Ready for Fun? Here’s How to Prepare Your Business
I always need a vision of the trip ahead — the getaway with my husband when we let business thoughts go and simply enjoy each other’s company. He is quick-witted and still makes me laugh. He is fun.
I need fun! Don’t you?
That’s the point of hard work — to make the rest of our lives happier and easier so that we can enjoy the company of those we love.
My calendar is marked for our 2024 getaway, and I hope you can make similar plans with the person or people closest to you.
But getting away isn’t so simple, not if you’re a business owner or manager. You need a stable staff to make it happen. If your employees don’t understand their responsibilities, if they’re overloaded, if they conflict with each other, if turnover is constant, then you can’t relax, can you?
I’m not a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, or a meditation guide, but my work is a type of relaxation service because I help business owners and managers find staff stability and peace of mind, which relieves them of stress hormones that lead to real headaches.
I help owners visualize the relief ahead and establish a clear set of steps toward that goal — toward some fun!
When setting goals for 2024, put your peace of mind first and take some steps to get there.
Here are some things to think about:
• What Can You Delegate? The first key to overcoming work stress is delegating. If you’re the only one capable of handling a task, you’re starting from a pressure position. And the more these tasks are solely in your lap, the harder it is to breathe. Hiring virtual employees (VEs) allows you to shift responsibilities around because there are more delegating possibilities. You can hire two to three highly qualified Filipino VEs for every in-office hire. Those VEs can allow some of your on-site staff to take on some of your responsibilities since VEs can handle some of theirs.
Five Tips on How to Delegate Tasks
• Is Your Staff Appropriately Trained? Consider these questions: Do your employees understand their roles? What educational opportunities could you offer them over the next 12 months? If one employee is out, how qualified are others to handle their duties in their absence? At HireSmart, we work with you to ensure your VE is trainable. We provide a 40-hour certification program to educate your virtual employee about your industry. We also offer coaching sessions for our clients who wish to discuss the management of remote employees. Once you have a remote staff on board, you can free your on-site staff to learn new tasks, creating a greater support system for your business when absences occur.
Tips on Communicating with Your Remote Employee
• What Are You Doing to Combat Burnout and Turnover? Have you ever worked in an office environment where employees are overloaded and at their wit’s end? If so, you’ll know that burnout and turnover are viruses you don’t want to encounter because they spread through an office, creating problems on top of problems. Hiring virtual employees is a fantastic way to reduce stress on your existing staff because you can reduce the time they spend on their least engaging tasks by shifting that to your VEs.
Burnout: Why it Happens and How to Reduce It
• What’s Most Cost-Effective? The status quo in the hiring world is to seek an employee from a drivable distance from the office. This limits the job pool of candidates and ties an employer to the local market rate for such a position. But there are so many educated, highly qualified, articulate, and good-natured employees in the Philippines, which has a much lower cost of living than the U.S., meaning an hour worked there is much cheaper than here. We have a proven process of finding the top Filipino virtual employees, with only one percent of our applicants making the cut. Any potential employee must meet our high standards before they meet you.
HireSmart is a business success agency. We focus on helping other businesses realize their full potential, and that involves owners and managers operating at peak efficiency.
One of our clients, James, a corporate officer and association manager, spoke of being in “crisis mode” every day. The long, six-days-a-week mad dash to get everything done was wearing him down.
“I knew I was starting to suffer from burnout, and I needed somebody to assist me to make those things happen so I could start to breathe a little bit,” he said.
James found relief with Eli, a Filipino virtual employee from HireSmart Virtual Employees.
“He is embracing everything I’m throwing at him, and so that’s anything from property association management to corporate stuff,” said James about Eli. “I know that when we go out looking for another VE, we’re going to be looking for somebody like Eli. Those are the traits we will look for in another VE: somebody who is ambitious, an overachiever, who embraces technology, and is willing to step out of their comfort zone to learn and to try things.”
As you think of the year ahead, put your peace of mind up top. Allow for some fun!
And consider what steps you need to take to get there. I’d love to help you make it happen. I feel sure your loved ones want to see it, too. Bon voyage in 2024!
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