12
Jan, 2018
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Personalities are Key to Successful Networking

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Almost everyone has, at one time, worked with someone with whom their personality clashed, whether they did not get along or just didn’t work effectively together. While this is a perfectly natural phenomenon of both nature and nurturing, it is best to put personal differences aside when forming a professional relationship with a coworker.

This was the focus of Networking Like a Pro, a publication by Dr. Ivan Misner and Brian Hilliard. In it, they explore how personalities come into play in the workplace, and how each person’s behaviors influence their interpersonal relationships. While most people display the traits of many personality types, the book makes the assertion that all people fall into four predominant personality types, especially where business is involved. Business networking is strongly influenced by how well your behavioral type meshes with another’s.

So, does this mean that you just won’t be able to network with some people, and with others it will be effortless? Not so.

Misner and Hilliard offer advice on how to best interact with these behavioral types by understanding what really makes them tick. These types are as follows: Go-Getters, Nurturers, Examiners, and Promoters.

Go-Getters
When dealing with a Go-Getter, you have to think–and move–fast. The Go-Getter is determined to get the results they are looking for ASAP, and if the rules need to be bent in order to get them, so be it.

To communicate with a Go-Getter, you need to make the value that you offer them clearly relevant and essential to their goals. More specifically, you need to make them see how you can help speed up their operations without sacrificing the results they strive for. The Go-Getter will also want to hear that they have options to choose from, but would rather hear a pitch than they would a heavily-planned-out script. With a Go-Getter, stick to the highlights, and deliver on your promises.

Nurturers
Where a Go-Getter has more of a “now, if not sooner” attitude, a Nurturer sees the value in taking their time where business matters are concerned, operating with patience. Nurturers are also natural team players, surrounding themselves with supportive allies and willing to offer assistance wherever it is needed. They can be overly tolerant, however, willing to endure a less-than-ideal situation than ready to take a risk to change it.

Honesty is the best policy when working with a Nurturer. To work with them, you will first need to build their trust. You can help this process along by gently guiding them toward a mutually beneficial solution. To accomplish this, you also need to maintain contact with the Nurturer, regularly providing evidence as to how a business relationship with you can provide simplicity and support.

Examiners
A born skeptic, an Examiner will thoroughly examine and evaluate everything that they may work with–including the people. They will unsurprisingly be predisposed to perfectionism, and at the very least, are very thorough. The Examiner is a strong conversationalist, as they use their stores of knowledge and information to their advantage. Efficiency is also a virtue to the Examiner, and so they will move on once their objective has been met, whether that is to the next assignment or to the next event.

As you build a connection with an Examiner, you need to be concise and clear about your position and why it is worth their time to be involved. Lean on facts and evidence to make your point, and only use small talk and stories if they add to the evidence that you are a dependable provider. You need to be sure that you put your best foot forward when interacting with an Examiner, as they will be forming a very strong opinion of you from the get-go.

Promoters
A Promoter is a salesman, usually an extrovert, and a thought leader. They have the drive to spread any good idea they find, more often identifying them instinctively than through research-based evidence. Promoters often attend industry events to network and socialize. They are usually juggling many different projects, and are rarely confrontational.

Communicating with a Promoter requires you to match their speed and align your needs with their priorities. One such priority is their professional image, so you need to make sure that your offer increases their visibility in the industry. As you deal with a Promoter, make sure that you document the finer details of your agreements in writing, and you fulfil your end of the bargain promptly and professionally. Furthermore, you should always give a Promoter plenty of help whenever it is required to prove that you are the best choice for their needs.

These strategies should enable you to network more directly, with the end result being more business relationships that provide mutual benefit. Which of these personality types do you think you most embody? Tell us in the comments!

28
Apr, 2017
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Looking for Outside-the-Box Ideas? Give Your Intrapreneurs a Voice

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Entrepreneurs are the heroes of today, making great strides in the business world by introducing new ideas to their industries. However, the intrapreneur is a bit more of an enigma; they create commendable ideas within their own organization. In fact, your organization probably has its own intrapreneurs. How do you take advantage of their skills to your business’s benefit?

Simply put, the intrapreneur is an employee that can see past the short-term and look at what must be done in the long-term. They understand that their ingenuity can help your organization achieve its goals, and they go out of their way to make sure that their ideas are used for the benefit of the entire organization.

Tim Beerman, CTO of Ensono, describes to CIO what exactly makes a good intrapreneur, and why organizations should look to individuals like them for helpful insight: “These are the employees who want to get their hands dirty and are often the first people to volunteer for a job. Intrapreneurs are not content with the status quo. They often see how things could be part of a bigger picture and come up with ideas to realize this new vision.” Who in your office fits this profile?

Here are a few more characteristics that business owners should look for when identifying their own intrapreneurs.

  • Intrapreneurs are capable of motivating those around them, especially with challenging their perspectives with new thoughts and ideas.
  • Intrapreneurs stick to their loyalties and are always willing to go above and beyond to create positive change for your organization.
  • Intrapreneurs have plenty of skill to be successful outside of your business, but they insist on staying employed by your organization.
  • Intrapreneurs are always challenging the way that your business functions, inviting disruption not to mess with operations, but to improve them.
  • Intrapreneurs can identify where your workplace needs to improve and provide ways to resolve these problems. Moreover, they are willing to take risks to resolve issues.

It’s clear that any intrapreneur will be easy to spot. They are naught but your most loyal, motivated, and thoughtful employees. The real question from a business owner’s point of view is what to do with them. They’ll challenge you to the best of your ability, whether they mean to or not. Will you step up and embrace this challenge, or will you feel threatened by their contributions?

The best way to take advantage of intrapreneurs is to encourage them to step up and communicate their ideas. In particular, you need to make sure that there are various ways that they can communicate their ideas to management. If they don’t, you’ll simply crush the spirit and nobody will be benefitting from their good ideas anymore–certainly not your business. These employees will just put in the minimal effort, get paid, and go home at the end of the day, rather than use their intuition to help your business improve. In a worst-case scenario, they may even leave and find another company that’s more willing to hear them out.

IT professionals can make it much easier for your intrapreneurs to express themselves. Beerman explains: “An intrapreneur might see inefficiencies within his or her company’s workflow, but may not necessarily have the experience to fully develop a solution. The IT department can then act as a partner to find the right recommendation. When intrapreneurs and IT teams are communicating regularly, there are more windows of opportunity for collaboration. Innovation and collaboration will eventually become business as usual, once initial bridges are crossed.”

This type of collaboration doesn’t have to be difficult, but can, as expected, require a major change in your company’s culture. If you want quality communications solutions that can help your organization benefit from each and every great mind behind your operations, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

11
Jan, 2017
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Tip of the Week: 4 Ways to Attract and Retain Top Talent

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The endgame for most businesses is to improve what they do and increase their profitability. While this might mean selling more products, getting more customers or clients, or a myriad of other metrics, the driving force behind your business’s operations–your employees–are crucial toward this goal.

Top talent can be difficult to come by. There are several factors that come into play, especially in a competitive industry. However, employees that go above and beyond are easily worth the struggle that it takes to find them. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to do everything you can in order to make your business attractive to them. Here are four ways that you can make your business a magnet that attracts talented workers.

Offer Benefits
One of the most effective ways to attract new employees is by offering benefits and sign-on bonuses. However, this can lead to you getting more applications than you have time to go through, with many of them possibly not being qualified for the position at all. On the other hand, this makes a particularly impressive employee stand out from the rabble.

In fact, these benefits don’t necessarily have to involve finances. Instead, something as simple as flexible work hours, career advancement, and education may be motivation enough.

Challenge Them
Hard workers appreciate challenges as they provide a valuable outlet for users to test themselves. When you’re looking for new employees, consider implementing some sort of challenge or homework assignment that you can use to gauge whether the prospective employees actually know what they’re doing. This effectively helps you cut down on unqualified applicants, while also allowing you to engage your prospects from the get-go.

Idealize the Workplace
You can hire as much talent as you want, but if you don’t provide your high-demand talent with a great work environment, they may pack their bags and look for a place that does. Be sure that you emphasize to your new onboards what the strengths of your company are, and allow the prospective employees to get a feel for your workplace. Plus, if your current employees have plenty of good to share about the company with the prospect, they’ll be more likely to seal the deal themselves.

Provide the Latest Technology
It’s a known fact that the latest technology can significantly improve the way that you do business, but did you know that it’s also great for attracting new workers? A study of millennial workers found that 42 percent of them will seriously consider leaving a job if the technology used by the company doesn’t meet their high standards. While this might be seen as your typical millennial boo-hooing, keep in mind that they will make up the majority of the workforce as early as 2020. Therefore, it make sense that you would want to hang onto young talent when you can.

One of the ways that you see millennials using their technology in the office is through the use of smartphones, which can also put your business at risk. Be sure that you implement a solid BYOD policy and ensure that they adhere to it. NuTech Services can provide you with the assistance needed to do so.

Basically, these four tips are meant to help you attract the best talent possible. Plus, if you manage to get some good employees, that means that they aren’t working for your competition, which is always a plus.

Bonus Tip: Outsource the Technology Upkeep and Maintenance
One of the biggest issues that SMBs might have is finding qualified technicians to take care of their office technology solutions. While this is a challenge, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Outsourcing services like IT is often preferable to hiring new employees and adding new salaries to your budget. Instead, all you have to do is make room for an IT budget, which can save you plenty of capital in the long run, and then be used to onboard talented staff. In fact, we highly recommend outsourcing as much as possible. To get started, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

26
Oct, 2015
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You Might Be Surprised At the Ways Your Employees Put Your Data At Risk

b2ap3_thumbnail_risk_factors_for_employees_400.jpgOctober is Cyber Security Month and we want to use this time to bring awareness to the different aspects of cyber security. One often overlooked element of cyber security is employee risk management. What level of risk does your staff pose to your network’s security? You can easily find this out by taking an online test.

This employee risk assessment tool is brought to you by StaySafeOnline.org. It’s a quiz designed for employees to take so they can better understand how their use of technology may be putting their organization at risk. The quiz asks employees questions about how they use their mobile devices in the workplace, how they share data, along with other questions meant to reveal security best practices. The employee risk management test can be found here:

http://www.emc.com/microsites/workplacesecurity/index.htm

At the end of the test, the online tool will calculate the test taker’s risk score, and every manager knows how powerful a motivator it can be to rank people. What makes this tool so valuable is that it’s designed to educate your workers about best practices. Once they understand exactly how their “bad behavior” is putting the company at risk, they’ll then feel compelled to change their ways. This is a much more effective tool than yet another memo to read about why cyber security is important.

As great of a security tool as this is, it won’t solve all of your cyber security woes. Even if you’ve got your entire staff lined up on how to properly use their technology, you’re still putting your business at risk if you don’t have the proper protections in place. If your business doesn’t have a strong firewall or up-to-date antivirus software, then even the most careful workers can put your network at risk. Implementing proven security solutions like a mobile device management solution or a Unified Threat Management tool will make your network virtually impenetrable when combined with a workforce that’s educated on security best practices.

For a security assessment that goes even more in depth than an online quiz, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455. We offer businesses a security service called penetration testing where we seek out every weak point of your network for the purpose of offering solutions to best protect your company’s data. Call us today and quiz us about what we can do to keep your information safe!

17
Jul, 2015
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2/3 of Fired Employees Can Access Their Former Company’s Cloud Data AFTER Leaving

b2ap3_thumbnail_rogue_employees_400.jpgAs an employer, you understand that employees come and go. The same group of professionals who helped you build your business will probably be drastically different ten years, or even five years from now. While employee turnover is a natural occurrence, it also presents a certain risk. Believe it or not, a surprising percentage of employees will leave your business one day, and they’ll take some corporate information with them.

A survey from SailPoint shows that a quarter of your employees might take copies of corporate data with them upon leaving a company. The survey, which specifically dealt with cloud computing usage, was issued to at least 3,000 employees worldwide. As explained by SailPoint president Kevin Cunningham, “The survey results are an eye-opener of how cloud applications have made it easy for employees to take information with them when they leave a company.” With so many employees taking advantage of their mobile technology (aka Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD), IT administrators need to be more cautious than ever in how their information is deployed throughout for their business.

A slightly more disturbing statistic is that one in five employees upload this corporate data to a cloud application (Google Docs, Dropbox, etc.) with every intention of sharing it with others. It might feel impossible that your employees could possibly think about stabbing you in the back like this, but it happens more often than you might think. Some people just don’t leave on a positive note. If they storm off with a flurry of curses, it’s fair to consider that they might attempt to sabotage your business.

Here are some more statistics from the survey:

  • 66 percent of employees said they were able to access a business’ cloud storage applications after they left their last job.
  • 60 percent said they were aware that their employer strictly forbids taking intellectual property when they leave the company.
  • Only 28 percent said their employer’s corporate policies describe who can access mission-critical software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps.

These issues pose a unique challenge for IT departments, as it forces them to consider what happens with your business’s corporate data outside of the network. When an employee is terminated or simply leaves the company, it’s more important than ever to ensure that their permissions to access restricted company files are revoked. This can make it easier to protect your business’s data.

If this is a primary concern of your business (as it should be), give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455 to determine the best approach to protecting your confidential corporate information from rogue employees and other malicious entities.

10
Jun, 2015
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Tip of the Week: Keep Your Employees By Keeping them Engaged

b2ap3_thumbnail_workers_engaged_400.jpgAs far as you’re concerned, managing a business is a highly engaging job. However, your staff might feel differently about their jobs. According to a recent study by Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, only 13 percent of employees are legitimately engaged in their work. A disengaged worker is a serious problem for any workplace.

Obviously, a disengaged worker will give a subpar performance, or, “half-assing it,” if you will. However, if they are still able to meet quotas, then this disengagement problem won’t be felt immediately, but it will cost you in potential revenue. In that, a bored worker won’t “give the job their all” and make you profits that go beyond your expectations.

The study goes on to point out that a disengaged worker can be more harmful to a company than you might expect; more than 25 percent of disengaged workers will negatively affect their co-workers. In other words, their negativity will spread, causing more of your workers to disengage with their jobs. If left unchecked, these poor attitudes will eventually bring the morale of your office crashing down, like the Hindenberg.

For your consideration, here are more sobering statistics from the study:

  • 86 percent of companies suffer from an inadequate leadership pipeline.
  • 79 percent have retention and engagement troubles (i.e. high turnover rate).
  • 75 percent have significant trouble attracting the employees they need.

Judging by these numbers, it becomes obvious that employers carry the bulk of the responsibility when it comes to motivating their workforce. By not taking proactive measures to engage your employees (instead, assuming that “If I love my job, then my employees must love theirs,”), then you may one day find yourself blindsided when a poor attitude spreads and the majority of your staff are disengaged. This makes the office a rather drab place to conduct business.

What Causes a Worker to Lose Interest?
While every person has their own reasons for “checking out” from their job, one common reason is that the job fails to provide the worker with personal meaning and fulfillment that they were perhaps looking for when they first applied. You know the story; a bright-eyed job applicant interviews with high hopes. You hire them, expecting that enthusiasm to channel into their job performance; but, at the end of the year, their work has become sloppy and they’ve caught a poor attitude from your other miserable, disengaged workers. If this is a familiar scenario for your office, then it’s on you to motivate your team by rekindling the spark that originally caused them to want to apply for the job.

Another theory about what causes workers to disengage with their job isn’t that they’re doing too little, but rather, they’re doing too much. In fact, two-thirds of all employees in the U.S. feel like they’re doing too much work for too little pay. This grim statistic factors into another reality about the US workforce, which boasts a 26 percent worker turnover rate. It stands to reason that a worker who is fully engaged with what they do, and isn’t burnt out from being overworked, will stick around longer and churn out a higher-quality product.

What You Can Do about It
As stated earlier, if you’ve got a handful of disengaged workers, you will want to take action to engage them. Otherwise, dissension will spread amongst your ranks. Therefore, the problem of employee disengagement boils down to leadership. A skilled leader will be able to spot a worker that’s “checked out” and do what it takes to engage them and maximize their potential.

To that end, here are six tips from Forbes on what “Wise Leaders Can Do to Engage Their Employees.”

  • Stop unknowingly creating tension by expecting them to behave a certain way, rather than allowing them to be their authentic selves.
  • Detect the most positive capabilities in people.
  • Stop micromanaging and start empowering them to discover their full potential.
  • Put employees in a position of influence and allow them to discover their own potential.
  • Share your success to build their momentum.
  • Be consistent and have their backs.

As an IT company, we want to add to this list the importance of providing your staff with working technology. Using slow and unreliable computers is a sure-fire way to frustrate your team, causing them to disengage. If they have to fight with their technology to do their jobs, they will care less and less about their jobs. In fact, they may even take your lack of provision to mean that you, as their leader, don’t care, and a disengaged attitude is excusable.

NuTech Services is here to help you on the technology side of motivating your staff. If you know of any additional ways to motivate your workers, share them with us in the comments.

22
May, 2015
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How to Monitor Employee Communications Without Taking What’s Said Personally

b2ap3_thumbnail_boss_monitoring_400.jpgThere seems to be some confusion in the workplace regarding the privacy of digital communications made over a company network. Can an employer read an employee email or record a phone call without employee consent? Is instant messaging a safe place for employees to complain about their jobs? The answer to these questions may surprise workers and business owners alike.

The Need For Everyone to Understand Company Policy
Technically, you as a business owner can legally comb through and read all of your employees’ internal emails and instant messages. However, just because it can be done, doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. If you do, you’re going to have a bad day and potentially be exposed to messages that will make you look at an employee in a different light. This isn’t fair to the employee, especially if they wrongly believed that their messages were private.

If you know that one day you may go through your company’s IM archives, then you should notify your staff that their messages aren’t private and that they’re subject to investigation. It’s only fair to make this disclosure, and it will help to keep the peace in the workplace.

Employers Must Use Objectivity When Performing Internal Investigations
Here’s a possible scenario to consider: Let’s say you have a problem employee on your hands that uses the company’s instant messaging app to talk trash about you and your business. You suspect them of saying some damaging things, so you decide to investigate their archived messages. Upon doing so, it turns out that this problem employee messaged everybody, including your thought-to-be good employees, in the company and was spreading rumors about you.

What’s worse, the good employee may have been hesitant to engage the problem employee over instant messaging in the first place. The good employee may have only responded to the initial IM from the disgruntled employee as a way of being nice. Take for example this hypothetical IM conversation between two employees; a loyal employee (LE), and a disgruntled employee (DE).

DE: I’m so sick of this policy, it’s unfair and the boss is a tyrant with a bad hairpiece!
LE: There are some policies here that can be improved upon.
DE: This isn’t the first time the boss has messed with me like this, he’s a jerk and I’m sick of everything.
LE: The boss can be strict.

A manager that’s taken personal offense at DE will read this transcript and think that LE shares the views of the troublesome employee. However, a careful reading of the transcript will show that LE didn’t say anything problematic. LE was simply replying to DE in such a way as to appease their feelings, participate in the conversation, and not escalate things by “stirring the pot.” A manager that’s felt personally betrayed by DE will have an almost impossible time seeing LE’s subtle peacekeeping strategies.

For LE, being pulled into a documented conversation like this is a lose-lose situation. If they agree too much with DE, they’ll look like they too are disgruntled. If they stand up for their boss and the company and put DE in their place and even tattle on DE, then they run the risk of being viewed as a brown-noser or a goody two shoes by their co-workers–an influential group that they spend a significant amount of time with.

Every Office Needs a Microphone-Free Water Cooler
This is why employees need an avenue to communicate where they can blow off steam about the workday and speak freely about their jobs, without running the risk of their bosses finding out what was said. At one time, this was the water cooler, but with our society becoming more comfortable expressing themselves digitally, instant messaging may be viewed as today’s water cooler.

Only, an employee might wrongly assume that, since they’re using the same IM tools that they use in their personal lives, that what they say online is private. When messages are relayed internally over the company network, this isn’t the case, and for the health and harmony of yourself and your business, this needs to be communicated to all levels of the organization. Obviously you don’t want to cultivate a poisonous atmosphere where people just stand around and complain about their jobs, but sometimes people that are under a lot of stress need an outlet to vent in order to calm themselves.

Communication is Key
At NuTech Services, we can equip your business with a secure instant messaging and email solution, as well as a digital telephone service with VoIP that will fit the communication needs of your company. We can also help you set up permissions so that you and the network administrator can have complete control and access to all archived messages. Reach out to us at 810.230.9455 to learn more.

18
May, 2015
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Do You Trust Your Employees Enough to Offer Unlimited Vacation Time?

b2ap3_thumbnail_unlimited_paid_time_off_400.jpgAs a business owner, you know how difficult establishing a paid time off policy is. Providing too little can make your business seem unfair, but giving away too much might make you feel like you’re losing money. Therefore, it might come as a shock to even suggest the idea of unlimited PTO. Some business owners, on the other hand, find it completely effective, and that it can even improve the quality of work.

The current state of PTO in the workplace is pretty standard, regardless of where you look. Employees are either given a set amount of hours at the beginning of the year which they use at their leisure, or they accrue them on a monthly or yearly basis. These employees put in a two-week notice of their designated time off, and they’re all set, so long as their absence is approved for that time. This puts a limit on recuperation time. While this might seem like it doesn’t matter, proper rest can help your team push above and beyond, to their maximum productivity.

Zach Ferres, CEO of Coplex, is a big advocate of unlimited paid time off, and for good reason. He claims that it offers a unique return on investment that’s beneficial to your business’s operation:

Employers who offer unlimited PTO report increased employee satisfaction, improved work-life balance and greater productivity. Plus, unlimited PTO can be a huge selling point when you’re recruiting, and it will actually save your HR department an average of 52 hours per year.

One popular company that has implemented this policy with great success is the video streaming service Netflix. Last year, Virgin founder Richard Branson followed suit, as reported by Business Insider:

Virgin founder Richard Branson recently declared that the company’s employees can take as many vacation days as they want, provided that “their absence will not in any way damage the business — or, for that matter, their careers!” Branson said that he got the idea from Netflix.

Of course, one of the greatest benefits that an unlimited PTO policy has is that it can make your team feel like you care about them and their personal lives. This can drastically improve operations and inter-office relationships. According to Feres, here’s how it’s done.

Trust Is Key
Before you even consider integrating an unlimited PTO policy, it’s important that you ask yourself whether or not you can trust your employees to not abuse the privilege. If they start to take days off willy-nilly, it might be time to reconsider your policy. If you take the leap of faith, however, it also shows your team that you trust them; a valuable asset that can make working for you that much better.

Create a Mandatory Minimum PTO Policy
Some employees work too much and don’t take time off, even when they do have it available. This can be harmful, especially if they get burned out from working too hard. Mistakes happen when employees are tired or overworked, so the best way to avoid this is by making them take time off once in a while. This lowers stress and keeps your employees happy.

Use a Time-Off Request Process…
Naturally, employees should have to go through a certain process in order to use their PTO. People can’t randomly be coming and going as they see fit. Generally, you should know at least a few weeks ahead of time when someone wants to take time off. You can use this time to divvy up urgent tasks to others who will be in the office.

… And Keep Track of the Requests
This is primarily so you know who is taking the most time off and why. This helps you keep track of your employees and whether or not they’re taking advantage of your PTO policy. On the other hand, you’ll also know who isn’t taking enough time off, which will make it easier to encourage them to do so.

What are your thoughts on unlimited PTO? Is this leap of faith something you’re willing to try? Let us know in the comments.