Looking for ways to inspire and jumpstart your team? Turns out that micromanaging can actually stall the process and failure to delegate leaves employees feeling powerless. For more great tips on how to help your employees achieve their fullest and to give you less stress as a manager, check out this article from Forbes Community Voice, 10 Ways You Can Start Empowering Your Employees.
Category: Business Model
Musicians Filing Taxes
Here in #ATX, the self-proclaimed, “Music Capital of the World,” we play host to all levels of musicians. This article from Tom Tom magazine offers a great look at best practices for filling taxes as a working musician. Drummer and owner of Math LLC, a tax preparation service, Emily Kingan, gives detailed information on all things money from handling cash transactions to dealing with a multi-facited career. Tips from an Accountant: The Best Way for Musicians to Do Their Taxes.
Real or Fake?
After the Equifax information breach, many of their customers were encouraged to visit a site containing consumer updates and security information. Instead of creating a page from the Equifax domain, the company spawned a new page, one that was easily copied, leaving their clients yet again at risk. Nick Sweeting, a software engineer proved this point when he created a clone of their page. His version was so convincing that a representative of Equifax even tweeted the web address (three separate times) he had created. Sweeting’s page alerted people that it was a fake since his intent was not to steal information but to spotlight the fact that Equifax had created yet another cyber hazard.
Someone Made a Fake Equifax Site. Then Equifax Linked to It.
More Women In Tech
Companies often say they desire a more diverse workplace without really understanding how to achieve this goal. Katherine Zaleski, in Opinions for the New York Times highlights the fact that small changes in the interview process can make a huge difference. From making sure the panel includes one woman, to perks that are mentioned, such as maternal leave and child care subsidy.
The Maddeningly Simple Way Tech Companies Can Employ More Women
Health Care Free Market?
Exactly what does it mean to have a health care free market? According to Farzon A. Nahvi for the New York Times, it would involve an adjustment in our sensibilities about life and death. He based this assessment on the patients sent to his ER by well meaning bystanders who called EMS when they found people unconscious on the street. As a community are we prepared to look the other way and not try to help?
Why The Back Story Matters
It’s no secret that companies spend millions on branding and advertising, but having an actual story of the entrepreneur’s ‘climb to success’ may boost sales even when people don’t initially like the product. According to Charles Duhigg for the New York Times, Yoplait Learns to Manufacture Authenticity to Go With Its Yogurt. Yoplait yogurt, a subsidiary of General Mills, continues their journey in an effort to produce a sense of authenticity for their new product Oui. Single-serve yogurt, created in the French style served in a glass jar.
Will these changes finally give the company the historical connection they’ve been seeking?
Have you tried Oui? Leave your impressions in the comments section.
Try It Then Buy It
Try it before you buy it at Sephora! The nations number one speciality beauty retailer has added all kinds of new touches to their in-store shopping experience. For example, see yourself in all kinds of lashes, experiment with a range of perfumes, or let a stylist apply foundation from their large collection. In a selfie obsessed and friend critiquing world, this allows the customer to get a feel for the cosmetics before they make a purchase. It also inspires shoppers to spend lots more time in the store. Sephora is finding that the longer they stay, the more they buy.
Employee Manipulation?
After a string of issues involving both customer and driver dissatisfaction, Uber has vowed to make new investments into the driver experience. But even as they talk about changes, the company is still engaged in a massive behavioral experiment in order to entice drivers to work more and longer hours, at times in less lucrative areas.
Noam Schreiber for the New York Times thinks that, “By mastering their workers’ mental circuitry, Uber and the like may be taking the economy back toward a pre-New Deal era when businesses had enormous power over workers and few checks on their ability to exploit it.” Read more here: How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons
Pink Collar?
As more and more traditionally male, “blue-collar” jobs disappear, a new trend of “pink-collar” work is on the rise. This is causing an interesting divide in the workplace where unemployed men are not willing to move into these jobs such as health aide. One that takes soothing and calm, a “woman’s touch,” one man quipped in the article, Why Men Don’t Want the Jobs Done Mostly by Women. Even as factories continue to close or automate, men are not seeking these types of middle-skill jobs. Although lack of training and need for extra schooling play a part, researchers and sociologists are finding that the biggest reason is how the jobs are viewed. At this point, many employers are turning to rebranding to encourage more men to apply. One such ad in a hospital compared the excitement of being a surgery nurse to the rush of mountain climbing.
Breaking The Code
As demand grows for skilled software designers, so does the market for coding schools. In places like Austin, Texas where there is a concentration of high-tech companies, new coding “bootcamps” are appearing almost daily. This has attracted the attention of the Texas Workforce Commission who is currently stepping up the enforcement of their certification regulations. In the past, coding schools were allowed to operate during the application process without fear of violations, but this may be changing, according to Will Anderson for the Austin Business Journal in his article, Coding schools face increased scrutiny from Texas Workforce Commission. The coding school owners are frustrated with the TWC’s apparent lack of appropriate regulation for their rapidly growing field.