Directive Blogs

Running a business can be tough and result in a lot of frustration from staff, management, and customers. Sometimes that frustration can boil over and cause consternation among the core elements that need to function for a business to be successful. This week, let’s look at an issue that can really hurt your business.

Your business' IT security effectiveness relies heavily on how well your technology works. With this in mind, educating your staff on their responsibility to safeguard your business’ digital assets is important. Let’s explore the key priorities businesses need to consider to establish a robust security training platform that works to protect those assets.

Productivity is the metric every business uses to determine the health of their business, how their employees are working, and how projects are being handled. Some organizations have found it helpful to gamify their productivity to incentivize efficient and thorough individual and team performance. Let’s take a look at gamification, why it is so effective as a strategy, and some of the pitfalls that it can cause. 

Business is filled with all types of relationships, and some of them are very challenging. Consider for a minute how challenging some of the interactions you have with customers are; or some of the vendor conversations that happen; or some of the give-and-take you get from your employees. Sometimes it is hard to believe that without these people, your business would be a complete flop. This month, we break down how sometimes the relationships you forge in business are the key to things breaking your business’ way.

Every business has different types of workers; often to management’s chagrin. Ideally, all of an organization’s workers would be enthusiastic about their jobs and the status of a business as a whole. Unfortunately, people don’t always have like minds about the state of things and can see their morale reduced and their productivity wane. 

Remote work has been growing for years, but as it becomes more commonplace it becomes more difficult for business owners and managers to ascertain how engaged a remote employee is. This week, we thought we’d discuss a couple of ways that you can keep your remote employees engaged and productive. 

For years, we’ve heard about how machines are coming for our jobs. We may even know some people who have been replaced by machines of some sort. This has given workers an overarching fear that once the machines are smart and capable enough to do what they do, that they will be out on their cans with few real options. This is mostly a fallacy. Today, we will explore the notion that machines are out for our jobs and how they may actually work to make our jobs better. 

Getting your staff to care about your organizational network and data security may be more difficult than you might think, but it’s not a lost cause. Today, keeping your business’ organizational security strong relies heavily on your staff’s willingness to follow the right practices, so today we thought we’d give you seven tips to get your people to care about security

Cyberattacks can cost businesses a lot of money. They’re also more prevalent today than ever before. It seems you can’t go a couple of news cycles without hearing about some organization that has been hacked or scammed and it’s resulted in the sensitive data the organization holds being sold online, vast operational downtime, or worse. For this reason, many organizations have deliberately built up their cybersecurity infrastructure, enhanced their policies, and invested in training to ensure that they aren’t the next victim. Unfortunately, this attention doesn’t always work. 

Have you ever wondered what would happen if we reduced the number of hours in the work week or shaved off an hour here or there during the workday? The discussion of a reduced or shorter work week is a common topic in productivity circles, but a new study performed by Iceland has created even more buzz with its astounding results.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the way people worked drastically, and it did it very suddenly. As more people are being vaccinated, offices are starting to reopen. Workers, who gained substantial flexibility by working from home, however, are now expecting some of that flexibility to continue. Employers, who up until mandated shutdowns were not enthusiastic that they could make the remote workforce work for their companies are now set up to manage them proficiently. This month we thought we would take a look at the inevitable compromise that is being reached: the hybrid workplace.

It seems as though every business is depending more and more on their IT. This means that their employees have more exposure to their IT systems. Unfortunately, that relationship is where the majority of the problems you will have are. The facts are that any business that has built a strong security policy has the solutions in place to keep direct infiltration from happening. Hackers have to find another way.

One of the most - if not the most - critical resource your business relies upon is your workforce. Your employees are what keep your operations, well, operational. As a result, they are one of your most important resources to maintain as well. They are human beings, and without the correct treatment and management, even your best employee could burn out.

Organizations that have a workforce outside of their normal office location are presented with a unique challenge. In the case of remote employees, businesses have to figure out how to keep them connected to the workplace, productive with their time, and part of the organization’s culture. This week’s tip is dedicated to helping your organization’s remote workers become more successful--or, specifically, how you can help them be successful.

Fellow business owners, do you ever feel like you need to walk around on eggshells when it comes time to implement a new process or policy with your employees? Does it seem like your staff fights back tooth and nail when there is any technology change or IT restriction? You aren’t alone.