Depending on the records you hold, the business you own, and company policies, records retention is something you should deal with if you don’t already. The rules are different so it’s vital you know firsthand what you need to do and how to handle your records retention so you do it properly. You don’t want to put yourself through more than you have to by doing it the wrong way.

Some records require you to keep a certain number of years plus the current year while others require a certain number of years. How you keep the files is also important. Some documents must be originals while electronic copies of others are sufficient. You’ll need to check what’s required by law if your required to keep these types of documents.

Depending on the size of your business and the type of business you run you may have timesheets, credit card statements, and other types of reports that you need to keep records of and these are the types of documents you’ll need to check on for records retention policies for. There are many others like applications, and employee records to name a few.

With these types of files you may be able to place them in boxes and put them in a storage room or unit. It’s also possible you may have the ability to place these on a disk and store them off site in a secure place. You’ll want to have at least two copies just in case there is a flood or worse yet, a fight. Recreating these types of files is nearly impossible, so taking the time to make two sets of files will be well worth it.

While it may not be something you want to think about, records retention is something almost all businesses must handle in one way or the other. It’s best to know what’s required by law for your company and then keep that information in a place that’s easy to locate. This will keep you out of trouble when it comes to inspections.

The first thing you need to do is set guidelines and share them with all employees. When they know what the rules are, they’ll follow these and understand what you’re expecting of them. You need to publish these where they can see them and it’s not a bad idea to review them periodically so those that travel will have them fresh in their minds.

There are several things you should include in your guidelines. One of the most important things you need to include is how you’re going to handle alcoholic drinks. Some companies will pay for one or two while others won’t pay for any at all. This is up to you, so you’ll want to consider your feelings and make a decision on this.

The next thing you’ll need to include is the amount of money you’re willing to pay for each meal. It’s important to remember dinner is the most expensive and breakfast is usually the least expensive meal. You may want to consider paying $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $50 for dinner. This amount needs to include the meal, tax, and tip so it’s important to inform your employee of this so they’re aware of the amounts.

The room is the next thing to consider. You may not want to pay for a very high end place, but at the same you don’t want them to stay in the cheapest motel you can find either. Each city is different when it comes to options available and the cost involved, so it’s a little more difficult to determine a price, but you’ll want to do your best.

The last thing to consider is transportation. Depending on the distance your employee may need to fly and if that’s the case you’ll need to determine how to get the tickets so you get the best price possible. You may want to use the discount places online or you may want to consider a travel agent. Either will work, but it’s important to find the best price possible.

Once you have all of these figures put into place and stored in a place where your employees can access them, you’re ready to have your employees travel and fill out expense reports. You’ll have fewer questions and your employees will be less likely to over pay for meals, lodging, and transportation.

If you’re in this situation you need to sit down and take time to review your business and the tasks everyone is working on daily, weekly, or monthly. You need to make sure the right person is doing each task and you need to look at the time it takes to complete each task. You may find additional training is required or you may need to find ways to stream line things so it’s easier to do which will take less time in the long run.

Evaluate each task and make sure it’s really needed or if it is needed make sure you’re using the right tools to complete it. There’s nothing worse than having an employee complete a task that could be automated by a program you’re currently using. This is the exact reason why it’s crucial to know the programs you use inside and out. Makes sure you’re utilizing every part of the program and that you have a complete understanding of what it will do and how you can maximize it to the fullest.

Once you’ve completed this evaluation it’s time to make your findings public to your employees. Share with them what will be eliminated, what needs to change, and your plans to make it work. At this meeting you can take suggestions from your employees and get their input as well. You never know, their suggestions may end up being better than yours and they may have ideas to make things easier than what you did, so their input should always be considered.

Making your business the best it can be is what you need to do and one way to do that is to eliminate overtime so you’re not paying out money that could be used in other ways to grow your business. When you evaluate everything that goes on and make changes where it’s necessary you’ll begin to see the effects of your changes and if they’re done correctly itíll be the best thing you can do for your business.

The problem arises when your employees are spending more time at the water cooler than they are at their desk doing their tasks and getting things completed. This doesn’t have to necessarily be at the water cooler, it could be at their desk or someone else’s desk, or it could be in the halls. Pretty much water cooler talk happens anywhere and everywhere in the office which makes it a little more difficult to control.

When you begin to see a problem with your employees spending too much time talking and not enough time working, you need to address it. Call a meeting of everyone in the office and lay down the law. Don’t blame anyone in particular, but instead say it’s beginning to be a problem and we’re addressing it now before it because a huge problem. It’s also important to let your employees know how it will be handled if the problem doesn’t stop. You’ll need to make sure they understand it’s ok to do this at break time and lunch, but not continually during the day.

Once the ground rules have been set, you must put them into action when the time comes. Don’t be afraid to do it, because if you are and you don’t enforce it, your employees will think they can get away with it and they’ll continue to talk more and work less. Stand your ground and make your employees understand you’re in control and you want them to work so you can reach success with your business.

Encouraging your employees to work more and talk less is not an easy task, but you must do it because they more they talk the less work they’re doing and that means money lost for you. They’ll have to work overtime to get it done or you’ll lose out on things because they weren’t working. Don’t let this happen when you can easily set ground rules and enforce them daily. Over time they’ll get used to what you expect and they’ll do the work you need them to do while having water cooler time as well.

When this happens you’ve done what you need to do and your business will grow to levels you may have thought were never possible. Your market will get to a point where they won’t go anywhere, but to you when they need to make a purchase and that’s exactly what you want.

When you continually learn new things you’ll get to this point, but you must take the time to do the learning or it won’t happen. While you may be very busy, there are ways you can still learn the things you need to know about so you share your business with your market and have success.

One of things you can do is ask if the training will be recorded. This will help if you don’t have the time to attend the class at that exact time. This will also give you the ability to listen to it over and over or rewind as necessary for  you to understand what they’re talking about and how you can help your customers.
Another way is to have your assistant attend the training and take notes for you. This will help you to have the information you need and not have to attend when it’s scheduled. If your assistant knows you and your business they’ll be able to take notes and share the most important information with you which will be a huge benefit to you and your customers.

One last way to make the most of your training sessions is to either ask the presenter to transcribe each session or have your assistant do it for you. This will give you the ability to read it when you have time. You can take it on the go and read it on your cell phone or on your iPad.

Continually learning will help you grow your business. You’ll have the ability to help your customers more and you’ll be able to add more products or services to your business which will give you the ability to learn and grow business.

One way to encourage them is to offer a bonus when it’s completed. You can base the bonus on the type of training they must go through or the necessity of the work. Whatever you use to determine the amount of the bonus, you need to use the same consideration every time. It’s not fair to others if you don’t so you need to make note and always do it the same way.

Depending on the person and the type of training needed you may need to find an expert to conduct the training. If your employees would have to find the training online or try to do it themselves, you may find it doesn’t get done correctly, but if you hire someone to conduct it for you you’ll see the knowledge they retain will be higher and you’ll have the expertise you need to have the job done correctly every time.

Sending your employees out of town for training may be more harmful than good. If your employees have families or small children traveling may be more difficult on them than it’s worth, so it’s a good idea to work with them on this type of training. You may find there is training closer to home, training online, or conference calls that could be made. When you take your employees into consideration they’ll be more likely to go through the training.

There may be times when these options won’t work, so the next best thing is to offer an increase in their wage. You may think bribery is a terrible thing, but if your employees go through the training needed for them to do a better job it may be worth it in the long run. Mainly the reason for this is because the job will done correctly and that may increase your income in the long run.

If training is required for your employees to do a better job you need to find a way to get them to do it easily. Whether you like it or not you must accommodate your employees and give them the benefit of the training even if that means you must spend a little money to make it happen.

Most times a manager doesn’t realize they’re even micro managing until someone points it out to them and even then it may not hit them. Once it’s brought to their attention they’ll either change their ways or continue doing what they’re doing disregarding what you say.

When a manager micro manages they don’t allow their employees the opportunity to do the work they’re assigned to do or they may take over certain functions because they’re worried about how it will be done or they’re stressed over it being done correctly.

Another task that seems to be micromanaged would be special projects. There are times when the employees on the project have the ability and the knowledge to do more, but the manager insists on doing it himself. This brings down the moral within the company and when it gets too low employees will begin to look for other work and that’s not what you need.

To an employee being micro managed they may feel stupid or incompetent and that can cause problems for them. They’ll stress every day when they come to work, they may get sick more often, or they may take their frustrations out on others. You don’t want this to happen, so you must handle it.

Helping a micro manager overcome this problem can be difficult at best, but it can be done. The manager must be willing to change or it’s not going to work at all. The worst thing you can do is fire the manager, so it’s best to sit down and talk to this person and help them overcome the problem.

The first thing you’ll need to do, in private, is show them what they’re doing and why it’s wrong. Show this person how to fix it and then tell them you’ll be there to help them make it happen. You don’t want to embarrass the manager so it’s best to encourage them in private as well. Pull them aside when you see the micro manager side of them come out.

Micro managing a business can be more harmful than you may think. You’ll see how dangerous it can be when your employees start complaining or start looking for work elsewhere just so they can get away from this. When you help your manager overcome this managing lifestyle you’ll have happier employees and your business will do better.

Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals (Angela Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, Dennis R. Kelly)

There are those who dream dreams and those whose dreams become reality. Into which group might you fit? Could how much grit — defined by the authors as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress” — you have play a role?

Leading Again for the First Time (Chris Souba, The Ohio State University Journal of Surgical Research 157, 139–153, 2009)

It’s all here: confusing your identity with your role, telling yourself empowering and/or disempowering stories, being mindful of your mental hard drives (what a great turn of phrase!), using interpretative versus evidence-based decision-making, and even two views of reality. All great stuff as a either a primer or review, depending upon where you are in your leadership journey.

The Joyful Heartbeat Checklist (Janet Goldstein on Janet Goldstein)

At BIG we’re fond of asking clients if there’s a heartbeat in their spreadsheets. If you’re caught in the quicksand of meetings, deadlines, and lists of gotta do’s and are looking for escape, you’ll find Janet’s exercise of creating a “Joyful Heartbeat Checklist” a welcome respite.

The Red Hot Heart of Leadership (August Turak on Forbes)

August tells the compelling story of Claire and the value of commitment. “Continual hedging damns us to a life of one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, and when our marriage, business or project fails we never know whether we were wise to hedge or whether we failed because we hedged.”

Cleaning Baby Poop Helps Make Great Leaders (Ben Lichtenwalner, Modern Servant Leader)

What a title — not often is baby poo offered up as a leadership development tool. We’re on a bit of a leadership humility kick here at GYBO, so it’s fascinating how Ben uses cleaning up kid’s nasty diapers as a storytelling vehicle, prompting leaders to consider whether or not they’re humble enough to get their hands dirty. Good stuff!

Which one are you? “The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.”~Felix Adler

May your week be filled with inspiration and positive power at the intersection of the art of leadership and the science of business!

Photo credit: The People Credit

Blog written by Jane Perdue – Follow on Twitter!

One of the biggest reasons people tend to call in sick for is what others call the brown bottle flu which is otherwise known as a hangover. Most generally speaking these sick calls come in on Friday or Monday and that’s because people either start the weekend too soon or they don’t want to finish it come Sunday.

Another reason people call in sick is because of their small children. This is the one you must be very careful with because you don’t want to find yourself in the middle a lawsuit. While it’s very important for parents to have the freedom they need to handle a sick child, it’s also important for you to have stability of a reliable employee. There is a very fine line.

There are several ways to handle inexcusable absences, but you must handle them in the appropriate way or it may come back on you in the end and the consequences may not be what you desire. You may find yourself out of business, in jail, or you may have to pay a hefty fine. None of which are things you want to go through, so it’s best to handle these things on the up and up and do it right the first time.

You can handle absences by offering an additional vacation day if they can go a certain amount of time without calling in sick. Another idea is to take a specific dollar amount or a percentage off of their bonus for every sick day they take. Think about ways to reward your employees for showing up for work every day and then put it into action.

Offering benefits is not easy to start, but worth it in the long run. There are a number of ways to make this happen, but you must do your research in order for it to happen. One of the first things you need to do is make appointments with several insurance companies in town to see what they offer. You’ll want to make sure you talk to different insurance agents that work with different companies so you have different options to offer your employees. United Healthcare, Aetna, and Kaiser Permanente are just a few of the companies you’ll want to consider.

Before your appointments you’ll need to sit down and decide how much you can afford to pay each month. You don’t have to pay for any of the premiums each month, but your employees may be more willing to sign up for it if you pay for part of the monthly amount. This amount will help you in deciding which plan to go with for your employees.

You’ll also need to consider the health of your employees so you know which plan to go with. If your employees have children, you’ll need to find a plan that offers children’s health. If your employees are young, you’ll want to consider one that offers pregnancy and children’s health.

Once you decide on a plan to go with you’ll need to give your employees all the information they need to decide if they’re going to join or not. You’ll also need to make sure they know when it will start and how much money they’ll need to pay out of each check to cover the cost of the premium. You should also consider offering auto pay from their check to cover the cost of the plan.

When your employees have health insurance they’ll likely go to the doctor when something is wrong. The healthier they are the more likely they’ll be to show up every day for work and the less likely they’ll be to cheat on you with someone else.