Service Master Iowa

Not Hiring?

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:01:18 +0000

It is not new news that small businesses are not hiring like they used to. In fact, it is pretty obvious that these small companies are making do with the smallest amount of staff possible. Most people want to blame it all on the recession. Well, honestly the recession has influenced hiring a great deal, but there is something else that is affecting how many employees small businesses are actually hiring. It’s the rising costs of health care that is making it difficult for small businesses to really start hiring up new employees.

To keep costs low in this economic situation, businesses are trying to find ways to cut all costs. That means that health care costs are just another expense that businesses want to decrease significantly or eliminate all together. And to those who think the new health care laws should have helped out, that is wrong. The new laws dealt with the issue of expanding the coverage, not the costs associated with the coverage.

If the costs of health care are not regulated at some point, then there will be no way for businesses to hire more employees looking to find other ways to get the job done and keep their costs low. The health care infographic below shows how ridiculous the current state of the health care system actually is.

Wall Street Reform and the Credit Meltdown

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:43:16 +0000

Wall Street Reform, also called Financial Reform, was a law signed by President of the United States Barack Obama on July 22, 2010. Since the time of th infamous economic crisis of 2007-09 during which millions of jobs were lost, small and large businesses failed, house prices took a catastrophic dive, and savings were completely wiped out, there was a fierce and furious debate taking place regarding accusations of insufficient oversight and regulation of the US financial system. It was believed by Washington liberals that the non-regulated OTC derivative market, and non-existence of any consumer protection authority, were major causes of the financial crises. Hence, Wall Street Reform was passed in order to make the US financial system more “transparent and accountable”, to help avoid another major economic crisis, and to help protect tax payers’ money. During the course of the Financial Reform, many companies and individuals have tried to repair bad credit caused by the crisis, which many believe is now worse than it was before and heading toward Depression. Protection of the consumer was the primary goal of the law being passed. Here is an infographic that will help explain some of the situation in greater detail. Click to expand:

Work from Home Trends

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:24:57 +0000

Many corporations and smaller businesses have recently been showing a lot of love and support for alternative work environments. For some time now, theses companies have been promoting the fact that people don’t necessarily have to work in an office all the time, and can do just as well (and sometimes better) from the convenience of their own homes. The work-at-home, telecommute, or work in other places philosophy has been gaining support for a number of reasons. This makes a lot of sense, because many studies have found that people who work at home are more productive than they would be at the office. Then of course, there’s the reduction of wasted time and expended energy that comes from doing away with (or at least, reducing) daily commutes. When employees work from home, they are doing a good deed for the planet, and probably doing better work, too.

As for employees, those who are able to work in alternative environments some of the time, especially from home, report greater job satisfaction, a stronger work ethic, and the ability to get more work done, at the same, or higher, quality. Among some of the most requested features of jobs is the ability to work from home, and more and more companies are opening up to the idea and using this to attract top talent. Let’s take a look at the trends surrounding the work from home phenomenon in this infographic:

S&P Redefines “Risk Free”

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:48:15 +0000

The structure of the US two party system has finally taken it too far- bipartisan polarities are cited as one of the main reasons by Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency as one of the main reasons why long-term American Treasury debt is no longer considered “risk-free”, and as a main reason for the recent US credit rating downgrade. S & P’s low confidence in the ability for the opposing parties to work together greatly inhibits the ability for Congress to function or come anywhere close to a reasonably pragmatic decision making process that would result in an agreement on debt reduction and policy in general.

But there is still hope yet. The new committee members will be appointed by both party leaders in Congress on August 16th. If these twelve Congressmen are able to work through differences, which they have a much higher incentive to after the S & P downgrade, then a good, feasible debt reduction plan may have a better chance of getting formulated. The key would be getting Congress to approve the new plan, which is probably the biggest hurdle of all. A blind vote in Congress may be the best idea, so that members wouldn’t be as concerned with how their vote will affect them politically and professionally and maybe would feel more free to vote in favor of a compromise. At the end of the day, however, the bottom line is that Congress has to change their mentality from one of pride and inaction to one of humility and action, because it is both parties fault that the US credit rating has been downgraded and the finger pointing is actually more of the American people and the rest of the world towards Congress and a shaky American government rather than Republicans towards Democrats and vice versa.

While many members on both sides of the fence now cite that they feel a “sense of urgency” to avoid a “further downgrade”, we have to wonder where that urgency was one week ago. Is this just more rhetoric being fed to the media to create the appearance that there is a potential for things to actually get done? Or is there a reason why we should believe them this time around?

SEO for All Businesses

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:27:31 +0000

Most web traffic is driven by the world’s three biggest commercial search engines – Bing, Google, Yahoo!. You need SEO practices in place to make sure your site can be found by these search engines when they “crawl” the web, associating keywords with search results. If your site is under the radar of search engines or your content can’t be indexed, your business will suffer immeasurable harm by allowing the people who might need to be matched up with your services to slip right by into the web clutches of your competitors.

Essentially, that is why every business needs an SEO plan. SEO (or, Search Engine Optimization) does not have to involve contracting out with a company that claims to specialize in it, although that can be helpful if there is no one in house who understands how to rank better through the judicious application of keyword research, meta data, and content optimization.

Here is an infographic that can help you understand what SEO is, and why it is so important to your business. Click it to expand.

Learn more about business by watching your satellite dish.

Women in Business Rising Stars

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:33:27 +0000

Women continue to make strides in the business world. 50% + of more than 10 million firms are currently owned by women, and twenty-six percent of all women-owned businesses are headed by women of color. Business owners who are women continue to make a strong mark on the economy, despite the dreary outlook and economic hard times faced by a world in debt crisis. This seems to be because even during a downturn, women business leaders keep looking ahead at long term goals and predictions and finding ways to weather the storm.

Modern Payment Methods

admin — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:16:31 +0000

We are all used to making payments for goods and services that we need via various methods. These methods include checks, credit cards and cash. While such payment methods are convenient and have been tried and tested over time, they are not so popular for those conducting businesses online. Online business is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars every month. Serious businesses looking to get a piece of this pie need to adjust their payment systems and accommodate the new payment methods available online through cable bundles.

Some of the benefits of the new payment methods include safety. Conducting online business can be risky, so the companies that offer these services have take extra measures to ensure that these payment methods are secure and not easy to tamper with. Access or money transfers usually require user names, passwords and extra security measures such as a security question or a letter-number combination password. These payment methods are also very fast and usually are instantaneous. Payments at such fast speeds are very attractive and good for business too. These payment methods are also widely used and widely accepted globally. It therefore, makes sense to adopt these for use by any serious business.

A good example of these modern payment methods is PayPal. This is a modern method of paying for services online or for receiving payments online. A user looking to use this service can apply online for an account and begin using it instantly. PayPal is especially famous with users who buy and sell products and services online. There are over 90 million users worldwide who use PayPal on a regular basis. Businesses that adopt this mode of payment stand a better chance of attracting more consumers as well as target a wider global customer base.

Another popular online payment method is money bookers. Money bookers is a money transfer company that enables the fast and convenient transfer of money across various states. It is a much cheaper form of money transfer and is also a lot faster. The money is sent from a service provider or client, via a money bookers online account and to the account holder’s bank account. Money bookers is safe and convenient and their services are available in many countries across the world.

Other useful payment methods include the use of debit pre-pay cards from either Visa or MasterCard. While most people are aware of credit cards and debit cards issued by banks, there are private companies that have formed partnerships with the big brand cards and issue card that allow easy and flexible online payments. Since the world economy has been greatly diversified, it is possible for people to now receive payments, make payments or purchases online. Holders of these cards can also access funds from ATM machines anywhere across the globe. It is a very convenient form of payment. A good benefit that this card has is that payments are only based on funds already on the card. No credit is awarded and therefore, holder cannot incur any debt.

Cost Cutting Measures For Today’s Businesses

admin — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:15:56 +0000

Doing business and making a profit is increasingly becoming a difficult task. Businesses across the world find that they have to learn to adjust to increasing cost of doing business, stiff competition from new entrants in to the market, a reduced consumer base and the requirements to adapt to new technologies.

Any good business that wants to grow, increase its customers and consumers across geographical borders and grows its income needs to make certain adjustments and tailor its operations so as to improve its efficiency and overcome the competition and piracy protection.

One way a business can stay afloat and overcome competition is by looking at ways to cut costs. Cost cutting measures need not necessarily affect operations in a negative way but should ensure efficiency is improved and waste is reduced. Analyzing the effectiveness of staff and pointing out areas with redundancies can help in eliminating the redundancy. For example, there may be too many customer service workers at a certain station while only a much smaller number is required. By reducing the number of staff doing certain duties, this may help reduce costs.

Other areas that costs may be cut include adopting modern technology in performing duties. This can be adopted in many areas of a company’s departments. These include accounts, human resource management, customer service as well as in management. Modern technology gadgets, equipment and systems help reduce inefficiencies, improve quality and make performance of duties much faster. Use of accounting software in that department may reduce the number of personnel required, may reduce the time it takes to prepare accounts and may also reduce the need for excess paperwork, html form builders, and files. Such cost cutting measures can, in the long run save a company thousands of dollars annually.

Another cost cutting measure that has proven to be effective and reliable in the long run is the outsourcing of duties and businesses not core to the company. For example, jobs such as data entry, website design and book keeping can be done with far better expertise and at lower costs than if performed in-house. There are businesses that have been set up by individuals to offer specialized services such as these. This leaves the company with more time to perform its core business so that it can perform well, affordably and make higher profits.

It is also becoming increasingly popular for businesses to hire workers on contract rather than an offer of employment. Contract workers are engaged to perform specific duties and at a certain cost. The contract workers will perform their duties as specified. There are no requirements to provide medical cover, pay social security or other similar costs as with regular employees. This is a cost cutting measure that works fine for both parties. Contract workers are happy with the arrangement as they get higher pay than regular workers.

By adopting such effective cost cutting measures, companies will be able to withstand the competition, reduce their costs and increase their customers as well as increase their profits. This will also ensure long term sustainability.