By Rob Snell
Now that we are in the heart of the holiday season, you may be thinking about ways you can put your money where your heart is.
Specifically, you might be pondering which groups you should support with charitable gifts. And as long as you choose groups that meet the right criteria, your generosity can also be rewarding to you, in the form of tax benefits.
To begin with, you’ll want to make sure you are giving to a reputable charity. That means you’ll need to ask some questions.
by Michael Cruz
It’s all about habits. The way we eat is established by patterns or habits. So, after the diet we go back to our established patterns. And guess what? We gain back all, and sometimes more of the weight we lost.
The same is true when we try to change something in our business life. Did you know that it takes at least six months to change an established pattern or habit? And that is why we often fail to be consistent in new business habits.
Courtesy Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC
By Michael D. Billok, Esq.
As a business owner or operator, there are always a half-dozen items that require your immediate attention, and then the dozens of other items on the “back burner” that you would like to get to when there is time–but there never seems to be time available.
Unless, of course, a back-burner item “blows up” and becomes a front-burner item, now requiring your immediate attention.
For small and mid-sized businesses, cybersecurity routinely is one such back-burner item, not getting the attention it deserves unless something does “blow up,” for example there is a hack, a data breach or some release of employee or customer personal information that now requires immediate attention. This is due to several common misconceptions about cybersecurity, such as:
• I’m small. I won’t be hacked or compromised. False.
Larger organizations have spent the past several years improving their cyber defenses to make it more difficult to access their data. As a result, hackers look to smaller organizations with less resources available to buttress their defenses as a jumping-off point to access larger organizations. Remember the national-news data breach at Target that occurred two years ago? Hackers didn’t directly “target” Target. They first hacked into an HVAC subcontractor’s network, and after compromising the subcontractor’s system they were then able to hack into Target utilizing the subcontractor’s access to Target’s network.
Courtesy Tech II Business SErvices
By Craig Stephenson
Virtually every employee today has a smartphone. Many also have tablets, such as iPads and android devices. Most businesses are under utilizing these devices, because in most cases they belong to employees. These devices are BYOD, “bring your own device,” as they say.
Your hyper-connected employees are glued to their mobile devices, and savvy business owners and executives have realized the secret to higher employee productivity is embracing mobility and the BYOD trend. Find ways to help your staff work more, work smarter, and serve your clients better. The key is to empower the mobile experience of your staff, without compromising security and control of your corporate data.
Business-class file sync services can give you the best of both worlds however you need to be aware that all cloud services are not alike. One of the most popular cloud services has been hacked more than once and for those in the medical and financial industry, may find the compliance lacking. However Tech II Business services Cryodrive can allow your corporate data to be synced to employee mobile devices, without giving up control of your corporate data and remaining HIPAA compliant. Here’s how:
1. Sync to smartphones. Business-class cloud file sync services allow employees to sync their critical work files between their desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and the cloud.
Your staff becomes more nimble and productive when they have their files at their fingertips, no matter where they go. Whether it is iOS, android, or Windows Phone, business-class sync keeps users connected on the go.
Courtesy Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Blake
By Joan E. Taub
There have never been more choices in determining where one wants to live. When my grandparents retired they became snowbirds and traveled to Florida for the winter. Splitting time between two states was simply what people did.
The winters in the Northeast seemed too harsh for these “older” people in their 60s. At the time it seemed old and it seemed their only choice.
Now, in 2016 there are choices for the many who are still working, yet want to downsize now that their children have moved out; have retired and want to change their lifestyle; or those who anticipate health issues and fear they will not be able to navigate stairs in the future.
Each scenario has many possibilities.
For the working downsizer, I have noticed a lot of people moving away from the developments and moving into, or closer to, town. They no longer need to car-pool their children and enjoy living in a walkable, vital community where visits to the library, restaurants, stores and movies are so close. The in-town condos are appealing, as are homes in neighborhoods within a mile from downtown.
Many people set themselves up for downsizing years before they are actually ready. They purchase an in-town property with the intention of renting for a few years and, when ready, they move in themselves.
Courtesy Life’s 2 Short LLC
By Judy Brinkman
If you have a boss, employees, co-workers, friends or even family members, especially kids, there are monkeys all around you, just waiting to jump on your back. They are sneaky and you have to be very careful and stay alert because they are difficult to handle and even harder to get rid of once they have attached themselves.
According to William Oncken Jr., a leader in management training, “a monkey is anything that should be someone else’s next step.”
According to Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken, Jr, and Hal Burrows, authors of “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey,” it goes something like this: A co-worker or employee comes to you with a problem while you are working. You want to help, so you stop what you are doing and listen for as long as you can. You learn enough about their situation to know you will need to be involved, but not long enough to make a decision on the spot. So you say, “I don’t have time to make a decision right now, so let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”
Bam! Monkey jump. The other person walks away feeling 30 pounds lighter and you now have a 30 pound monkey on your back.
Sometimes you are the best person to handle that monkey, but often times the other person is capable of handling it himself and would really grow and learn and be more responsible if he did. If you had asked, that person could have given you some proposed solutions along with the problem, but too late. Now it’s your monkey and you are in charge of its care and feeding.
Courtesy Pinnacle Human Resources LLC
By Rose Miller
Fear can be dangerous. It can turn into a mindset in which things aren’t questioned and mindless obedience to authority becomes the norm. In fact, most of the advice we hear in the business, whether from the employer or employee perspective, is based in fear.
There is fear in firing bad employees. Fear in making the wrong business decision. Fear in standing up to a miserable boss. Fear in standing up for what you believe in. Fear of others we don’t understand. The list goes on and on. Fear ends up ruining everything.
When your choices are based on these fears, the outcomes are rarely optimal. We see employers, who suffer a horrible employee because they are not sure how and when it is safe to terminate. Work doesn’t get done, better employees become stressed and the employer is seen as ineffective at managing their company. Still the employer fears a lawsuit or fears the hole left after the employee is gone.
Conversely, many employees complain of being intimidated and bullied by managers. Managers and supervisors often abuse their power through petty harassment or worse. Subordinates, even if they’re assertive and intelligent people, often behave submissively in the face of horrible bosses.
Many times, we are faced with business choices that don’t align with our personal values. I had a boss one time who wanted to “fix” the revenues because projections were so off. I had two choices: comply or resist. I’ve never regretted standing up for the choice that made personal sense to me- that was not to comply with his request.
Courtesy Herzog Law
By Debra Verni, Esq.
For many people, mapping out an estate game plan is something they intend to think about later. But often, later never comes.
The reasons for not dealing with estate planning now may include not wanting to confront your mortality or create family conflict. Or perhaps you don’t want to discuss money with your heirs or give your wealth to certain family members you do not trust. For many, estate planning is simply viewed as something only “elderly people” need to do.
Despite all the reasons some people come up with to avoid estate planning, there are many benefits that make it worth the time, effort and money. Among other things, an estate plan allows you to:
1) Name someone to administer your finances and make medical decisions if you become incapacitated.
2) Name a guardian for your minor children.
Courtesy Edward Jones Financial
By Rob Snell
You might work diligently at building a financial road map for your retirement years and a comprehensive estate plan. But you can’t just create these strategies, you also have to communicate them.
Specifically, you need to inform your spouse and your grown children what you have in mind for the future, because the more they know, the fewer the surprises that await them down the road.
Let’s start with your spouse. Ideally, of course, you and your spouse should have already communicated about your respective ideas for retirement and have come to an agreement on the big issues, such as when you both plan to retire, where you’ll live during retirement, and what you want to do as retirees (volunteer, travel, work part time and so on).
But what you both might have let slip through the cracks are the important specifics related to financing your retirement. You’ll need to answer several questions, including these:
• When will you each start taking Social Security?
• Are there strategies for maximizing both of your Social Security payments?
Courtesy drb Business Interiors
By Dorothy Rogers-Bullis
As the Millennials begin their march into the “real world” of the 9-to-5 job, many companies are realizing that this new pool of talent is not so easy to snag. While office foosball matches are fun, and a barista in the break room is nice, the 20-something crowd clearly craves more from the workplace than just a paycheck.
A recent article in the New York Times highlights this issue within the advertising industry. Once “the” place to work for young creative types, ad agencies are now struggling to attract and retain new talent. Many younger workers are being lured away by hip tech firms like Google, Facebook , and Apple, or are drawn to fast-paced start-up companies.
Consider the options
So how are more traditional industries to attract and keep younger employees?
It is a quandary that I hear more and more often from clients.
Clients will say, “I’m okay with my office space, but I know I need to renovate and update in order to attract younger professionals.”
When considering office design and furniture, it’s important to remember that younger workers want options. They are drawn to clean lines, comfortable, functional, progressive pieces that allow them to multi-task; pieces that allow them to sit, stand, roll, and that fold away to save space.