Category: Business Trends

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Business Trends

The Rise of Solopreneurship: Is it Right for You?

The Rise of Solopreneurship: Is it Right for You? - The Collection

As business trends evolve, we’ve come to hear terms like solopreneurship. But what does it mean exactly and is it possibly a new career path for you? Find out below!

 

While the technical opportunities to become an entrepreneur have grown rapidly in the digital age, entrepreneurialism is arguably less attractive than it has ever been. The United States has been in a startup decline for the last few decades. Millennials are more risk-averse and less ambitious than Baby Boomers, after years of economic decline and crisis after crisis. They face much greater debt, bigger living costs, and lower wages. An aging population and slowed population growth also affect the supply and demand of entrepreneurialism.

 

Meanwhile, larger firms have grown at a much faster pace domestically and internationally, soaking up talent and taking ownership of young companies and potential startup ideas. Venture capitalists and investors are favoring mature and proven businesses more so than innovators, and the rapid growth in tech is crowding out competitors, rather than calling on a rising tide to lift all boats.

 

With a pandemic snapping at our heels, it’s understandable to be frightened of failure and the risks associated with taking the plunge towards a business of your own.

 

However, it’s also important not to be consumed entirely by this bleak outlook. Just because fewer people are starting businesses doesn’t mean it’s gotten any harder – it’s actually gotten easier.

 

The Internet remains the great enabler, and it doesn’t take much capital to start a brand-new business. This is especially true for solopreneurs, who are taking advantage of the way the Internet has enabled many to begin a venture of their own without the need for a team to produce and market their idea, product, or service.

 

Furthermore, while startup businesses have certainly become less common, “side gigs” and “hustle culture” definitely haven’t. Younger people in general are picking up more jobs and ventures, from flipping furniture to making jewelry on Etsy, as a source of extra income. But solopreneurship takes it to another level, taking the “hustle” and turning it into a one-person business.

 

What’s a Solopreneur? 

 

A solopreneur is an entrepreneur working independently as the sole human element in his or her venture. Solopreneurs may network with others, socialize with potential business partners for separate ventures, and seek funding, but they ostensibly create and are entirely responsible for every aspect of their business, assuming all the risk and all of the rewards without employing anyone else.

 

Solopreneurs differ from entrepreneurs in that they don’t hire others to work for them – but they will still work with them, outsourcing jobs they can’t do effectively on their own or commissioning work that requires extra hands. A solopreneur may eventually expand into an entrepreneurial venture, but solopreneurs start their business with the intention of being the only one involved.

 

It’s arguably easier to be a solopreneur, especially if you know what you’re good at and know how to market it. You’re limited entirely by your own work capacity and talent but can make up for it by forming the right alliances to score lucrative opportunities and develop and expand your customer base. But it’s still hard work. If you think you’re ready to be a solopreneur, read on.

 

 

It’s Not Just You vs. The World 

 

Being a solopreneur is lonely, even more lonely than it already is to be an entrepreneur. But that doesn’t mean the life of a solopreneur is one of total isolation. Solopreneurs crash and burn when working entirely alone, as do we all.

 

While it is a solopreneur’s goal to set up a business they can run on their own, businesses never exist within a vacuum. The success of a startup is entirely reliant on correctly identifying an existing or unseen demand. Businesses also exist in competition with one another, improving and innovating often based on those around them. And finally, many businesses exist only because of the cooperation between multiple ambitious minds working together on separate yet related problems.

 

One of the most important elements of “making it” as a solopreneur is recognizing how you can best work with those around you to survive, and eventually thrive. You come to see those around you as valuable contacts and friends and connect with customers on a personal level as well. Authenticity is the key to longevity in the startup world.

 

Networking and Coworking as a Solopreneur

 

Many solopreneurs work from home, especially given the ongoing public health crisis. But working from home for too long can be very isolating, not just in a mental sense, but also from a business perspective. You need to interact with others to get a better understanding of the local startup scene, and to identify potential partners and competitors.

 

Coworking spaces are a natural fit for solopreneurs, providing them with accessible and affordable space to be productive outside of your own home, free from domestic distractions, and in the middle of an environment filled with networking opportunities and professionals eager to exchange ideas or seek out work relationships.

 

Coworking spaces eliminate the need to worry about technical difficulties, unreliable internet service, needless distractions, and the crushing feeling of being stuck within the same four walls for weeks on end. And all without the costs and hassle of setting up an office of your own, and with the benefit of working within a melting pot of local talent, including independent contractors and other solopreneurs.

 

Is Solopreneurship Right for You?

 

Just like being an entrepreneur, solopreneurship offers you the opportunity to be your own boss. And given the technical opportunities around us today, it’s easier than ever to get started.

 

Competition is stiff, there are no guarantees, you’ll be working hard for most of the day every day, and it’s something you have to be in for the long haul if you expect to make any money back. You may have to borrow money to get started, you may go into debt if your idea fails, and many entrepreneurs talk about the emotional hardships that come with being at the helm of your own business venture.

 

But ultimately, it’s worth it when you do succeed. You get to be proud of every step you’re taking in the name of something you believe in and are 100% responsible for.

 

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Business Trends

Innovation Ecosystem: What is It & Why Your Business Needs It

What is an innovation ecosystem and how does it exactly work in the business world? It has proven to provide great value and success. Read for further details!

 

There have never been better opportunities in the world for value creation. A business’ capacity in the modern day to leverage technology to assess situations and develop solutions is unparalleled in history. Never have we been at this level of data accumulation and analysis, automation, and communication. Never have we had the opportunity to witness how technologies can scale seamlessly from the smallest startup to immense multinational corporations.

 

But in order to make full use of how technology has and will continue to drive innovation, we need an environment that prioritizes said innovation – one that does not stifle it. And one that can lead, manage, and network in such a way that we continue to keep moving towards creating better value for customers and clients.

 

To understand how an environment can be shaped to improve innovation, it’s important to understand the concept of innovation ecosystems.

 

What is an Innovation Ecosystem? 

 

Work on innovation ecosystems attempts to identify the factors that influence innovation in a given field (whether it’s an industry, a nation, a city, a region, or even a firm). The sum of these factors is described as an ecosystem.

 

In ecological science, an ecosystem can be defined as the flow of material and energy – the transit of nutrients between different organisms and their respective life cycles within an environment. Ecosystems also attempt to explain and observe the relationships between living and non-living components within an open system (from small ponds to entire biomes).

 

The concept of an ecosystem attempts to summarily define all factors contributing to life in a given area. And in much the same way, an innovation ecosystem is an attempt to identify the outside and inside factors that work towards fostering and harnessing ideas and helping them mature into solutions to existing or even unidentified problems.

 

On a larger scale, an innovation ecosystem attempts to understand and potentially optimize an industry’s capacity for new ideas with tangible usefulness. Depending on the scale, this might include funding, education, and policy changes on a national or regional level, and incremental changes that lead to results over the course of many years.

 

On a much smaller scale, evaluating a company’s innovation ecosystem, for example, would help a business identify whether their decision-making and management style are optimally conducive towards pulling the best out of their existing employees, while attracting the kind of talent into the business that would continue to breathe life into the industry.

 

Coworking spaces are a great crucible for innovation, and a showcase of how the individual components of an innovation ecosystem meld together.

 

The Components of an Innovation Ecosystem

 

To better understand how to leverage the idea of an innovation ecosystem within a smaller scale like a business or a local industry, it is important to identify the factors that are commonly discussed within various different definitions of an innovation ecosystem.

 

These are:

 

      • Actors (the individuals within the system)
      • Activities (from research and development to sales and marketing)
      • Artifacts (products, prototypes, technologies, services, and projects)
      • Institutions (established groups, rules, or policies that set the stage)
      • Relations (the interactions and networking between actors, as well as groups of actors)

 

Beyond these critical elements exist other important layers, such as the degree to which an ecosystem is collaborative (fostering profitable relationships between separate groups of actors working together) or competitive (wherein the drive to compete fuels innovation between actors), and whether artifacts are being developed either on a complementary level (to build on existing ideas and provide auxiliary products and services) or as substitutes (attempting to replace an existing product or service with something better).

 

Where innovation is the development of something new or novel to a system, an innovation ecosystem attempts to identify how innovations are made and improve upon existing factors to drive more innovation.

 

 

Harnessing Innovation Ecosystems Through Coworking

 

Just as in nature, innovation ecosystems are not consciously built – they can only be modified or fostered. The ecosystem is already in place, if not within a smaller scale then on a larger scale, often outside of the control of any one business or individual.

 

Managers and employers are tasked with finetuning the factors that remain within their control to drive innovation within their own ecosystem, whether through hiring methods aimed at attracting the right actors, or through improved relations. In addition, by seeking funding to help fuel activities that may lead to innovation, by changing the way workers are motivated, and by collaborating with other companies capable of providing complementary artifacts.

 

Coworking spaces are a great example of an innovation ecosystem, particularly its central point: the environment (the institutions) that set the stage for the process. Avoid rigidity, especially in a day and age where innovations are occurring rapidly, and where companies are often encouraged to move with the times – which is to say, very quickly.

 

Another prolific example is how Apple worked with the music industry and complementary technology companies to develop content for the iPod and iPhone, kickstart the App Store, and dominate the mobile industry in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

 

By being aware of and recording the factors contributing to the development of a company’s successes, that company can learn to prioritize what is useful, and shed what is not.

 

Fostering and Enabling Innovation in Your Business

 

Identify and take control of the factors that contribute to innovation in your industry or company. Leverage what you can to find and promote strong actors. Empower them to focus on the activities that lead to profitable artifacts.

 

Find ways to cut down on demotivation and disengagement within your own team or company, identify and reward talent and initiative, and be a business that positions itself to attract the best talent in your industry going forward.

 

Conclusion

 

At the end of the day, the key goal is to improve a company’s value proposition by identifying all the key factors that go towards creating the products or services that customers want or need. The degree to which contributing factors can be changed or affected differs from situation to situation, based on existing factors and the proposed scale of the innovation ecosystem. But the key factors usually remain the same across all cases.

 

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Business Trends

How to Run a Productive Virtual Meeting

As we work remotely, we must learn how to continue to best be productive as a collaborative team. It all starts with a productive virtual meeting. Read below for more details.

 

While we all like to rail on the inefficiency of the meeting, it is an important part of the brainstorming and decision-making process. And it’s not easy to run a productive meeting.

 

Some people are more inclined to bring their opinions to the table than others. And some are more longwinded than others. Reconciling that with the need to give everyone the chance to contribute while staying within a set timeframe of less than an hour is tough.

 

This is especially true virtually, where many feel that it’s not only harder for organizers to get everyone engaged, but it’s harder for workers to feel and stay engaged. As we continue to move towards a day and age where the virtual meeting will play an increasingly important role in our professional lives, managers need to adapt quickly and learn to leverage existing technologies to make the most of the virtual meeting.

 

The Same Rules Apply

 

It’s estimated that meetings cost American companies $399 billion last year in lost time and wasted resources. And that nearly half of surveyed employees found that bad meetings kept them from other important work. It’s not uncommon to hear workers lament that an hour-long meeting could’ve been summed up in an email. And it absolutely did not require everyone’s attendance and concentration.

 

Even when most workers are distracted at meetings, they’re still unable to get any meaningful work done. All they can really do to fill time while waiting for a meeting to be adjourned is check emails and browse the web.

 

As such, the same basic rules apply to the virtual meeting that already applied to the physical meeting:

 

      • Have less of them.
      • Keep them short.
      • Have fewer people on at a time.
      • Limit the amount of time spent on a given topic.
      • Address a small and succinct agenda per meeting (don’t scattershot your meeting topics).
      • Utilize visual stimuli to cut down on words.

 

Video conferencing tech means that we can continue to hold the same meetings we always did, but remotely. That isn’t a good thing, as many companies are holding way too many meetings. But video conferencing tech and collaborate software paves the way for a new and better way to communicate and brainstorm as a group.

 

Leverage Cooperative Technologies to Improve Collaboration

 

There are limitations to virtual communication tools, particularly the absence of full-body language and subtle visual or auditory cues due to video and audio quality varying based on internet speeds and equipment quality. This can have an impact on communication.

 

However, virtual communication makes up for it with a wider suite of collaborative technologies and communicative options. Employees can engage with one another on multiple fronts without “speaking” over each other by working on a single document together and offering written advice in the form of annotated comments. Images and visual aids can convey meaning and intent. Or succinctly explain a concept without taking up an excessive amount of time.

 

 

Many communication platforms today offer the ability to switch between voice/video channels. Meetings can take a set amount of time to split attendants into individual groups to brainstorm more freely on a single idea without the burden of having to fight over so many voices at once, before coming back together to succinctly describe what was discussed. This is easier and simpler than physically cordoning off a room or splitting a group into five separate rooms to try and encourage greater engagement and discussion.

 

The ability to split a meeting’s members off to encourage greater discussion, or leverage “silent” brainstorming via document collaboration can greatly boost engagement. No one feels like they have to wade through a loud opposition to get heard. And they don’t have to worry about taking up anyone else’s time (as everyone is contributing at the same time).

 

Avoid “Speechifying” 

 

Brevity remains important during meets, whether virtual or not. Beware of trying to cut a concept down to such a degree that its true usefulness is lost. But consider taking notes to send around for consideration after the meeting itself, so as not to lose too much time on a single idea. Even virtually, it’s important to take notes for the inevitable follow up.

 

When ideas are useful but not relevant, they can go to the “parking lot.”

 

Write Down Useful but Unrelated Information

 

The meeting “parking lot” is still a useful concept when organizing and managing a virtual meeting. When a meeting is managed well, especially when it’s a brainstorming meeting, a lot of ideas can float to the forefront that are interesting, albeit ultimately not relevant or unhelpful.

 

These ideas may be able to play a role in the future, however, and they should be acknowledged and stored. One way of doing so is to allot a virtual parking lot where unrelated ideas are noted down. They are then reviewed later either after the meeting or when they become relevant.

 

Not only does this encourage your team members to bring up good ideas even when they aren’t immediately relevant, but it’s also encouraging to see your idea acknowledged, rather than being shot down for being “wrong place, wrong time.”

 

Lay Out a Clear Agenda

 

This is important in any meeting, and it’s still important when running a productive virtual meeting. Meetings can often run long because they have the tendency of trying to address either too many things at once or tackle a single goal that should really be broken down into further steps.

 

Succinct meetings are best because you want to maximize the amount of information people retain. That means keeping meetings short and sweet, and preferably focused on just a couple of main questions. Be sure to send everyone the meeting agenda beforehand. They get the chance to consider what they think and how they might contribute.

 

Conclusion

 

Successful virtual meetings are about blending lessons that have always worked. This includes creating an agenda beforehand, keeping things succinct, and giving everyone a chance to contribute. New technologies and opportunities will help, such as collaborative software, different voice and video channels, and easier visual aids.

 

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Business Trends

6 Effective Brainstorming Techniques for Teams

How well are you implementing brainstorming techniques for the team? Not only will this practice most likely produce great ideas, but it will also help bring the team closer together. Read more below.

 

There are two important rules for successful brainstorming:

 

        1. Quantity over quality.
        2. It’s critical to emphasize that everyone gets a word in.

 

With these two basic tenets, most brainstorming techniques naturally follow.

 

The art of brainstorming successfully is demonstrated best via positive creativity – the goal being that you avoid shutting others down as much as possible, and instead bring new ideas to the table or elaborate upon parts of a concept you enjoy or like. It’s easy to let conversations wander and turn towards nitpicking. Or to get hung up on details that ultimately waste everyone’s time. Yes, everyone knows there are limits on what a company can and cannot achieve. There are budgets and time constraints.

 

But the goal in a brainstorming session isn’t to spend an hour on three ideas. It’s to get as many ideas out there in half an hour or less, never spending valuable time to criticize an idea, but suggest a new one instead. That is how you get to the ideas that push a business forward. And it’s only then that you begin to ask how and get down to brass tacks.

 

To cut down on the useless criticism and get to those golden ideas, let’s talk about six effective brainstorming techniques that can help you make the most of your team’s time.

 

1. Set Your Limitations Aside 

 

Let’s talk about rapid-fire brainstorming. For this technique, the focus is on speed and diversity. Set aside any notions of complexity or critique. It doesn’t matter if 80 percent of the ideas that are brought to the table in any given brainstorming session end up getting scrapped. The more ideas each individual plows through in a session, the more one’s creative juices get flowing. And the more the focus becomes “what else can I come up with?” rather than “why do I think this idea is bad?”.

 

Set a quota per person and meet it. Give everyone five to ten minutes to come up with at least half a dozen ideas. Then get everyone to present them succinctly and quickly. This leaves no time for anyone to get caught up on any one idea. If an idea is a bad idea, the person presenting it can quickly move to their next one.

 

If it’s a good idea, everyone takes notes and things keep moving. It’s easy to circle back to the best of the bunch after everyone’s gotten their ideas off their chest. This also keeps things from revolving entirely around the thoughts and opinions of just a handful of creatives in the room.

 

2. Follow the “Yes, And” Rule

 

Some people call this “mind mapping”, but it’s essentially a technique based on elaborating upon an idea with improvements or sub-ideas that aim to take the original concept and elevate it.

 

Based on improv comedy’s golden rule of saying “yes, and” to any development in the skit, the idea here is to avoid hitting a creative dead-end by accepting all changes and simply organically moving from one suggestion to the next. Rather stopping at an idea that isn’t perfect. If there’s something wrong with a suggestion, take your opportunity to amend or workshop it. Evolve the idea. Improve it.

 

3. Don’t Get Stuck & Be Fast

 

Another important technique in brainstorming is forced succinctness. When emphasizing that everyone gets a shot at improving an idea or coming up with their suggestion, it’s important not to find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time on a single person’s vision.

 

There’s no doubt that some ideas are better fleshed out than others, but encourage everyone to provide an attractive “elevator pitch” of their idea rather than present an entire plan off the bat.

 

Require team members to come up with ways to explain the most useful or engaging parts of their idea. And when it’s circled back to at another stage in the planning process, they can find ways to extrapolate on it. And take in suggestions to improve it further.

 

 

4. Get Visual

 

Visualization is an important technique in brainstorming to get certain ideas across to others in a quick and fast fashion. A picture can be a thousand words (or more). And it doesn’t need to be objectively well-done or have any sort of artistic merit to serve its purpose.

 

When relying on visualization, encourage team members to either prepare visual aids for their brainstorming ideas or simply sketch certain parts and processes of their ideas on a paper or whiteboard. This technique further elaborates on the idea that speed is important in brainstorming. By cutting down on unnecessary explanation where a visual medium can help provide a much clearer picture.

 

5. Include Everyone

 

There are two great techniques for involving everyone in the brainstorming session. The first is a basic round-robin, giving everyone a set amount of time to present their idea, as discussed previously. The other is the stepladder technique, which manages how team members get involved in decision making and are ideal for smaller groups.

 

The stepladder technique relies on a core of creative powerhouses (usually just two people) discussing ideas in a room together while the rest of the team brainstorms on their own. A third member is brought into the room to present their idea first, and then they hear about what has already been addressed, and how their idea might contribute. Then a fourth member enters, presenting their idea, listening to what’s been talked about, and so on.

 

For teams of twenty or more, this type of brainstorming is relatively unrealistic, and can easily take all day. But smaller creative teams can benefit greatly from this technique. It forces the ever-growing group to listen to a person’s ideas without them having been influenced by what’s already been discussed and deliberated (i.e. groupthink).

 

6. Brainstorming Online 

 

Learning to brainstorm over the internet is especially important for businesses working remotely from home. In addition to out of coworking spaces, and other workspaces.

 

Any of the techniques above can be adapted into virtual brainstorming via an array of digital tools. This includes teleconferencing software and collaborative editing software, but it still takes a little practice to get used to brainstorming outside of physical space. You can let team members join the call one-by-one to simulate a stepladder decision-making process. Or give everyone a few minutes to present their ideas round-robin style and use a variety of software to aid in explaining and presenting your ideas and suggestions.

 

Conclusion

 

Brainstorming doesn’t need to be difficult or frustrating. It can be extremely fruitful with a little bit of cooperation and a focus on the core tenets of swift, expedient presentation and improvisation. Avoid getting hung up on the details, and move from idea to idea, taking notes as you go along.

 

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Business Trends

The Current and Future Trends of a Remote Workforce

Enforcing a remote workforce has continually been a growing trend despite our current global pandemic. So what does this mean for the future? Let’s dive deeper into this below.

 

Whether companies are ready for it or not, the world’s remote workforce is growing rapidly. Easy access to a variety of telecommuting tools and collaborative digital suites as well as the continued growth of coworking and the gig economy means that workers and employers around the world are pivoting towards an increasingly dynamic way of working.

 

Companies are waking up to the benefits of allowing certain parts of their workforce to work remotely, and employees continue to look for remote working opportunities as a serious perk to allow greater flexibility. Among current and future trends, some that stand out include:

 

  • Growing confidence in the remote work model
  • Development of better telecommuting tools
  • Rising coworking industry
  • More interest in flexible work schedules
  • Greater opportunities for fulfillment via remote work

 

Remote Work is Simply More Popular

 

Some companies are composed nearly completely out of a telecommuting workforce, eliminating the overhead needed to lease and set up a traditional office and giving companies the opportunity to draw from a larger talent pool.

 

Perhaps the biggest trend is the paradigm shift toward accepting remote work as not only an inevitability of an increasingly digital world, but a serious boon in more than a few different ways. The major obstacle preventing bosses from investing in a remote workforce was always fear – fear in a loss of productivity, fear in a loss of control, and fear in wasting time and energy on a workforce with no oversight.

 

Over the years, however, research and experience has shattered these fears by pointing towards countless examples of industries and professions where the ability to work from anywhere has led to increased productivity at a lower cost.

 

And even in cases where productivity has remained largely the same or relatively unchanged, remote work provides a host of other benefits including the need for far less office space, time spent commuting saved, and improvements on a company’s carbon footprint. But this does not mean remote work should occur haphazardly, or without proper prior conversation.

 

In the Face of a Pandemic

 

Despite its morbid nature, the most significant current trend affecting the growth of remote work has been the coronavirus. COVID-19 has caused over 200,000 deaths and has left millions unemployed, and to curb its progress, governments have imposed strict lockdowns and social distancing rules.

 

While nearly the whole world is under lockdown, SMEs and large corporations alike need to continue to find ways to keep the lights on and provide services, essential or otherwise, while minimizing the risk their employees face.

 

As such, many businesses have turned towards telecommuting through applications like Slack and Zoom to continue to work on projects and fulfill orders while at home, coordinating over the Internet. Not all workers are able to do their work remotely, and many essential services, from medical care to delivery and essential retail, continue to employ workers in-house to help people get access to medicine, food, and emergency care.

 

 

Affecting the Remote Workforce

 

Where remote work has been possible, it has quickly revealed a host of challenges. Poor or overloaded internet connections can make certain meetings and calls unbearable. There are limits to what a camera and microphone can capture. And sometimes, an email or an instant message aren’t expressive enough to bring across a specific point.

 

Furthermore, many who are unfamiliar with a suite of telecommuting tools may feel overwhelmed by the many options and features currently available through collaborative tools like Google Docs.

 

Some jobs lend themselves quite easily to remote work, and are perfectly suited to it, from programming and writing to data entry and analysis. Others, however, find remote work to be less than ideal, especially when their jobs rely on interpersonal communication and cooperation. It’s difficult to offer qualitative face-to-face therapeutic care or evaluate an employee’s performance over a broadband connection.

 

While the pandemic has punched several holes through our everyday status quo, one of those is our general unpreparedness for a complete switch to remote work. That does not make remote work any less valuable – but it reveals that companies need to prepare to implement it effectively, and that it’s more effective for some workers than it is for others.

 

Remote Work and Coworking Spaces

 

Another trend contributing to the present and the future of remote work is the continuing growth of coworking. While halted by COVID-19, the coworking industry will continue to play an important role in providing a host of features for small and large businesses alike, including:

 

  • Lowered overhead and continuous costs for smaller businesses
  • Networking opportunities for freelancers and small companies alike
  • Increased productivity and collaborative opportunities
  • Greater cost-benefit for larger companies looking for satellite offices

 

Coworking and remote work exist in symbiosis. While the benefits of working from home include reduced costs and time saved, the lack of separation between a home and the office, as well as a fluid schedule, can contribute to growing rates of burnout and problems with work-life balance. People begin to spend more time at work, mentally and physically, when they should be spending it on themselves or with their families.

 

Coworking spaces provide a transition point between a full-fledged office and a home office for those who do not work well from home, but are still seeking an alternative for increased productivity or want a different, more stimulating environment than what their office offers.

 

A Growing Focus on Proper Work-Life Balance

 

As the remote workforce will continue to grow, more time and resources will be spent trying to retain the productivity benefits and cost-effectiveness of remote work while minimizing the dangers of a fluid schedule, including a lack of balance between one’s professional life and one’s personal life.

 

Workers will need to be reminded to set clear boundaries to separate their work from their normal life, from setting specific rituals and cut-off times, to having a designated home office and office attire, versus working from the living room in a set of pajamas.

 

Conclusion

 

Businesses need to work on preparing themselves for an increasingly remote workforce by investing in the tools and infrastructure needed to support their remote workers and facilitate seamless communication and collaboration between the remote team and the in-house team, to avoid grinding gears and glaring inefficiencies.

 

There will be an ongoing trend to promote remote work as the future, but it will be accompanied with convincing businesses to take the steps needed to allow the transition to happen without frustrating setbacks, or else be left behind by the competition.

 

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Business Trends

The Importance of Virtual Skills Training for Both Employees and Management

Virtual skills training for both employees and management is critical now more than ever. But also, we live in a world, where technology continues to play a vital role to help gain success.  Read below for detailing insights on this important subject.

 

We live in a day and age where technology rapidly evolves on a regular basis, best practices are constantly changing and shifting, and systems are undergoing daily optimization and frequent alteration.

 

A formal education is no longer as valuable as it once was, and even tech giants like Google, IBM, and Apple seek out individuals with exceptional flexibility, creativity, and adaptive intelligence, rather than academic accolades. Many are looking towards virtual skills training as an alternative to emphasize a continued education.

 

Workers today must make it a habit not just to absorb the basics, but to spend their entire careers evolving and contributing to a world that is never again going to sit still.

 

For employees, this means staying on the cutting edge. For management, this means investing in the means to help employees continue to learn long after school has ended.

 

Technology is Always Moving 

 

It must be said that the rapid expansion of technology throughout our daily lives in the Information age has successfully integrated with every industry on the planet. Countless businesses rely on cloud technology, VOIP, a consumer internet, the ubiquity of the smartphone, and the expansive use of big data collection and complex algorithms.

 

As businesses are encouraged to continue the integration of new technologies, employers must look towards efficient and cheap ways of getting their workers up to speed quickly. Most businesses do not have the luxury of hiring in-house instructors, organizing training manuals, printing and sending out entire volumes of instructions on a monthly or annual basis, and planning seminars to keep employees up to spec. Things have to move faster to match the pace of the world we live in. That is where virtual skills training becomes critical.

 

Skill Sets are Changing

 

Regardless of whether you run an SME or have a managerial role within a larger corporation, virtual skills training is relevant across industries. Whenever a new technological paradigm shift presents itself, businesses – small and large – scramble to adapt and outdo the competition, taking advantage of better, faster, more reliable services in order to attract greater audiences, improve their share of the market, and invest in the future.

 

But if a business moves forward without taking its employees with it, it is setting itself up for failure. Training programs must be swiftly rolled out to help workers catch up and integrate new technologies into their daily processes. Whether it’s something as simple as a software change, or something far more fundamental, such as switching delivery methods, streamlining into a totally digital business, or expanding vertically at a rapid pace.

 

Workers Aren’t Ready

 

In 2019, a study by SHRM Research revealed that 83 percent of responding managers had trouble finding the right talent for their business within the last 12 months. Over a third of respondents explained that this was because they didn’t have the technical skills needed for the job.

 

This is a recurring problem in several different industries: a lack of upskilling, wherein many companies are finding themselves trying to meet the ever-growing demands of modernization without investing in resources to help existing and new employees learn the skills necessary to perform their tasks, after their formal education has ended.

 

Let’s face it; while education is important, it’s just as difficult for schools to stay on the cutting edge, and curriculums cannot be updated as swiftly as technologies evolve. Many in the workforce today are too busy or lack the resources needed to acquire new skills and must rely on management to help bridge the gap between yesterday and tomorrow.

 

Furthermore, many older workers suffer the most under a lack of effective training or poor training, and one in four American workers believes that they lack the technical skills necessary to perform the job they already have.

 

How can virtual skills training address these issues?

 

 

Distance Nullified

 

The first big problem when trying to create a training program to scale to the needs of today’s workforce is that you just can’t get to everyone. The experts needed to compile, write, and disseminate these training programs exist, but they can’t be in all places at once.

 

Virtual skills training completely eliminates this real world problem by taking things into the virtual space. This is by connecting via VOIP, cloud editing tools, and online classrooms. Experts and coaches around the world can help businesses leverage existing technologies to educate workers on existing and upcoming tools.  And thus, help them become more valuable and effective workers.

 

Lowered Costs

 

Aside from cutting short on distance, virtual skills training cuts down on cost. It is estimated that virtual instructor-led training cuts down on training costs by as much as 70 percent in some cases.

 

Of course, at a reduced cost, businesses might appear more eager to begin overtraining their workforce, but trying to push workers to complete too many tasks at once will backfire just as much.

 

Yes, effective and useful virtual training can considerably improve employee satisfaction. Many workers value training because it gives them greater career options and allows them to play a greater role in the company.

 

Swifter Implementation

 

It’s fairly clear to readers at this point that hard skills change fast, and workers need to be up-to-speed on matters of data accumulation and processing, artificial intelligence, VR, and other emerging technologies that are becoming relevant in many different industries. However, it isn’t just the hard skills that are changing.

 

Those in the front-end and customer-facing parts of the industry must also learn how current technological leaps are affecting business, in order to help answer customer queries and offer actual solutions to recurring problems.

 

Furthermore, as automation continues to take humans out of the equation in simple, repetitive tasks, workers must learn to leverage that which separates them from the machines – their humanity – to better serve customers and coordinate with management. To keep up with this, training programs need to take place, which virtual skills training enables.

 

Virtual Training is Not Easy to Implement

 

Yes, virtual skills training is more effective than video or text-based learning materials, because it connects employees to knowledgeable instructors who can answer questions, clear confusion, and offer better guidance than normal reading or viewing material could. However, it is not always easy to implement.

 

Not every business has the infrastructure to begin implementing online training for every employee. There are also types of training that are far more effective when given in the real-world, rather than over video or VR.

 

Instructors train several people at once, which means they cannot always spend a disproportionate time trying to provide unique teaching styles to address every employee’s needs. Technical problems can cause delays in training, from losing internet access to a downed server.

 

Businesses must be aware of these issues and work on addressing them to get the most out of virtual skills training, and help their employees be the best they can be.

 

Categories
Business Trends

The Best Virtual Resources to Grow Your Business from Home

With the current crisis leaving many companies seeking remote solutions to coordinate with workers and continue providing crucial services to their existing and growing customer base, now is a better time than ever to reorient yourself as an entrepreneur or small business owner, and consider how best to utilize virtual resources to grow your business from own home. 

 

Continue reading “The Best Virtual Resources to Grow Your Business from Home”
Categories
Business Trends

How to Effectively Oversee Remote Employees

The number of remote employees keep on growing each day. In order for them to positively impact your business, it’s important to know a few effective managing tips. Read below for the details.

 

About half of the US workforce engages in some form of telecommuting, and roughly a quarter of workers currently already spend a significant portion of their work week working from home. Outsourcing has grown tremendously as well, with a growing percentage of companies in Europe and the US outsourcing much of their work to businesses and freelancers in other parts of the world.

 

In other words, more companies rely on remote workers today than ever, and it’s likely that the numbers will continue to grow. Yet while many business owners and managers have their own way of working with employees locally, managing remote employees requires a completely different approach.

 

Overseeing Remote Employees

Rather than trying to impose greater control over remote employees or leave them to their own devices entirely, the right approach entails a simple set of rules and tips for:

 

      • Managing communication
      • Measuring and encouraging progress
      • Developing morale and rapport
      • Making the most of what could be an incredibly profitable employer-employee relationship

 

With majority of the workforce now expected to engage in freelance or remote work, these skills are no longer just beneficial, they’re necessary. This guide can help you manage your team more efficiently, while improving profitability.

 

Communication Should Be Easy and Fast 

First and foremost, it’s critical to outline the importance of simple, effective and instant communication channels. While working in an office, you and your workers have the luxury of simply getting up and taking a few steps through the office to engage in a face-to-face conversation. Your in house workers:

 

      • Have the means to communicate with you whenever necessary
      • Schedule appointments when talks aren’t strictly critical
      • Engage in regular team meetings and one-on-one conversations whenever needed

 

Remote employees struggle to feel a part of something greater, or appreciated in any way, unless it’s explicitly made clear to them that they, too, possess some form of access to you and your time/attention.

 

Emails are an obvious and often critical communicative tool for remote workers and their clients/employers, but you need to provide your workers with a faster and more immediate communication tool as well. Choose a professional and reliable instant messaging system, like Slack or Google Hangouts.

 

In addition to communication channels, and when safe from our current global crisis (COVID-19 outbreak), consider having these workers join together in one space monthly or bi-monthly. Renting an event space or coworking option every couple months can help all workers feel a part of the team.

 

Be Respectful and Set Boundaries

Instant messaging and other reliable communication tools are critical, but they shouldn’t be abused. It’s important to instate clear communication guidelines that respect your remote worker’s time and rest.

 

This might mean that, should you live in vastly different time zones, the majority of your communication will occur over email due to the inherent delay (especially if you tend to start your workday around the time your remote worker would be going to bed).

 

If a project necessitates a greater degree of communication and coordination, give your remote worker enough time to plan accordingly and be awake on the hours they’re needed.

 

If you respect your worker’s time, you will get better results. This means no work-related communication over the weekend, no intrusive messages during sleep hours, and reasonable expectations for communication (such as having a 24-hour window to reply to messages and following up only as often as truly necessary).

 

 

Allow Employees to Virtually Connect

Remote employees often do not feel as though they are part of the company they work for, even when formally employed. This is because it’s hard to feel like you are part of a greater team when you spend most of your work hours at a desk at home, alone, with no sense of how your other teammates are doing, or what they’re doing.

 

In order to help remote employees feel like they’re more than just a cog or a business function, but an individual whose presence within the company and the team is felt and respected appropriately, it’s important to develop a place for your remote workers to interact and communicate with other workers.

 

Rather than being a purely professional asset, help these workers remind themselves that there are other humans involved in the work they do. These people have names, personalities, lives, and humor.

 

Establishing channels to promote and encourage virtual mingling can help.

 

      • Slack and other communication software allow teams to create and manage channels, giving you the opportunity to create a virtual water cooler for the sharing of memes, music, and off-topic conversations (helping remote and local workers mingle and establish friendships virtually).
      • Particularly techy companies can take it a step further and schedule fun remote activities, like playing competitive or cooperative video games after work, or on a monthly, event-like basis.

Check In With Your Employees

Whenever your non-physical workers send something in, respond with appropriate feedback. It’s often enough to simply acknowledge (in a positive way) that you’ve seen their work.

 

However, it’s even better to talk about how the clients responded to a specific part of what they did, or what they could do better. If you do offer criticism, be sure to also stress the things they did right.

 

More than anything, managing remote employees relies on giving direction. It’s difficult to motivate oneself for work, especially from home. Feedback can help remind workers that the work they’re doing is valuable to the team and encourages them to continue giving it their all.

 

Focus on Results

It’s much harder to supervise a remote worker and tell exactly how much work they’re doing within any given amount of time. As such, it’s important to forget about trying to control how a remote employee spends their time, or how they put in their hours.

 

Instead, focus on deliverables, deadlines, and results. Even if your remote worker is paid based on a 30-40-hour workweek, consider not how much time they’re putting into their work, but what they’re bringing to the table, and if it’s worth what they’re being paid.

 

If you ask your remote employees to work full-time, then expect results that you would receive from a full-time worker and reward them accordingly. Trust them to put in the time they need in order to deliver as per their expected quota.

 

Discuss Work Goals

Remote workers have embraced the nature of modern work, wherein flexibility is king. Every opportunity to work is also an opportunity to learn a new skill or hone an ability. Many workers no longer aim for stable careers or advancements within a single firm but aim to improve their portfolio by developing new abilities.

 

This happens from taking on greater workloads, to figuring out various types of editing software, to becoming competent at several different types of content production.

 

Encourage workers to set their goals and explain what they would like to develop while working for you. Then, see if you can align their goals with your own, assigning projects to them that would help them grow as workers and individuals, while benefiting you and your clientele.

 

Bottom Line

Managing remote employees requires being empathic and aware of their needs and requirements, even if they aren’t able to voice them on their own.

 

Remember that you are working with humans, and that helping them feel like a true part of the team can do a lot to improve morale and productivity.

 

Read More:

7 Strategies to Run Remote Meetings and Conferences Smoothly
Categories
Business Trends

Becoming an Entrepreneur: 5 Steps to Success

Becoming an entrepreneur begins with a dream; a vision. But the next steps can be difficult. You can reduce your chance of failure with these 5 steps to successful entrepreneurship.

 

Despite its decline, entrepreneurialism is undoubtedly attractive – a daring, dangerous profession, filled with chances at glory and fortune through a successful ranch and the right network of buyers. Everybody dreams of being their own boss, of working on their own time, and of setting their own goals in business.

 

But few are ready to face the realities of being a lone entrepreneur. The life of a cowboy was equally harsh, filled thrice over with the risk of famine rather than a chance at a feast. While life for the cowboy revolved around completely different challenges, there were challenges nonetheless, and comfort or success was never guaranteed.

 

Steps for Success in Becoming an Entrepreneur

 

Much in the same way, you’ll have to be ready to face your fair share of difficulties and setbacks. You will face regulations, competing businesses, cost issues, and more. Here are five steps that are integral to immersing yourself in the role of the entrepreneur and finding success.

 

1. Prepare Yourself

 

This is a mental step. The life of an entrepreneur is about grit, grit, and grit. Sometimes, this means pushing past your own limits. If you don’t have the greatest tolerance for stress, this will by no means be impossible, but you are going to have a much harder time getting the results you want.

 

We, humans, aren’t exactly mentally prepared to work all the time – we need time off, we need to relax, we need to give ourselves the time to recover from the work we’ve done and shut down for a while. But if you’re dedicating yourself to entrepreneurship, you can say goodbye to all of those things for the next few months.

 

      • The early days of your business will all work, no pleasure, and little sleep.
      • You’ll be heading into bed late and waking up early, you’ll be talking to potential clients and landing buyers around the clock.
      • You’ll accommodate every and any time zone, and you’ll be out there selling and pushing your vision onto the world as often as you can afford to.

 

  • Strategizing First

 

Becoming an entrepreneur is a tough, tough job. It means you need to strategize, energize, and be efficient. That means:

 

      • Cutting out the negative influences in your life.
      • Minimizing waste. Spend a little extra money if it means saving time. You need every minute.
      • Getting into focus mode, 24/7. Remove all distractions. Set tight deadlines for yourself. Surround yourself with similarly competitive personalities, and don’t let anyone get ahead of you.
      • Eat clean food, drink more water than usual, and get quality hours of sleep. Consider herbal supplements to help with digestion and sleep. Seriously, sleep is critical. Good fuel and enough rest should be your primary physical priorities because you’ll want to maintain a healthy and rested mind for as long as you can.

 

The big difference between a successful entrepreneur and someone who just doesn’t make it is the work. If you can put in the hours, show up, and follow the plan you set for yourself, you will see results. But it takes a lot of mental fortitude not to falter and give up, and to talk yourself out of those days where you’d like nothing more than to leave the world behind and just rest for 24 hours.

 

 

2. Believe in Your Idea

 

You cannot be successful if you aren’t your own first buyer. If your idea – if your passion – isn’t reflected in what you do to the degree that you’d be the first customer standing outside waiting to get in, then you need to keep working on your idea before you begin pursuing it.

 

Becoming an entrepreneur is not something you can do with just some effort. Do you fantasize about what your business will look like in 5 years? Do you believe that what you’re bringing to the world is important enough that you’d dedicate your life to it? Or are you just doing it to try and make a little extra money?

 

Financial independence and even wealth are fine goals, but your own passion for what you’re doing is ultimately going to be a massive factor in your early success. You have to sell yourself on your idea first before you start selling to others.

 

3. Build It and They’ll Come? 

 

One of the most problematic myths in the modern day is the idea that if you build it, they will come. Not only is this based on a misquote, but it’s also never been particularly great business advice – least of all today.

 

We live in a day and age where the average person processes more information in a single day than they might have in a week or month, just a few decades ago. We are being inundated with recommendations, advertisements, endorsements, and more – to the point that we begin to blend it out, mute it, and only pay attention when we intend to.

 

You cannot rely on your business to succeed solely on the basis of word-of-mouth unless your focus is an incredibly niche clientele within a very local area. If you want success, you need to find your audience and speak to them directly.

 

Targeted ad campaigns, careful keyword selection, daily or weekly web content, social media and reputation management; lots and lots of marketing. You can get started on that yourself or hire someone to take care of the job, but always know that, with the internet, competition is potentially stiffer than ever. On the other hand, the opportunity to reach people all over the globe is uniquely attributable to this day and age.

 

4. Pick the Right Creative Office Space

 

Yes, you will need an office. Depending on your business model and the size of your venture, you’ll want to pick an appropriate place to turn into the base of your operations. Nowadays, one of the best ways to save on costs and still reap the full benefits of a large and professional space is to find yourself a coworking space.

 

Renting a coworking space is especially interesting for entrepreneurs because the opportunity to co-work alongside professionals from all walks of life will continue to inspire you, help you network, and discover cooperative opportunities in ways you might never have otherwise. Of course, traditional offices are always still available if that route is best for your business.

 

5. It’s Not Too Late 

 

Most successful entrepreneurs began their first business after over 6 years of experience working for someone else and typically had a spouse with at least one child. In other words, it isn’t a young person’s game. Don’t be afraid to start ‘late’.

 

Many of the wildest entrepreneurial successes were born from dedicated and committed founders who had a wealth of experience to draw upon. A good number of entrepreneurs are well-educated, highly knowledgeable, and are often the first in their respective families to launch their own business.

 

Final Thought

 

As long as you believe you have the drive, the means, and the right idea, consider becoming an entrepreneur and pursue the calling of a lifetime. And if things don’t work out the first time, don’t worry!

 

Most entrepreneurs are ‘serial’ entrepreneurs, and it often takes a few times for an idea to take off in the right way, at the right time, with the right clientele, and the right means to take advantage of all of these conditions.

 

And if you’re in need of finding a quality creative office space, feel free to contact us here at The Collection located in downtown, Los Angeles. We’re happy to assist with your coworking needs.

 

Categories
Business Trends

6 Simple Tips for Managing Remote Workers

Managing remote workers is now a necessary skill in the workplace, as the gig economy encourages more employees to seek remote work. These 6 tips will help you to manage your team, whether they are physically present or not.

 

About half of the US workforce engages in some form of telecommuting, and roughly a quarter of workers currently already spend a significant portion of their work week working from home. Outsourcing has grown tremendously as well, with a growing percentage of companies in Europe and the US outsourcing much of their work to businesses and freelancers in other parts of the world.

 

In other words, more companies rely on remote workers today than ever, and it’s likely that the numbers will continue to grow. Yet while many business owners and managers have their own way of working with employees locally, managing remote workers requires a completely different approach.

 

Managing Remote Workers in 6 Steps

Rather than trying to impose greater control over a remote worker, or leave them to their own devices entirely, the right approach entails a simple set of rules and tips for:

 

      • Managing communication
      • Measuring and encouraging progress
      • Developing morale and rapport
      • Making the most of what could be an incredibly profitable employer-employee relationship

 

With majority of the workforce expected to engage in freelance or remote work by 2020, these skills are no longer just beneficial, they’re necessary. These 6 tips can help you manage your team more efficiently, while improving profitability.

1. Make Communicating Easy and Fast 

First and foremost, it’s critical to outline the importance of simple, effective and instant communication channels. While working in an office, you and your workers have the luxury of simply getting up and taking a few steps through the office to engage in a face-to-face conversation. Your in house workers:

 

      • Have the means to communicate with you whenever necessary
      • Schedule appointments when talks aren’t strictly critical
      • Engage in regular team meetings and one-on-one conversations whenever needed

 

Remote employees struggle to feel a part of something greater, or appreciated in any way, unless it’s explicitly made clear to them that they, too, possess some form of access to you and your time/attention.

 

Emails are an obvious and often critical communicative tool for remote workers and their clients/employers, but you need to provide your workers with a faster and more immediate communication tool as well. Choose a professional and reliable instant messaging system, like Slack or Google Hangouts.

 

In addition to communication channels, consider having these workers join together in one space monthly or bi-monthly. Renting an event space or coworking option every couple months can help all workers feel a part of the team.

 

2. Set Communication Guidelines (and Stick to Them)

Instant messaging and other reliable communication tools are critical, but they shouldn’t be abused. It’s important to instate clear communication guidelines that respect your remote worker’s time and rest.

 

This might mean that, should you live in vastly different time zones, the majority of your communication will occur over email due to the inherent delay (especially if you tend to start your workday around the time your remote worker would be going to bed).

 

If a project necessitates a greater degree of communication and coordination, give your remote worker enough time to plan accordingly and be awake on the hours they’re needed.

 

If you respect your worker’s time, you will get better results. This means no work-related communication over the weekend, no intrusive messages during sleep hours, and reasonable expectations for communication (such as having a 24-hour window to reply to messages and following up only as often as truly necessary).

 

3. Create and Manage a Water Cooler

Remote workers often do not feel as though they are part of the company they work for, even when formally employed. This is because it’s hard to feel like you are part of a greater team when you spend most of your work hours at a desk at home, alone, with no sense of how your other teammates or doing, or what they’re doing.

 

In order to help remote employees feel like they’re more than just a cog or a business function, but an individual whose presence within the company and the team is felt and respected appropriately, it’s important to develop a place for your remote workers to interact and communicate with other workers.

 

Rather than being a purely professional asset, help these workers remind themselves that there are other humans involved in the work they do. These people have names, personalities, lives, and humor.

 

Establishing channels to promote and encourage virtual mingling can help.

 

      • Slack and other communication software allow teams to create and manage channels, giving you the opportunity to create a virtual water cooler for the sharing of memes, music, and off-topic conversations (helping remote and local workers mingle and establish friendships virtually).
      • Particularly techy companies can take it a step further and schedule fun remote activities, like playing competitive or cooperative video games after work, or on a monthly, event-like basis.

 

4. Send Feedback and Offer Recognition

Whenever your non-physical workers send something in, respond with appropriate feedback. It’s often enough to simply acknowledge (in a positive way) that you’ve seen their work.

 

However, it’s even better to talk about how the clients responded to a specific part of what they did, or what they could do better. If you do offer criticism, be sure to also stress the things they did right.

 

More than anything, managing remote workers relies on giving direction. It’s difficult to motivate oneself for work, especially from home. Feedback can help remind workers that the work they’re doing is valuable to the team and encourages them to continue giving it their all.

 

5. Forget Hours, Focus on Results

It’s much harder to supervise a remote worker and tell exactly how much work they’re doing within any given amount of time. As such, it’s important to forget about trying to control how a remote worker spends their time, or how they put in their hours.

 

Instead, focus on deliverables, deadlines, and results. Even if your remote worker is paid based on a 30-40-hour workweek, consider not how much time they’re putting into their work, but what they’re bringing to the table, and if it’s worth what they’re being paid.

 

If you ask your remote workers to work full-time, then expect results that you would receive from a full-time worker and reward them accordingly. Trust them to put in the time they need in order to deliver as per their expected quota.

6. Align Your Goals

Remote workers have embraced the nature of modern work, wherein flexibility is king. Every opportunity to work is also an opportunity to learn a new skill or hone an ability. Many workers no longer aim for stable careers or advancements within a single firm but aim to improve their portfolio by developing new abilities.

 

This happens from taking on greater workloads, to figuring out various types of editing software, to becoming competent at several different types of content production.

 

Encourage workers to intimate their goals and explain what they would like to develop while working for you. Then, see if you can align their goals with your own, assigning projects to them that would help them grow as workers and individuals, while benefiting you and your clientele.

 

Final Thoughts

Managing remote workers requires being empathic and aware of their needs and requirements, even if they aren’t able to voice them on their own.

 

Remember that you are working with humans, and that helping them feel like a true part of a team can do a lot to improve morale and productivity.

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