errors more likely, but it makes managing the whole procurement ecosystem more difficult. 

Experts suggest that identifying points of volatility and waste in a supply chain requires 70-90% visibility, but most companies have just 20% visibility into theirs. These companies may be able to track shipments once they’ve left a supplier’s office, but they’re in the dark about pre- and post-shipping processes. 

Do all that you can digitally. Invest in an inventory management system, and encourage your suppliers to hook their own systems up to yours. Set up notifications so you and your suppliers know when you’re running short. 

4. Understand the Impact of Tariffs 

When the pandemic hit, employers found it difficult to secure personal protective equipment. While part of the reason for PPE shortages was demand, a close second was tariffs. The United States levies tariffs of 15-25% on many imported medical products. 

It only takes a small supply chain hiccup for the same dynamic to play out with other products. What if your office was suddenly unable to get computers, printers, or keyboards? What if shortages caused them to double or triple in price?

Tariffs add risk to a supply chain. If any of your goods are imported, find out whether they’re subject to import taxes. If so, be sure you have a backup in each category from a nation that isn’t affected by them.

5. Keep Just Enough on Hand

If there’s one thing this pandemic has taught supply chain professionals, it’s the importance of being prepared. Stockpiling ensures you aren’t left empty-handed if a critical supply runs short.

Although having a safety net of supplies is important, you don’t want to go overboard. With perishable goods, in particular, stockpiling may result in you having to throw out unused supplies. Even if not, stockpiled supplies take up valuable warehouse space and cost money to move.

Inventory management is a balancing act. If in doubt, ask your procurement team’s opinion: How much of each supply should be kept on hand? Which supplies tend to run short soonest? Which ones are easy to get, even when the economy hits a bump?

6. Have a Backup Plan

Keeping extra supplies on hand is never a bad idea, but they won’t last forever. What if your supplier is still shut by the time those extras run out?

You can’t predict the future; what you can do is prepare for it. Have a plan of action for each key supply, whether it’s printer paper or product packaging.

Build your backup plan with a 360-degree approach: What alternative suppliers can you call on? What money do you have saved that can be used if an emergency strikes? How will you communicate with your customers if there’s a delay?

7. Be as Transparent as Possible

The reality is, supply chain disruptions happen to every company. However well you prepare for them, you’ll eventually have to make some hard choices. 

You might be tempted to hide disruptions from your customers, but that could do more harm than good. If anything, you should be more transparent than ever.

Tell the truth: Why aren’t you able to honor your product or service commitments? When might you be able to deliver what your customers ordered? What are you doing to expedite the process? The sooner you level with them, the more they’ll respect you for it. 

The coronavirus pandemic was a once-in-a-century disruption. But there are all sorts of other reasons your supply chain could take a hit. Don’t be blindsided. It’s time to adjust to the “new normal,” and that means buttoning up your supply chain sooner rather than later.

Image credit: Tom Fisk; Pexels

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Automation is often seen as manufacturers’ ticket to the future. Lately, however, it’s a new labor model that has been drawing jealous stares from other sectors.

Upending how manufacturers get work done are platforms like MyWorkChoice, an hourly workforce management platform. MyWorkChoice uses smart matching technology to build custom communities, onboarded according to each client’s specifications.

By letting workers choose their shifts, MyWorkChoice cuts manufacturers’ absenteeism rates from around 35 percent to just 3 percent. For plant output, managers’ stress levels, and company culture, that’s a night-and-day difference.

The question: Could MyWorkChoice’s model work for other industries? Maybe so — but only if they can fit two puzzle pieces that, frustratingly, never seem to go together: flexibility and dependability.

Engineered for Flexibility

For years, many white-collar workers have enjoyed the flexibility to work when and where they want. Until recently, however, blue-collar sectors like manufacturing have pigeonholed workers into 40-hour-per-week arrangements.

Understandably, blue-collar workers want those same freedoms. What broke the dam, according to MyWorkChoice CEO Tana Greene, is the coronavirus pandemic.

“The traditional staffing agency model is dead,” explains Greene. “Prior to the pandemic, flexibility was supporting both workers and companies who needed to scale their workforce at any given time; today it’s a critical piece of the puzzle to keep our supply chain moving and put healthy people to work.”

Instead of requiring a rigid schedule, MyWorkChoice lets the company’s regular workforce sign up for four-hour blocks on the days they choose. Many opt to work a full 40 hours per week, producing a dependable primary workforce.

Workers understand that MyWorkChoice isn’t just another day-labor app, nor is it a split-shift system. They stick with it because of its flexibility, enabling the companies they serve to build tenured hourly teams.

Could sectors outside of manufacturing make that model work? Sure, Greene says: MyWorkChoice has applied it to call centers, distribution centers, and more. But before they make the leap, they need to solve for the second part of the equation: dependability.

Solved with Scale

Shorter shifts are a big reason why MyWorkChoice delivers workers reliably. But there’s a second factor that, for industries looking to follow the manufacturing sector’s lead, may be more difficult to replicate: scale.

Largely because of the flexibility it offers workers, MyWorkChoice is the largest recruiter in most markets it operates in. That ensures it has the bench strength to make the model work, covering gaps in a company’s regular workforce. Access to a larger, scalable workforce creates a secondary line of defense while eliminating the need for overtime.

A larger labor pool, combined with shorter shifts, lets employers accommodate all sorts of life situations. The result is MyWorkChoice’s third talent stream: nontraditional workforce segments, such as seniors and college students, who wouldn’t otherwise look for manufacturing work.

Many of these MyWorkChoice workers have responsibilities outside the platform that would make it tough to work longer shifts. Its model makes tough-to-fill times less onerous. For example, the second shift is typically the most difficult to fill, but when flexible four-hour slots are made available, stay-at-home parents and second incomers flock to this shift, making it one of the most coveted on the platform.

In the industries MyWorkChoice operates in — manufacturing, call centers, and warehousing — that three-pronged approach proves flexibility works. In more niche ones, it may not.

Take surveying. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are fewer than 50,000 surveyors in the entire U.S. Because it’s a specialized field, no amount of flexibility could help employers build secondary and tertiary teams. In all but the largest of labor markets, there simply aren’t enough surveyors to go around.

Making Flexible Work Work

Plenty of industries struggle to fill open positions, despite the economic downturn. Plenty of workers in them want flexibility. So what can employers in other sectors do to marry the two?

One option is to transition hourly workers to an employer-of-record model. Because MyWorkChoice is the employer of record, it handles worker’s compensation, unemployment claims, and other back-office matters that employers otherwise have to deal with.

The other option is to bring new demographic groups into the fold. Look for ways to increase flexibility: If possible in your industry, consider making work-from-home options permanent. If not, perhaps you could give workers more choice over their hours.

The final ingredient? Client service. MyWorkChoice provides regional managers to its clients, ensuring that workers are happy, safe, and getting the job done.

Without someone on the ground who knows the rules, no amount of software can make workforce management a hands-off process in industries like manufacturing. Technology can make matches, but it takes a human being to make sure those matches actually work out.

Great client service exists in every industry, as do flexibility and reliable workforces. In manufacturing, what MyWorkChoice has done is put them together in a lasting, harmonious way. Whether that can be done in every industry, however, is a challenge waiting to be conquered.

The post Can Other Industries Replicate MyWorkChoice’s Manufacturing Overhaul? appeared first on ReadWrite.

People around the globe depend on access to various goods and products, from food and drink to office supplies to lifesaving medical equipment. Amid the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s truer than ever. And the shipping and logistics industry is responsible for granting that access.

Today, a consumer can order a product from a warehouse thousands of miles away, and it will arrive at his doorstep in a matter of days. That’s all thanks to the warehouse workers, pilots, ship crews, delivery drivers, postal workers, and others who put in the work to deliver each package in good condition (and in record time). 

It’s also thanks to some critical advances in technology. New entrants in the shipping and logistics field are offering applications of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and the cloud to help streamline the industry from the local level to the global market. 

Some leaders in the industry may be wary of adopting something new, such as a tracking app or AI software. If a series of spreadsheets gets the job done, why take the risk of buying a new program or product? It might be hard for a full team to adopt, or it could suddenly stop working for 12 hours.

The answer is twofold: Any tech offering worth its salt will include ’round-the-clock support for implementation and maintenance. Worse, companies that don’t join the tech revolution will quickly find their competitors have left them in the dust.

Tech Tools in Action

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, technology played a crucial role in transforming shipping and logistics. These three types of tech are adding value across the industry: 

1. The Internet of Things

What if, instead of requiring micromanagement every step of the way, parts of the supply chain could monitor themselves? That’s what’s possible with the Internet of Things. 

IoT-connected devices use sensors and programs to complete tasks, track progress, and alert supervisors if they need maintenance. They aren’t intended to fully replace human workers. They’re intended to augment and streamline the tasks in the supply chain best suited to automation. 

For an example of the IoT in action, one needs look no further than Amazon. In 2012, the company bought Kiva Systems, a startup focused on robotics. Since, Amazon has added more than 30,000 automated picking robots to its distribution centers alongside employees. Other types of IoT-enabled automated vehicles, like pallet jacks, are streamlining warehouse operations.

2. Collaboration Software 

Whether a company operates on land, by air, by sea, or all three, a solid connection across the entire supply chain is critical. In the past, shipping and logistics businesses relied on simple paper-based systems that made agility difficult.

But thanks to the wider availability and reliability of internet-based programs, it’s much easier for companies to add digital platforms to keep everyone on the same page.

Collaboration software Coolfire, for example, enables situational awareness throughout a company’s supply chain by aggregating data from existing systems. It also gathers information from vehicles, IoT-connected devices, sensors, and worker input — whether on the field or in the offices. When a company can view all its data in one picture, it can take proactive measures to ensure smooth operations, rather than reactive ones. 

3. Artificial Intelligence

The shipping and logistics industry has always used data to drive decisions and operations, but the application of artificial intelligence has made it easier for decision makers to analyze that data, identify patterns and insights, and take action.

AI allows for stronger predictions and forecasts using powerful data analysis. It facilitates faster planning and scheduling by factoring in constraints so humans don’t have to. It can even analyze things like traffic and driving patterns to help leaders make decisions that improve public safety.

One company that’s effectively applying AI is TNX Logistics, which uses software to analyze a shipper’s available trucking loads and identify the most effective tendering strategy for those loads. Applying AI in this way helps companies reduce costs and increase efficiency throughout their supply chains. 

When it comes to shipping and logistics, delivering a product to its final destination intact and on time will always be the primary goal. While each organization might have a different strategy in place to get from point A to point B, there’s no question that advances in technology will continue to streamline the process. Savvy businesses in shipping and logistics would do well to adopt these technologies if they want to remain competitive.

The post How the Tech Revolution Is Reshaping Shipping and Logistics appeared first on ReadWrite.

Guest author Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

As a company grows, individual teams often develop their own project management styles. But when you’re trying to scale, having multiple systems can lead to confusion and missed deadlines. So how do you adjust that methodology as you expand?

See also: 11 Ways To Manage A Remote Team 

I asked a group of entrepreneurs from YEC who’ve been through the process to tell us more about how they handled this situation. Below, they offer their best tips for improving communication and transitioning seamlessly.

Find The One Right Tool

Using multiple project management solutions across different internal groups is a recipe for disaster. You’ll find your teams acclimating to their individual workflows, and inevitably, your ability to pivot and push your entire company towards one platform will become more and more problematic.

Dig in, do the research, find the right tool and commit to it. Although there are going to be obstacles to overcome, once your team has learned how to properly utilize your unified platform, you’ll have a more efficient, more communicative group of individuals.

There are some great applications available for bringing complicated workflows together. We use Atlassian products like Jira, Confluence and BitBucket, due to their ability for link deployment, project management and business development. —Blair Thomas, EMerchantBroker

Identify The Best And The Second Best Methodology For Your Teams

Since you’re growing, you should not use multiple systems and methodology. You have to pick the best project management tool and methodology that works for you and your clients/product.

However, one tool and methodology doesn’t always work for all situations, so you want to identify a second best tool and methodology as well. For example, we use Jira to build products in Agile Methodology. It allows everyone to continuously update features, feedback, timeline and cost.

For waterfall methodology, we use Basecamp, where features are defined in milestones with estimated time and cost. In both cases, processes are very clear to employees and the product owner. Our client and staff always come up with new tools and methodology; we listen to them to learn more, but still stick with these two for ourselves. —Piyush Jain, SIMpalm

Get On A Single Platform

Whatever project management platform you choose, pick one.

First, you’ll appreciate how training new hires is much more efficient because you actually have fewer systems to train them on, which also means fewer processes to learn, understand and eventually master. Next, you’ll realize how your project information and time-tracking data will become more accurate because there is no need for data re-entry.

Finally, with all of your projects in one place, you’ll get more accurate project data and gain more insight into operations through reporting and visual dashboards. —David Ciccarelli, Voices.com

Adopt A Uniform Language

The best team will have communication across the board, not within inner cliques of departments. At LexION Capital, I’ve used a uniform task management program company wide, and have seen great results. For incredibly busy employees, at best different communication styles are a time sink, and at worst they will create sealed lips. I adopted an easy “language” that the whole team can speak, and you should do the same.

To take it a step further, I encourage cross-department work—you’ll see amazing results when projects get a fresh perspective. —Elle Kaplan, LexION Capital

Stay Consistent Across Systems

I think that multiple project management systems are hard to manage as you scale. We have made that mistake before and it hinders productivity. I suggest having one main system for each group if they require different information.

For example, we use GitHub for our technology team and Salesforce for our Sales Reps. It’s important to have all relevant information pertaining to each team located on the same platform. —Jayna Cooke, EVENTup

Define A Core Process And Adjust

When the department is small, it’s okay to have variance across teams. As you scale, a more unified process enables efficiency and consistency gains. Rather than define a rigid process, work with your team to develop a project management core that can be expanded or trimmed to fit specific project needs. Then, select tooling that best supports the core. —Bryan Delaney, Skookum Digital Works

Keep The Platform Appropriate To The Division

At Hubstaff, we use two separate project management systems and one platform for communication. We find that Trello is more appropriate for marketing since we can see everything and collaborate openly, but PivotalTracker is better for our dev teams, since it’s suited to tracking technical issues.

Each division has different things to work on, and that means specialized project management systems are ideal. Customer support and sales may need something with a robust CRM system, while HR will need an extremely secure platform. It all depends on the department. The one place where we insist on company-wide unity is our communications platform, which is Skype. We use this sparingly, but we do expect everyone to be online and available while they’re working. —Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

Have A Dashboard That Covers The Whole Business

I think it’s okay for teams to utilize their favorite or most efficient project management systems. However, any business needs to have at least one dashboard where they can view progress and updates from all of the teams, all in one place. You don’t need all of the nitty gritty details, but the business owner should be able to get a high-level update on progress happening within all teams in the company.

Your project manager or director should work with you to determine the goals or objectives to be tracked on the central business dashboard. It’s this person’s job to keep this dashboard updated so the business owner is aware of progress or potential issues. We use Google spreadsheets to track progress and updates for each department all in one place. —Andy Karuza, brandbuddee

Every Tool Should Have A Purpose

At any company one can have multiple tools. But every tool should have a purpose — try to not have too many tools with overlapping functionalities. At Kvantum, we use Smartsheet for high-level project planning for product development, while the technical sprints are planned in YouTrack and the sales team uses Nimble. We also use Trello to manage day-to-day tasks, and built excel-based dashboards for leadership when it comes to HR, Finance, etc.

It’s important to provide the purpose of using a tool and a proper workflow related to the tool to ensure its adoption across all teams. At Kvantum, teams are not required to use all of the tools we roll out. They just use what makes sense, and there is rarely any overlap between the tools we use in terms of purpose or workflow. —Shilpi Sharma, Kvantum Inc.

Lead photo from Bigstock Photo, courtesy of Stephen Moyers 

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When it comes to running a small business, having the right type of software is critical. Whether you’re looking for a project management tool or payroll software, you have to consider everyone’s needs.

As a small business owner, you’re responsible for ensuring your clients are happy and your employees are working effectively. Here are three types of software you need to get the job done:

Payroll Software 

As a small business owner, you want to focus on bringing money in. You don’t want to spend your time making sure payroll is in order — and you shouldn’t have to. Payroll software can help you avoid costly mistakes and draw your attention away from administrative duties. But before you choose a software, make sure it’s small business-friendly:

OnPay: For easy setup

OnPay is a white-glove payroll software that makes payroll processing fast and understandable. It’s a complete payroll solution that allows you to create employee records and run unlimited pay runs every month in any state. OnPay will even take care of tax filings for you. And it’s mobile-friendly so you can access it anywhere. Plus, OnPay provides a suite of extras, such as HR and benefits tools.

Square Payroll: For contract employment

If you work with contractors, Square Payroll is a great option. When contractors sign in and enter their information, you can pay them without skipping a beat. Square handles federal and state taxes and offers unlimited payrolls. Keep in mind, Square isn’t as advanced as other software options. This software works best for companies with just a few employees.

Wave Payroll: For basic payroll

If you need a “just the facts” payroll solution, Wave works well. For $20 per month, plus $6 per employee or payee, Wave includes workers’ compensation coverage options, W-2 and 1099 tax form preparation, and online customer service. Wave also provides a full-service option in certain states for $35 per month, plus the per-employee fee.

Bookkeeping Software 

A common issue for small businesses is not taking bookkeeping seriously. No matter how small the payment is, there should be a record of the transaction.

Accounting gives you an accurate understanding of your company’s performance. It lets you spot issues before they become money pits, and it keeps you on the right side of Uncle Sam.

The trouble is that not all companies need the same type of bookkeeping services. As a small business, you need software that’s easy to understand and that works in your favor. Consider:

QuickBooks Online: For overall management 

This cloud-based version of the original desktop software offers several essential tools for small business owners. Not only can you accept credit card payments, but you can also track expenses and income. QuickBooks Online is your own personal bookkeeper that will manage your accounts and even run financial reports.

Xero: For company growth 

Xero can send invoices, track expenses, pay bills, manage inventory, and even sync with checking accounts. This accounting software stands out because it offers several unique features. Are you trying to grow your small business? With Xero, you can have an unlimited number of users, which is a rare feature for most accounting products. Xero also provides financial statements, meaning you won’t have to pull them yourself.

GoDaddy: For basic needs 

GoDaddy is great if you only need basic bookkeeping. The software is easy to use and handles invoicing, as well as payment processing. If you’re a small business owner, chances are you’re wearing several hats at once. With GoDaddy, your finances will be taken care of so you can spend more time running the company.

Project Management Software 

The customer is important, but so are your employees. To do good work, your teammates need tools that’ll help them perform. That’s where team collaboration software comes in. From keeping track of projects to improving communication, there are several options at your disposal:

Asana: For easy collaboration

Do you need a better way to keep employees on track? Asana is a project management software that makes it easy to assign tasks and monitor deadlines. With this software, you can stay updated on your team’s progress and add members to improve efficiency.

Evernote: For note-taking

Think of Evernote as a digital journal: It allows you to keep lists, notes, and blog content all in one place. This software is an effective way for employees to take and share client notes. It’s also a great tool for brainstorming ideas and passing them on for approval. You can upload files, organize topics, and paste images into text. There’s even a mobile app so you can access the information whenever you need to.

Redbooth: For organizing team projects 

Redbooth lets you clearly lay out tasks and subtasks. With this software, you can see not just who’s working on a project, but also which portion is assigned to which team member. Not only can co-workers message directly on Redbooth, but they can also video chat to ensure everyone knows what’s going on.

With all the small business tools out there, it’s important to pick the right software for your company. The key question is this: Does it cut costs or bring more revenue in the door? If so, invest in it.

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