Business Advice

5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

Business Advice /

If you are a team leader, if you do even a little research, you should be able to find many unusual team-building activities that you can use to boost, enhance, and motivate your team. While those three objectives we just mentioned are desirable, there are many other benefits that team-building exercises can produce.

As the team leader, this means that before you organise a team-building activity, even one that is considered unusual, you should first determine your goals and objectives for it. Obviously, you want it to be fun for your team, but more importantly, what benefits do you want the activity to produce, and what positive outcomes do you want for your team?

Without first establishing these and then arranging team-building activities that can facilitate your objectives, the activity will be nothing more than a day out, and whilst it may produce some positives, it may not have satisfied the needs of that team as you see it with regard to making it a stronger and more focused team.

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Office Needs CCTV

Five Reasons Your Office Needs CCTV

Business Advice / , /

If you own or manage a business, you probably already know just how important it is to have a high-quality, reliable alarm security system. Things like 24/7 monitoring and CCTV surveillance are crucial parts of looking after your business and preventing theft and vandalism.

However, not all businesses have CCTV surveillance or a professional security team included as part of their security system. Generally, this leaves you open and vulnerable to intruders, especially if the rest of your system is neglected or poorly maintained. In the rest of this article, we’ve outlined our top five reasons why you should always install security cameras and/or CCTV to protect your office.

  1. CCTV Reduces the Risk of Theft and Intruders

The simple action of installing visible CCTV cameras can help prevent theft and vandalism of your business premises. Visible cameras are a natural deterrent for intruders and can make burglars look elsewhere for an easier target.

This is logical and our primary reason for installing CCTV around your business. Really, why would an intruder target secure premises when there are so many easier and more vulnerable options out there?

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Terminate an Employee’s Contract

When Can I Legally Terminate an Employee’s Contract?

Business Advice, Legal Advice / /

In Australia, both employee and employer rights are clear and comprehensive. In general, Australian employment law is fair and provides adequate protection for all parties. However, it can also be extremely confusing and figuring out what your rights are can be time-consuming and frustrating, to say the least.

Fortunately, though, the information is readily available. An experienced employment lawyer will be able to help you figure out your exact rights, and it’s often worth spending a little money to hire one if you find yourself stuck in a complicated situation.

Contract termination is one such complication area, so we’ve decided to provide a brief overview of the subject from the employers point of view. With this in mind, let’s have a quick look at when you can legally terminate an employee’s contract.

  1. If There’s a Termination Clause in the Contract

Many employment contracts contain some sort of termination clause that provides a way out for those who want to terminate their employment early. Sometimes, these come into place if a particular event or action happens, or they may be triggered at an employee or employer’s leisure.

For example, a particular employee’s contract could have a clause that allows early termination without penalty if particular performance targets aren’t met. Note that it’s extremely important to read all contracts before signing them to ensure you know about and are comfortable with any clauses or other termination details they contain.

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5 Team Building Mistakes to Avoid

Business Advice / /

If you’re serious about building a successful business or company, you need to make sure that you build a cohesive, functional team of employees. Unfortunately, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, so you might need to implement some team-building strategies.

However, according to Team Works Development, team building can go seriously wrong if you’re not careful. In our experience, there are a few common mistakes that a lot of team leaders make, and they should be avoided at all costs. The five most common include:

  1. Assuming Everyone Is Equal

Although we shouldn’t have to say this, your employees are not equal. Everyone is different, with unique skills, emotions and learning abilities. Assuming everyone is equal, you won’t take advantage of their unique traits.

Additionally, this assumption can be dangerous because it can lead to some members of your team underperforming and not performing to the best of their ability. Ultimately, assuming every team member is equal is a surefire way not to achieve the results you want.

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Apply For GST

Do I Need To Apply For GST For My Business?

Business Advice / /

When it comes to tax in Australia, it can be hard to get your head around all of your obligations, especially if you are starting your first small business or something similar. Goods and services tax (GST) experts Accountants Australia advise that GST is an area of confusion among a lot of first time business owners, and is something that gets brought up at their offices regularly.

Additionally, contacting a commercial lawyer can help you with your business taxes. GST in Australia is very confusing. Some small businesses have to have it. Some small businesses don’t. So how do you know if you need to register for GST? Basically, it all comes down to how much money you expect your business to turn over each financial year.

Firstly, what is GST?

GST, or goods and services tax, is basically a small fee that the government puts on top of all purchases and sales in the country. It currently sits at 10% of the price of the item, which means that when you sell something, you will actually have to collect 110% of the amount that you actually want to sell it for – if your business is registered for GST. The 10% tax rate then needs to be paid on to the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

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personal appearance

The Double Edged Sword of Your Personal Appearance

Business Advice / /

If you are a woman in business you may have become aware that your personal appearance can be a double-edged sword. You do everything to make yourself attractive and presentable for the job only to find you can’t advance because someone thought you were too attractive and that would distract the male employees. If you’ve been in business for some years and have wondered if you should get Botox treatment for those fine wrinkles, take this into account.

Of course you want to look your best, but the trouble is that if you appear too attractive you’ll have to work twice as hard to make people take you seriously. Those with suspicious minds may have other thoughts on how you got the job in the first place or how you managed to keep it. This is why it’s good to go with what you like and don’t pay too much attention to what other people think of you.

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Business Plan

What Should be in Your Business Plan

Business Advice / , /

Behind every successful business there is a comprehensive business plan. According to experienced financial planners Andep, there are many things this plan should contain, apart from your personality, including a financial planning section. This should be written by a financial advisor, or at least from information they have provided. Having a financial planner to help will show any lenders that you are serious about your business and they will be able to quickly see whether it is a viable investment opportunity for them.

Here are some of the other things that should be in your business plan: –

  • The title page is more important than you might think. By including this page your lenders will be able to quickly see what the plan is for and general information about it.
  • A one-page business summary. This will need to be written after everything else, but it should be included in the front so investors can get a comprehensive, but brief idea of your business.
  • About your business: this is all the information about the structure, registrations, premises, location, staffing and your products or services.
  • Your marketing plan: You need to do a marketing analysis of the industry you are entering, describe your target market and your competitors. Detail your key marketing plans and how you intend to meet your targets – digital marketing, traditional marketing, email marketing? This will show investors you know what you are doing.

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Dress-Sense-in-Business

Business & Your Appearance

Business Advice / /

It is said that a woman’s age is told by her hands rather than her face. Whether that is true or not, many women in business turn to cosmetic surgery in particular botox in order to present a smooth and young looking face to the world. But if the back of their hands are wrinkled and spotted, their age is still going to show up. That is why it’s important to take care of your hands as well as your face.

There are many facial cosmetics that can hide small veins or age spots on the face, but not as many for the hands. In any case, you need to wash your hands often and that would remove the make-up on them. The best way to keep hands looking young is to slather them in moisturiser at night and after washing them.

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commercial-leasing

How to Find the Best Corporate Property to Lease

Business Advice, Legal Advice / /

Professional legal advice will tell you that there are many different criteria to finding the best lease, but before you can even start to look at what is in the lease you have to find a new office building that suits. Here are some tips to help find the property best suited to your kind of business.

  • Know your target market. Only by knowing the market and where they are likely to be can you be sure of putting your business in the same place. While location is not that important for some, it can spell success or disaster for others. So if you have a coffee shop or a butcher’s shop you need to be right where the foot traffic is, but also where there is plenty of parking. If you sell bulk supplies of timber or hardware your business will be in the industrial area. But you’ll need room for larger vehicles to drive in and access their goods rather than multiple parking spaces for cars.

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start-an-ecommerce-store

What You Need to Do to Start an Ecommerce Store

Business Advice, Website Development / /

Many businesses both large and small are consulting digital agencies in order to make use of the Internet to enlarge their business and increase their bottom line. Even sole traders can start up an e-commerce store from which to sell their products or advertise their services. In fact, a great many people have found success in doing this. If you are thinking about starting up such a project, here are some tips on what you need to do.

  • Create a plan. This will include several components such as deciding what to sell, finding out where to access it, working out how you will differ from the competition, locating your target market and getting the legalities and store policies into place.
  • Setting it up. There are many things to decide in this step. Will your store have phone support? What domain and plan will you use? What will be the name of your store? Will you use drop-shipping or have stored inventory and if the latter, where will you store it? Selling digital goods saves a lot of problems with storing and packaging. You need to create a special bank account and decide on your merchant account so that people can pay you. PayPal makes it easy, but they do take a percentage of each transaction.
  • Decide on your website details. It is essential to make your website easy to navigate, with all the important details highly visible. Make sure it is responsive so that people using iPhones and iPads can use it easily. A content management system (CMS) like WordPress will make it easy for you to add and edit content instead of relying on – and paying for – a website designer to do it each time. You will need to write the product descriptions, including all the relevant information to help customers make their choice. You also need to write your privacy policy and get an SSL certificate to protect customer’s credit card details. Get a marketing plan and to learn how to measure results with analytics.

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