Nex-Tech Blog | Technology Tips and Tricks | Industry News

In a matter of days, lives have been turned upside down due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Most businesses have closed their doors to the public, and everyone has been affected in one way or another. Business owners are completely re-thinking their marketing strategies in order to reach customers during this time. Here are three things that we have learned so far:

1. The Start Menu

For you Windows 7 users, rest easy, because this is here to stay. For the Windows 8 users, the start menu is back with its full functionality – and then some. The aesthetics of the new start menu combine the basics of the start menu from Windows 7 with the sleek tiles that were a part of Windows 8. The customization of this helps you to access what you need much faster and boosts productivity. Open the Start Menu, click on Settings, Personalization, and then Start. Make the Start Menu work for you. Microsoft created a helpful onboarding resource for this feature as well.

In today’s technology world, we are continually finding ways to do more with less. Virtualization is a perfect match to eliminate multiple problems, because you can run several servers on a single piece of hardware. With the traditional setup of a single server running directly on a piece of hardware, you will find that over time you run into a number of setbacks.

Your employees are like family. They’ve been there through the good and maybe not-as-good years, you’ve celebrated personal and professional milestones together, and you trust them to help run your business. You would never think that they would be capable of stealing. But with 75% of employees admitting to stealing from their employers, it is likely happening to you.

Unfortunately, employee theft is on the rise. According to a recent report, U.S. businesses lose $60 billion (yes, that’s BILLION with a B) a year to shrinkage, with employee theft identified as the single biggest cause. That’s equivalent to 7% of annual revenue – 7%! What would you do with an extra 7% added back to your bottom line?

This isn’t to say that all employees are bad and steal. Instead, it’s to bring awareness that theft happens, and it is happening at your expense. Check out the list below for 4 common ways your employees are stealing from you.

THEFT OF TIME

There are hundreds of different ways employees can steal time. Coming in late, taking excessive or longer breaks, falsifying timesheets, spending too much time on social media or taking personal phone calls. While many employers have come to accept this, theft of time is just as costly as theft of merchandise.

Be especially aware of ‘Buddy Punching’. A common form of time theft where employees will clock in for someone who may be running late, or clock out for someone to give them extra time.

THEFT OF PRODUCTS

Stealing products is not only common but the way they are being stolen is getting creative. During the day an employee takes the trash out to the dumpster. This doesn’t seem out of the ordinary because it is a daily task. Fast forward to later that night, and the employee comes back to the store and grabs the bag of trash out of the dumpster. But why would they want that trash? Because it’s actually a bag filled with new, expensive merchandise that was disguised as trash to sneak it out of the building. While it may sound extreme, this form of theft is preferred because it is discreet and usually reaps big benefits for the thief.

Some forms of product theft are not as extreme, for example not charging a customer for a drink with their meal, or not scanning all of the merchandise brought to the register but putting it all into the customer’s bag.

It’s also possible that employees aren’t stealing products, but are stealing supplies. Office supplies are a necessary cost of doing business. However, when employees think the supply closet is for their own personal use, the cost of doing business increases. 

In order to have a vibrant, growing area in which to live and work, progressive communities must have an organization like the Chamber of Commerce. Each Chamber includes a powerful team…a team of members, volunteers, and community leaders working together to constantly help area businesses and their employees be as successful as possible.

When you own a small business, you wear so many hats that you can’t see straight most days. The amount of responsibilities seems endless. With handling all of the marketing, accounting, payroll, inventory, scheduling, customer service and ordering, among other things, it can be difficult to manage it all. Below are three must-have technologies that will make running your business much easier.

Boot Camp is in Session! Nex-Tech recently had the opportunity to partner with the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce to offer a Digital Marketing Boot Camp presented by certified content marketing expert, Frank Kenny. Kenny drilled home the top key points in helping small business owners tackle social media marketing through Facebook, the creation of a customer email database through website pixeling and content creation with email marketing. Each of these marketing boot camp drills focused on helping small business owners tackle a few key marketing aspects for business growth.

Extended employee leave is becoming one of the more prevalent staffing challenges for business owners. While it’s not a new issue, it certainly is gaining significance as the job market is shifting. Younger generations have a more pronounced demand for work-life balance, paid parental leave is on the rise with leaders, from both parties calling for a nationwide program and more and more companies join the growing trend of flexible work hours and sabbatical options for employees. Sure, all that is great news for employees and while big corporations might have enough resources to fall back on, it is often difficult for small and medium businesses to plan for and get through extended leave situations. The matter of the fact is that no matter the industry or the size of your business, eventually you will have to deal with being one or several staff members short for an extended period of time.

Our team had to recently deal with such a situation and I was the culprit! I didn’t spare them any hurdles either by being the textbook example of what NOT to do! Here’s what happened: I was expecting my first child and planning for 12-week maternity leave and had the best intentions of prepping for my absence, briefing my team and leaving detailed notes on everything I was working on. Little did I know that my little guy had a mind of his own and decided to show up seven weeks early, leaving my team scrambling and me feeling horrifically guilty. Thankfully, everyone stepped up to the plate and did a fantastic job picking up what I had left and we got through it! But that experience really made me consider how reactive we go about dealing with extended leave without much strategy or planning. So, I decided to turn this into a learning moment and give you some takeaways to help you hopefully avoid repeating my mistake. Here are my five big Ahas. Disclaimer: I am not an HR expert, just someone who had to learn the hard way.

For quite some time I have been trying to become more and more paperless by using digital notetaking apps and I think I’m starting to get to where I am comfortable with it.  My biggest struggle has been the culture of using a device in a meeting with the perception of looking like I’m not paying attention.  I would take notes on paper, scan them in, and file them away.  What I’m finding is that the culture is starting to shift as everyone becomes more digital and using a device for notetaking is more commonly accepted. 

Is your business utilizing the power of social media? If you’re not, why? Don’t know how? Don’t have time? Don’t have anything to say? These are all valid reasons, but there are some great resources out there that can help you become a social media pro or at least look like one.

We could spend forever talking about every social network out there and why or why not your business should have a presence, but in this post, I am going to focus on the social media juggernaut, Facebook.  Facebook has over a billion active users, no other platform has that kind of user base.  Not only does it have the most users, Facebook has done a great job of helping businesses reach their target audience, plus it is super easy to use.