Author: Adam_Admin

As the holiday season approaches, the workplace often gets more relaxed as things wrap up. However, closing the business for the holidays usually isn’t as simple as turning the lights off and heading home for a few weeks. There is often a lot of preparation and work that needs to be done before everyone leaves the office.

Notify staff:
Giving your staff at least two to four weeks notice of business closing dates will allow them to prepare for the shutdown and organise their workload appropriately. Having reminders through announcements, in-office calendars, emails or signs on notice boards will allow employees to ensure their work is done on time and organise personal events.

Notify other stakeholders:
Important stakeholders such as customers, suppliers or vendors should also be informed in advance of when the business is closed for the holidays to ensure that any services or needs are completed prior to shutdown. Customers can be notified through your business’s website, emails, signs around the business or letters and phone calls for close clients.

Update your security:
If your business has a security team or service, make sure that they are kept updated about your closing dates, as well as an emergency contact list with the owner and key employee details so they know who to contact in the event of a security issue, even when the business is closed. It is also a good idea to ensure that all cybersecurity software is up to date before you leave to prevent hackers and viruses from damaging your assets while you’re away.

Backup data:
Backing up your servers will reduce the risk of losing crucial business assets to hackers, viruses or software malfunction while you’re away. By making backups of your data through tools such as cloud storage or hard drives, you don’t have to worry about coming back to a corrupted system.

Change automated greetings:
If you have an automated answering service for business dealings, consider recording a message letting people know that your business has closed for the holidays. It is also a good idea to detail what dates you will return.

Turn off equipment:
Don’t forget to shut down any equipment that won’t be used throughout the holidays, such as lighting, copiers, computers and kitchen supplies. However, be aware of equipment that shouldn’t be turned off, such as fax machines, security systems, servers and backup systems, and refrigeration units.

Market research is key to developing relevant and effective business strategies as it helps you understand your industry, customers, competitors and market trends. Undertaking both primary and secondary market research can allow you to boost your business’ success if you utilise the information to improve your product/service and marketing strategies.

There are a variety of sources you can use to begin your research. To research areas such as your customers, competitors, industry and location, you can conduct primary research through things like:

• Surveys (postal, online or face-to-face).
• Focus groups.
• Customer feedback.
• Interviews (face-to-face, written or online).
• Product testing with potential consumers.
• Observation.

Meanwhile, useful secondary research can be conducted through:

• Census data.
• News reports.
• Academic journals and research.
• Legal documents.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics.
• Social media and websites.
• Industry and trade publications.

Before conducting an extensive examination, it is important to prepare and plan how you will undertake the research. It is useful to define your objectives prior to starting research to help you successfully gather the data you need. As well as this, identify the best research methods for your goals and whether you will conduct the research yourself or if you will want to use a professional company. It is also important to consider the time frame and appropriate budget for your research.

When conducting research questions and strategies, make sure that you are open-minded and don’t let your preconceived opinions or preferences affect your tactics. Having a predicted outcome in mind whilst gathering information can often affect the results to match your opinions which can be misleading. To avoid this, prepare for unexpected results and create all-rounded questions and gather data from a range of sources.

Knowing your audience is a fundamental aspect of social media marketing for your business. A good social media strategy will use the business’s knowledge of their audience to determine the type of content they produce, what kind of promotional methods they use, when the best time to post is and where they should post.

Narrowing down your target audience can be done by asking questions such as:

• What age group does your product/service cater to?
• What is their average income?
• What are their common values?
• Where do they get their information?
• What type of content do they like?
• What are their interests?
• What is their geographical location?
• What challenges do they face?

You can answer these questions by undertaking comprehensive research that is current and accurate. Look into statistics, audience behaviour and past social media campaigns directed at your audience that have succeeded and failed.

Getting to know your social media audience doesn’t stop after you have identified demographics. It is helpful to continue trying to understand your audience after your campaign has gone live. Acknowledge areas you correctly predicted about your followers and continue or grow your social media strategy around them, but also understand where your campaign failed to please your audience. Learn from what your followers didn’t react to or gave negative feedback on and make changes to your campaign accordingly.

Identifying these positive and negative reactions can be done through using social media analytics with tools such as Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics or Brandwatch Consumer Research. These can tell you information such as engagement rates, follower increase and decrease, click-through rate, time of interaction and reach which can be used to track positive and negative reactions to different posts.

Another way to get familiar with your audience is by releasing a survey on social media. This can help you obtain quantitative and qualitative data using questions like:

• What social media site do you use the most?
• What kind of people do you follow on social media?
• What time of the day are you most likely to browse social media?
• What kind of content would you like to see more or less of?

It can also be useful to look at the type of audiences your competitors have, as they will be similar to yours. You can see the type of content different competitors are posting and see what is working well and not so well, based on engagement numbers and comments.

Hiring a new employee is a time-consuming process that affects you, the company, and the team. It can often be especially nerve-wracking for the new employee starting a new job and joining a brand new team. It is therefore important to take steps to make the process easier on all parties affected.

One of the most effective ways to announce your new employee to the team is through an email. This ensures that all staff are aware of the new employee whether they are in the workplace that day or not. It is also a great way to have written relevant information that staff can refer back to. Introduction emails usually cover key details such as the new employee’s full name, start date, job role, department, responsibilities, supervisor, professional and/or academic background, and perhaps an interesting fact about them. The email can also encourage other employees to welcome the new employee and say hello, making them feel welcomed and valued and providing a positive start to staff relationships.

If the team is small, you can also introduce your new employee by organising a meeting for everyone to meet face to face. This can be formal or casual. A meeting through a morning tea or lunch is a great way to gather staff in the same place and provide a positive atmosphere to encourage a warm welcome. This event would be casual enough that the new employee doesn’t feel overwhelmed, but big enough that they feel valued and get the opportunity to introduce themselves to everyone.

The way you introduce a new employee often depends on the environment of your business. If the workplace is a bit less formal, you can announce the new employee’s commencement on a staff Facebook group if you have one, instant messaging channels such as Slack, or noticeboards.

If your business has regular one on one interactions between the same staff member and client, it is a good idea to formally introduce the new employee to your clients. This can be done via email that provides the new employee’s name, business details, and work experience. Good emails let the client know that they are appreciated for their time and patience and that they will still be supported as normal during this transition period. This can also be done through a social media post alerting your followers about the new employee which lets them know what is happening without direct one on one correspondence.

With so many eager school-leavers looking for employment opportunities, hiring an intern can seem like a good way to offer work experience to someone without the risks of a long-term commitment of a regular employee. However, you should consider whether hiring an intern would be the best move for your business. Here are some pros and cons you may run into:

Pros:

Extra help: It can be handy to have some extra assistance over busy periods in your business. This also ensures that the intern isn’t bored and gets hands-on experience taking on real-world tasks.

Potential employment: If you feel that the intern fits into the workplace well, you could offer them employment later on. This is often a smoother introduction to employment as they are already trained and familiar with the business. However, you are not obligated to offer them a job if you don’t feel they are a good fit.

Fresh perspectives: Interns can often offer new perspectives to work that you may not have thought about before. Having someone who hasn’t sunk into the routine of your workplace yet can be useful in offering new ways of thinking that could potentially improve your business.

Social media insight: Most interns are young and tech-savvy and could offer important insights into the world of social media for the new generation. They could help you devise relatable, trendy content for your social media that you may not have considered.

Cons:

Time commitment: Taking on an intern means that you will need to filter through applications and conduct interviews, as well as providing them with supervision and training. If you’re too busy to dedicate time to take care of an intern, it may not be the best move for your business.

Inexperienced: If you’re looking for some to take on roles that require knowledge and experience, an intern may not be the right choice as they often have limited work experience in career-based roles.

Less flexible: If an intern is still studying, then the hours they can offer you can be limited and variable depending on their timetable. As well as this, when exam periods arrive they could have an exam on a day they would normally work or may ask for time off to study.