Category: Operations

In 1931, in the midst of the polio epidemic, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier finished his famous Villa Savoye, on the outskirts of Paris. When you walk into the building, the first thing you see is a stand-alone ceramic sink. Todd Heiser has been thinking about that sink a lot lately.

“It encouraged people to have good hygiene,” he says. “Moving forward from this pandemic, I think we’re really going to see a refocus on zoning and what happens when we come into a space.”

Heiser is a co–managing director of the Chicago office of Gensler, a global architecture firm that has created a data-driven tool called ReRun to help businesses reimagine their offices to accommodate new social distancing guidelines based on their individual space, staff size, and advice from the CDC and the WHO.

“Depending on what your space can absorb, you may only want to bring back 25 percent of people to the office,” Heiser says. But capacity isn’t the only concern. Some clients are worried about open floor plans, while others are just as fearful of enclosed spaces: Doorknobs have become the new enemy.

“We’ve been hearing that many of our users don’t want as many doors on rooms,” Heiser says. “So we’re actually creating something that’s a mix between an office and a workstation. We’re calling it an ‘officle.’ Or we’ll pull the doors off a conference room and use that as an additional workspace.”

Heiser envisions a future that will embrace facial recognition technology to grant touch-free access to workspaces, and anticipates a refreshed demand for automatic doors, intuitive elevator systems, and even infrared temperature sensing. He knows that remote work will be a big part of our business culture moving forward, but he mostly feels optimistic about the future of the office and how employees exist within it.

“This pandemic has created a new sense of essentialism,” he says. “It’s made us value the power of human connection, and also to ask, What do we really need? Why do we need to go to an office? We’re probably going to realize we don’t need some of the things we thought we did.”

What Our Socially Distanced Workspaces Might Look Like [Entrepreneur]

As a surprise to no one, infamous movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of two sex crimes in late February. As a result, the case brought justice to many female accusers. And drew more attention to the #MeToo movement. Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate based on sex, only since the late 1980s has the Supreme Court interpreted the meaning to include sexual harassment in the workplace.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment can take place in several ways:

• The victim, as well as the harasser, may be a woman or a man and the victim does not need to be of the opposite sex from the harasser.
• The harasser may be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker or a non-employee, such as a vendor or customer.
• The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.
• Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.
• The harasser’s conduct must be unwelcome.

While the Federal law applies to companies with 15 or more employees, smaller businesses are still subject to lawsuits if any type of sexual harassment occurs in the workplace. And because sexual harassment can mean anything from unwanted physical contact, to jokes referring to sexual acts or sexual orientation, to outright demanding sexual favors, some states started requiring businesses to provide mandatory sexual harassment training to all employees.

State-by-State Sexual Harassment Training Requirements

States That Require Sexual Harassment Training

California

Effective January 1, 2020: “Employers having five or more employees shall provide at least two hours of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees and at least one hour of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all nonsupervisory employees within six months of their assumption of a position. An employer may provide this training in conjunction with other training provided to the employees. The training may be completed by employees individually or as part of a group presentation, and may be completed in shorter segments, as long as the applicable hourly total requirement is met.” Training must be provided every two years.

Also, for seasonal and temporary employees, or any employee hired to work for less than six months, training must be provided within 30 calendar days after their hire date or within 100 hours worked, whichever comes first.

Connecticut

• Employers must provide all existing employees with two hours of training by October 1, 2020.
• They must provide two hours of training and education to new employees hired on or after October 1, 2019 within six months of their start date.
• Employers with fewer than three employees must provide two hours of training and education to all current supervisory employees by October 1, 2020 and  within six months to new supervisory employees.
• They must provide periodic supplemental training not less than every 10 years.

Delaware

Employers must distribute the Department of Labor’s Sexual Harassment Notice to all new employees when they start working. Current employees should have  been notified by July 1, 2019. The notice explains sexual harassment, provides several examples, cautions against retaliation, and gives instructions on filing a complaint with the Department of Labor. In workplaces with 50 or more employees, employers are required to provide interactive training on sexual harassment prevention and additional training to supervisors about their responsibilities and any retaliation prohibitions.

District of Columbia

Do your employees earn tips? Then you must provide harassment prevention training for all employees.  Consult the Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018. The D.C. Office of Human Rights (OHR)must develop the training. Or an OHR-certified provider must develop it. As a result, new employees must receive training within 90 days of employment. Or they training must have happened within the past two years. Owners, operators, and managers must receive training every two years.

Maine

Employers with 15 or more employees must conduct an education and training program. That goes for all new employees. It needs to happen within one year of commencement of employment. Training must include the illegality of sexual harassment. It must also include a definition of sexual harassment. It must include he definition under state and federal laws and federal regulations. They include the Maine Human Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts law requires a policy from employers with six or more workers. As a result, adopt a written policy against sexual harassment. Chapter 151B encourages employers to conduct education. Create training programs on sexual harassment for all employees on a regular basis.

New York

New York State requires all employers to provide workers with sexual harassment prevention training. Do you opt out of using the model training developed by the Department of Labor and Division of Human Rights. Then you must ensure the training you do use meets or exceeds the following minimum standards. The training must be interactive. It must include examples of conduct that would constitute unlawful sexual harassment. And it should contain information addressing conduct by supervisors. Also consider any additional responsibilities for such supervisors.

John West is a serial entrepreneur in the truest sense. Prior to his latest startup, he had already built and sold two companies in very different industries. And he says that while developing an idea to start a business takes time, selling that same business is just as complicated.

West started building Whistle Sports Network in 2008 after selling his second company, Silver Oak. After the Silver Oak sale, he decided to spend time with his children. As his children started watching sports, he started to notice that the media coverage, content and delivery weren’t geared toward younger generations. West started to research the media industry and decided to launch a linear cable network. Today, Whistle Sports has 315 channels and 115 million aggregate fans and followers.

During a sale, business owners have key financial and emotional considerations, like figuring out what to do once they don’t own that business and developing a personal financial plan. While the lump sum from a sale can be life-changing money, it’s secondary to the work as an entrepreneur, according to West.

“I’ve never believed you should start a company to sell it,” says West. “You start a company to solve a problem and do something cool. You sell it based on how the markets are doing and how the industry is doing — you can’t plan this.”

Nadia Allaudin, senior vice president of Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management in Century City, agrees and says that “there needs to be an understanding for the impetus for the sale or walking away. There needs to be a lot of conversations about how you’re going to handle this.”

Once a business owner receives an offer, whether expected or not, that’s when the planning begins.

Buyers can be anywhere.

West started his first company, Enstrat, an environmental consulting firm, out of college in 1989. Soon after graduating Harvard Business School, he sold the firm to a member of his managerial team in 1996 because he wanted to make a change.

“The business was profitable, so we were able to finance the sale through debt,” says West.

Many companies are sold to key employees since these people know and understand the business and have a passion for it.

“Entrepreneurs should think about that when they’re hiring people and consider grooming employees, since they may be the people to take over your business in a few years,” says Tim Sabol, private wealth advisor at Ameriprise Financial in Philadelphia.

In 1999, West went on to build Silver Oak, a company that helped state governments save money. His company created a niche and was earning about $23 million in revenues. After eight years, he accepted an offer from CGI in 2005. Three years later, he started Whistle Sports. Deals can take up to a year or two to close, which can be used to plan for what’s next.

“Most of the time, how long [a sale] takes hinges on who the buyer is — if it’s an internal candidate or a competitor down the street — and it always seems to take longer than people expect,” says Sabol.

Prepare for the exit.

Leaving a business requires understanding the business’s value and worth. You may need multiple valuations depending on the buyer, nature of the business and the deal. Having clear books and records helps a buyer with due diligence, and you want to have years of financials readily available so you’re prepared for that unexpected offer.

“There are a lot of different business valuations companies, and you want to find one that’s reputable and specific to your industry, so they know your business and the cash flow,” says Laurie Barry, wealth advisor at UBS Financial Services in Chicago.

Negotiate your responsibilities.

As part of the Silver Oak sale to CGI, West stayed with the company for 18 months to manage the integration of Silver Oak into the bigger business and work on special projects.

“A lot of times, the company wants you there to shepherd your old employees into the new system,” says Sabol.

If you’re asked to stay, inquire about the length of the commitment and the expectations of that position since this will affect your future plans.

“Make sure you understand what those parameters are,” says Barry. “If you don’t want to stay on, what are the ramifications of those as well. That’s really important for the business owner.”

Create a plan for your finances and time.

What you plan to do with your time and how your life will look is as important as the financial aspect of leaving your business. After selling Enstrat, West moved to New York to work as a management consultant. When that firm was sold, he then started Silver Oak.

“I knew I wanted to do something on my own, so I came up with the idea for Silver Oak on napkins and planned the budget for the company,” says West.

After selling Silver Oak, since he had started a family, he put half of the sale proceeds towards college funds and his retirement. Once he started Whistle Sports, he invested the rest into the seed round. He also had to budget for the years that he didn’t take a salary along the way. For many serial entrepreneurs, what’s next isn’t to just go sit on the porch, at least not for a long time. And it’s tempting to use the entire lump sum for a new business.

“Do some analysis to figure out how much of the proceeds you should set aside for retirement, and with the balance of the proceeds, think about how much you can risk for the next deal,” says Sabol.

While some business owners have a vision for what to do next, others may decide to take some time to figure out next steps. If you don’t have a plan, rediscover strengths and build your network to make a transition into something new easier. Be sure to budget for these expenses, since just rolling with it often doesn’t work.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, it defines a big piece of your identity, and when that goes away, it’s definitely a transition,” says West. “I didn’t appreciate that after selling the first company, but you have to find something else to focus on.”

Don’t ever go it alone.

“Find a good set of advisors who you work well with and can give you great advice,” says West.

Corporate accountants, lawyers and investment bankers can help shepherd your company through a sale, and a personal accountant and attorney can assist with your personal financial planning when you do receive that lump sum. Build a team of people who commit to your business like you do because as an entrepreneur, these people will help determine your success.

“If you surround yourself with capable people with different strengths and weaknesses, you can get around any obstacle,” says West. “That sounds sort of cliché, but it’s the absolute difference.”

Know When and How to Sell Your Business [Entrepreneur]

Most everyone has a vague idea of what SEO is. But if you’re going to try to use it to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to genuinely understand what the term means, how the concept works, and how you can leverage it in order to help your business prosper.

Defining SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it refers to practices designed to improve a site’s position in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal of SEO is to improve the visibility and traffic of a site. In essence, this optimization is much like holding a search engine’s hand in order to help it understand a website. 

Black and White Hat SEO

Now, as you might suspect, this can lead to both good and bad SEO. Your SEO practices must be centered around improving your audience’s experience. If you focus solely on short-term gains in the SERPs, you’ll inevitably find yourself engaging in ethically questionable practices.

Bad or “black hat” SEO involves the owner of a website deliberately misleading search engines by stuffing their site’s content with SEO tactics, even if it doesn’t accurately reflect the content of the site itself. This satisfies the needs of the search engine but doesn’t actually provide quality content for the audience — in essence, “lying” in order to get traffic.

Good or “white hat” SEO, on the other hand, utilizes sustainable, honest techniques in order to optimize a site’s content while simultaneously making the content itself focused on the audience, not merely on gaming search engines.

Types of SEO

In addition to white and black hat techniques, there are two kinds of SEO that you want to use in order to fully optimize your site. 

The first is on-page SEO. This involves the content actually housed on your site. On-page SEO involves optimizing everything, from keywords and links within the content itself to meta tags and titles, image alt text, URLs, and even the code on the back end.

Off-page is the other kind of SEO you’ll want to consider. As the name suggests, this consists of any and all online SEO activities that you do off of your website. This can include things like guest posts, sharing infographics, working with influencers, and utilizing social media.

How to Use SEO to Build Your New Business

Now, if you’re starting to feel like a deer in the headlights, that’s understandable. SEO can feel very overwhelming at first. However, there’s no need to panic nor to throw in the towel. When broken down into manageable steps, optimizing your business’s online presence can actually be quite an achievable task, and it can yield tremendous benefits. Here are a few ways to go about using SEO in order to make your business shine and bring in traffic from across the web:

Create Genuine, Authoritative Content

First and foremost, always remember to put the customer first. One of the best on-page ways to increase your new business’s SEO is to create authoritative content that is aimed at the customer. In other words, if you start a company blog, make sure that you use it to write articles that provide real information and answer key questions for customers within your niche.

As you create content, start looking into keywords, including long-tail keyword phrases that are specific to your industry, expertise, and location. There are many different free keyword tools out there, like Google AdWords, Keyword Planner, or Keyword In. Look for one that you feel comfortable using, then search for keywords and phrases to include in your content. As you come up with a list of terms that people are searching for, add them to your content in natural places where they don’t disrupt the flow of information.

In addition, make sure to include links within your text that both point to other parts of your sites (known as internal linking) and outside quality sources (known as external linking). Governmental and educational sites are excellent quality external links. When you add a link to your text, also make sure that the words you hyperlink are applicable to the information being linked to!

Heading Off-Page

In addition to the on-site content, make sure to look for opportunities to share your business in other places. As previously mentioned, this can be done by using social media to personally connect with customers. It can also provide an avenue to promote your materials as well. Simply take the time to interact with customers as well as those interested in your niche and join in the conversation.

In addition, you can look for opportunities to connect with other authorities within your niche (known as influencers) who you can collaborate with. Providing quality guest posts for other blogs that include a link or two pointing back to your site can also help drive traffic.

Hiring a Professional

If want to use SEO but you can’t find the time to do so, you can always hire a professional to help. If you do that, though, make sure to set up a system of analytics in order to track their effectiveness. Remember, you’re not running a charity. If your business is new, chances are you don’t have a lot of capital to throw around. If that’s the case, you want to make sure that you’re investing your SEO dollars wisely. Make sure that you have a tool like Google Analytics tracking your data behind the scenes in order to see where your customers are coming from, how long they’re spending on your site, who is making purchases, and so on.

Using SEO to Succeed

In many ways, SEO is the lifeblood of the internet these days. While you always want your content to genuinely meet the needs of your customers, it’s good SEO that will ensure that the content reaches those customers in the first place. 

The beauty of good SEO, though, is it doesn’t require a massive budget or an extremely specialized skill set. While SEO experts can take the concept of optimization to very detailed levels, it’s certainly possible for startups and fledgling companies to also throw their “white hats” into the ring as well. If you focus on creating quality, on-page SEO content and leveraging your off-page SEO endeavors to the best of your ability, chances are you’ll notice your online momentum beginning to build in no time.

Whether you are buying a new car or already own an old one, auto protection plans are something you need to consider thoughtfully both to protect your vehicle and to ensure your own peace of mind.

As we know, all vehicle owners are legally required to have collision coverage. However, the fact is that less than 10 percent of collision insurance plans are ever used. On the other hand, auto protection plans provide coverage for various costly parts of your vehicle. So, when you have some or other type of auto protection plan for your car, you get to save many mighty dollars when those expensive repair needs arise.

The importance of having auto protection coverage is again apparent from the fact that more than 80 percent of auto or vehicle protection policyholders end up using their coverage.

Keep it in mind, however, that auto insurance companies provide different types of coverages. There are comprehensive coverages as well as selective coverages. The first type will normally cover all or most of your vehicle parts whereas, under selective policies, particular components of a vehicle are covered.

So, know your own requirements well before you decide on one or other of these policies. For example, if you’ve had too many flat tires within a relatively short period of time, a road-hazard tire warranty will be beneficial for you. Cars running in areas where roads are covered with too many debris normally face this hazard, so a tire warranty is a good option for car-owners living in such areas.

Again, for older cars, engine coverage is a useful one. The engine is the most important component of a vehicle and by having it insured, you can save yourself from paying many expensive repair bills in the future.

So, just as it is important to choose the right coverage for your car, it is just as important that you choose the right insurance provider—a reliable business with a clean and proven track record. In other words, a company with whom you can rest assured that your rightful claims will be reimbursed without any hassle whatsoever.

Liberty Auto Protection, a BBB accredited business, is one such top company in the auto insurance industry. The company provides a wide range of policies designed to meet the requirements of all kinds of motorists.

Currently, the company offers six different auto protection plans—Elite Exclusionary Plan, Royal Select Plan, Premier Plan, Classic Plain, Powertrain Plan, and the Basic Plan. The Elite Exclusionary Plan covers each and all components of your vehicle save wear and tear items such as upholstery, light bulbs, and paint. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the Basic Plan, mostly suitable for older vehicles, that provides coverage for the engine only.

Depending on your needs, you can choose any of the aforementioned plans for your vehicle. In addition to their track record and great reliability as a business, the Liberty Auto Protection offers some other great benefits as well. These include transferable coverage, an unlimited number of claims during the whole length of the coverage, nationwide coverage at all licensed dealerships or repair facilities and more.

Also, once a repair is done, you don’t need to pay from your pocket and then wait for reimbursement from the company. All you need to do is give a call to the company and once it is authorized that the damaged part is covered, the repair mechanic will be directly paid by the company either by check or via a credit card over the phone.

So, if you feel you need a new auto insurance policy for your vehicle, there is no reason why you shouldn’t get in touch with one of the company representatives and request a free quote. The customer representatives can be reached at Liberty Auto Protection phone number 800-599-9557.