Choosing The Right Uniform For Your Employees
If you are an employer or business owner and you need to choose a uniform for your employees, there are several factors you should consider before doing so. Since changing uniforms would be an expensive, time consuming hassle, you want to make sure to pick the best uniform when you start.
Of course, you also have the option of not choosing a uniform, but instituting dress code. For example, you might require employees in your IT department to wear blue jeans, a solid color T shirt, and their corporate ID tags. Or you could have a partial uniform – just the shirt, for example.
But the focus of this article is primarily helping you choose a uniform for your employees. Here are several factors that you should consider.
1 Function
What do you need the uniform to accomplish? Is it for looks only, or does it need to have special functionality?
2 Wearability
What kind of wear will your employees be putting on their uniforms? Be sure that the uniform you choose will hold up well under the conditions your employees will be working. For example, most military work/battledress uniforms are made of ripstop material so they will hold up to the abuse they receive on the job.
3 Image
What image do you want your uniforms to convey? Think carefully about the message you want you uniforms to convey professional? Tough? Ready for work? Sophisticated? Military? Ensure that the uniform you choose conveys the message you want.
4 Washability
If at all possible, choose a uniform that is easily washed and cared for. Few things are more of a nuisance than clothes that are a pain to wash and dry. If possible, select a material that will not need to be ironed.
Keeping these factors in mind, you can choose a uniform that will make you, your employees, and your customers happy. Good luck!
Alternative Investors Eye Private Companies
Q: Entrex has brought public market standards and disciplines to the private market. I understand the value of this to the alternative investment community, but what is the value to me as the owner of a private company?
- Craig Rutkai, business owner, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
A: It’s the question I get more than any other. To answer, let’s start with what Entrex is.
In broad strokes, Entrex is a brand-new market for the alternative investment community. It takes the compliance standards and reporting structures that have long been a part of the public investing market and applies them to private companies.
Until Entrex, there was no way to compare apples to apples and no way of knowing what you were getting yourself into when investing in a private company. Entrex has brought transparency to the process of private investing, giving the alternative investment community a new place to put their money.
So how does this benefit you and others like you? In a word: capital.
Today, roughly 80 percent of private companies receive their funding within a 50-mile radius of their home office. Essentially this means friends and family, country club colleagues, regionally focused venture capitalists and fellow businesspeople. To say these avenues for pursuing capital are limiting would be something of an understatement.
But alternative investors are chomping at the bit to invest in private companies. They simply require the means to do so – an entity willing to do the due diligence so that they may find, research, track, manage and trade their investments. Entrex is that entity.
Whether you’re looking for capital, interested in being acquired or simply want to see how your business is valued for shareholders on a quarterly basis, Entrex can help. It brings private business owners’ need for liquidity and the alternative investment market’s need for fresh investment opportunities together in one place.
The revolution is beginning. You can be a part of it.
Contingency Plans – Can You Handle Curve Balls?
Contingency plans are absolutely critical for first year business success. A contingency plan is what will help you deal with the curve balls that get thrown at you. Despite your best research and planning, you will encounter surprises: good and bad.
When you start your contingency plan you need to list out anything you can think of that will either positively or negatively impact your business. There are a number of things that you should consider for your contingency plan including:
Concentrating on a niche – what contingency plan can you put in place if your niche dries up or turns out to be unable to support your business?
Labor market issues – do you need a contingency plan for a lack of availability of contract workers or employees?
General comfort with ASP software – if clients don’t need the services you provide, are you able to branch into different service markets?
Strategic alliances between competitors – if there are mergers or alliances in your industry have you thought of how your business can react and stay alive?
A thorough contingency plan address 15 – 20 reasonable possibilities that could affect your ability to remain profitable. These are things that are outside of your control that you must react to. Your contingency plan only needs to cover a one-year time horizon but it should be revised often.
The Bottom Line On Contingency Plans
You don’t want to be caught without a contingency plan. Things happen – some positive, some negative. Your ability to weather the ups and downs of your business will depend heavily on the thought and time you put into your contingency plan. Your ability to deal with the unexpected is what will keep you on track for success, or derail you completely.
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Make Meetings Easier And More Organized
Modern business takes teamwork. No one can do it alone. That’s why today’s corporate environments are designed to facilitate people working together. Computer networking helps bring employees into sync, but even more important is the sort of face time you can only get by meeting in person-provided meetings are run efficiently.
Anyone who’s ever put a meeting together knows just how time-consuming it can be. Whether it’s an everyday meeting or a large business event, productive meetings require planning and preparation. Here are some common dilemmas and their solutions:
• Dilemma: You have lots of handouts that may get lost in the pile.
Solution: An easy way to organize meeting materials is to prepare binders with tab dividers for all participants. The divider tabs make it simple for everyone to follow along as the meeting goes from topic to topic. Use framed view binders for a polished look.
• Dilemma: You want your meeting materials to have a cohesive look, but you’re not a graphic designer and there’s no budget to hire one.
Solution: Visit Avery’s Meetings and Events Solution Center. You’ll find themes and templates that you can use to design and print products that are just right for your event or meeting. From name badges and tent cards to binders and divider tabs, with just a few clicks you’ll be able to design and print a whole suite of products that have a coordinated look. There are step-by-step project ideas, expert tips and suggested products for a variety of different types of business and personal meetings and events. Plus, you’ll find advice and tips from professional meeting planners. It even includes meeting preparation timelines, checklists for planning meetings and step-by-step guides to preparing meeting materials.
• Dilemma: You don’t know how to present some important information.
Solution: Don’t let important information get buried in a pre-sentation deck. Highlight these points on easel board-sized posters that bring them to life. Sign kits to create posters from an ordinary printer are available in office supply stores.