More than ever, it is important for your employees to have positive work experiences. People have many more resources to find new work today, and with so many people willing to find the “right fit” it can be quite expensive for organizations. While the best way is always to compensate people well, if you are facing a situation where you need to be creative to keep your people around, we have three suggestions. 

Just How Expensive is a High Turnover Rate?

You may not think that the process of hiring and training new employees has a large price tag, but if you consider that new employees are going to be much less productive as they get up to speed (if they do), it’s probably going to cost you more than you’d like to onboard new talent. Some studies have put this number at 1-to-1.5 times the position’s salary for a worker that has been with your organization for five years. This number increases the more responsibilities the employee has. That’s a lot of money to spend just to get a fraction of the productivity. 

Suggestions to Help You Build Positive Work Experiences

We should preface this with a fact: You’re not always going to please everyone. Having a couple of people that are questionable (or bad) fits for your business jump ship is going to happen. That said, there are some things that an organization can do to make their workers’ experience more meaningful. Here are a few:

Set a Clear Mission and Stick to It

One of the most frustrating things for employees at any business is when things take huge shifts without much notice. That includes hiring/firing people, operational changes, and policies and procedures that are not well thought out or enforced. This is not just an employee/employer problem, this is an organizational problem. For the good of your business, identify your organization’s long term goals and don’t change them. Sure, you will have to alter some things in the short term to react to market changes, but overall, the people that work for you should know what all their time and effort is being used for. 

Embrace People’s Ideas

No one knows your business better than the people that work on it. You might find problems with this, but the whole picture can be painted by your staff if you just listen. By giving your employees a voice, you will gain more insight than you could ever hope to through analytics. They not only will give you their perspective in regard to their jobs, they will also let you know about the inefficiencies that keep them from being as productive as they’d like. People typically like to be a part of something special, so the more they are involved in the overall process that goes into decision making, the more positively they will view their work experience. 

Encourage Work Relationships

We’re not talking about encouraging your workers to date, but there is no reason your workers can’t be friends. Without a doubt, people want to work alongside people they respect and like. Of course, co-workers are always hit or miss. The more a business can create situations where friendships and relationships can develop, the more actual teamwork you are going to have. Some of the best ways to do this is to conduct personality assessments and then try to assign work that will have like-minded people working with each other. Not all people will fit together, but for the most part the more people can relate to their co-workers the more their work will be improved and the happier they will be working alongside their peers. This is an indispensable thing in a workplace where a lot of things are boiled down to dollars and cents. 

Your business is not just your products and your services. It is all the people that make up the ability to fulfill your customer’s needs. At Coleman Technologies, we can help build the technology that can help foster positive work relationships and keep your employees working for you. Give us a call today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more. 

The first thing that you need to consider is that this thing won’t last forever. Most businesses, if they had no contingencies in place, or if they were forced to close by mandate, probably have been burning through cash for the past month. Those that haven’t are fortunate. Small business owners need to stay proactive during this period, altering their company’s remote work strategies if need be, and searching for low-interest loans to get them through this difficult process. Let’s get into some of the most useful tips on how to get your business through this disaster.

#1: Know Where You Are

The first tip is probably the most important tip. This situation came upon all of us pretty suddenly, and to be frank, not a lot of business’ disaster recovery programs consider “supervirus” as a likely scenario. Floods, fires, electrical storms, the temp clicking on a spear phishing attack...these situations your business is ready for. Worldwide pandemic is a stretch. Forging ahead, you need to know that you aren’t alone, but how you react will largely determine how you come out the other side of this thing. 

If you are still in operation, you will need to cut as many redundant and unnecessary costs as you can. In times like this, your company needs the flexibility that comes with liquidity. That means eliminating a lot of the extra stuff that you pay for, such as travel (this one is obvious), team outings, company food, and non-essential marketing. This will ensure that you have the financial flexibility to at the very least have a business to reopen when the “all-clear” is given.

Additionally, don’t take on any new investments that don’t immediately relate to getting your business through this situation. There will be millions of businesses looking for additional capital, and there should be enough money and favorable interest rates that most businesses can get the capital they need without putting their whole business in jeopardy.

#2: Maintain Your Relationships

You have spent a long time cultivating and maintaining your business relationships. It is more important now than ever to do what you can to maintain those relationships. This includes your financial institutions, your vendors, and your clients. Regrettably, some businesses won’t make it through this, but the lion’s share will and making sure that your business is on solid footing and there to support your client base will be essential as things begin to normalize. 

#3: Proactively Budget

Chances are that the terms you agreed upon and the support from your clients will shift considerably. You will want to proactively budget for this. You can expect higher interest rates, a lower availability of massive available capital, and shorter terms in which to pay off the money you do borrow. 

As stated above, there should be a lot of available capital through government-sponsored programs, and these loans will carry with them lower interest rates, but if you take the proactive steps to ensure that you budget for the difficult times ahead, your business will undoubtedly be in a better position when we see our way through this mess.

#4: Trust Yourself to Weigh Variables

The COVID-19 outbreak has left the small business owner a lot to take in. One of the most important suggestions we can give is that you trust that the decisions you’ve made up to this point--and that you will make over the crucial next few months--are in the best interests of everyone that depends on your business. If you are forced into making cuts into your human resources, you will want to make sure that they are protected as not to put your business in additional peril from having a tarnished brand.

Making sacrifices is always hard, especially if you were really thriving before the pandemic hit. Take in as much information as you can weigh and have the confidence that you can make the right decisions. This will keep your business, and the people who depend on it, ready to properly adjust to the situations that are thrown at it.

COVID-19 has millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of people uneasy. To get through it you will need help. Contact the knowledgeable consultants at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428 to let us help your business get through this unprecedented situation.

Two-Hour Solution

Roger Seip, author of Train Your Brain for Success, took a proactive and prepared look at productivity by developing his Two-Hour Solution. The idea is to take two hours to plan out a schedule to follow each week, based on how your plans and goals culminated the week before. Investing this time should allow you to make the most of your available time to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

The reason that this is different than simply going over your calendar each week is the fact that, if guided by the Two-Hour Solution, you’re figuring out how the time you’re spending contributes to your goals. “Green time” is time that helps you generate financial capital, while your “red time” is the time that you spend preparing for green time, without generating any profit. To account for the wrench in the works that would ordinarily throw off your schedule, you also include “flex time” to provide a buffer. What’s left is your “re-creation” time, where you recover from your productive endeavors by doing the things you want to do.

Prioritizing

Steven Covey is an educator and a businessman who came up with a philosophy to living a full life that can also apply to life in the office.

Consider your big priorities, your more flexible responsibilities, and your rote tasks in the workplace as large rocks, smaller stones, and sand, respectively. Your time is a bucket, ready to be filled with these items as you see fit.

Let’s say you decide to start with the “sand,” before trying to cram in the “rocks” and “stones.” Chances are pretty good that you won’t be able to accomplish very much at all, at least nothing of any circumstance. However, if you prioritize the more impactful rocks, then the stones, and fill in the rest of the space with your sand, your bucket—or workday—is then used as productively as possible, and anything you didn’t get to complete isn’t of consequence.

Two-Minute Rule

While there are countless variables that can potentially influence the amount of time a task will take to complete, you eventually get a feeling for the typical duration, right? So, some tasks can predictably take a significant amount of time, while others take almost no time at all to make it through. The idea of the Two-Minute Rule, thought up by productivity consultant David Allen, takes advantage of that difference. His strategy: if a task will take two minutes or less, do it.

If that seems too simple, it kind of is. The philosophy behind the Two-Minute Rule is to build up your motivation to tackle the larger responsibilities by successfully completing smaller tasks. Think about it—every task, regardless of how large it is, can be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks, chunks that can take mere minutes to complete. Once you’ve completed enough of these two-minute tasks, it only makes sense to see the greater responsibility through… and with the progress you’ve already made supporting you, completing it seems that much more feasable. 

The Blastoff Method

Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Mel Robbins devised this practice to help overcome the mental blocks that encourage us to procrastinate rather than doing things that are good for us. Robbins posits that, by hesitating, we put the brain into “protection” mode—by thinking about everything that needs to be done between point A and point B, your brain ultimately prevents you from doing what you need to do. However, if that hesitation can be avoided, your productivity (or, by Robbins’ original theory, your well-being) will see benefits.

Her solution is to close the gap that hesitation creates between your capability to do a task and your perception of that task. Her recommendation is to, quite literally, treat yourself like a rocket and count down to your action. Focus on counting down…5,4,3,2,1… and act immediately, before your thoughts get in the way.

Scientifically, by doing so, you are bypassing a behavioral process and resetting an established habit loop… allowing better, more productive habits to be created instead. Give it a try next time you encounter a task you want to avoid starting.

Create a Time Crunch

We’ll wrap up with another method that Roger Seip came up with. If you really feel you work better on a deadline, add a bit of a hurdle as you are scheduling your “green time” … give yourself less time than you think you’ll need. The pressure can help you to focus. Naturally, you need to avoid any flex time you have assigned for this to work.

What methods do you use to keep yourself focused and productive? Do any of these approaches sound like something you want to try? Let us know in the comments!

For the technology solutions that can also help you improve your practical productivity, talk to us! Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to discuss your options.

As much as we try to structure our productivity throughout the day, there are always those moments that seem to slip by—both at work and in our personal lives. It can be tough to find time to commit to projects whether your goal is personal or professional.

So, let’s go over some tips that help make this time easier to find. 

The Truth is, the Time is There… You Just Need to Be Ready for It

Most people underestimate the amount of time they actually have available to them—although, to be fair, this time is often hiding in plain sight. Do you find yourself sitting through a long bus trip to get to work, or relegated to the back seat in an uncomfortably silent carpool arrangement? When working from home, how much time do you spend in the morning waiting for your coffee maker of choice to produce your preferred cup (or pot, no judgment from me) of joe? 

The fact of the matter is that in these little moments we chalk up to time wasted, there’s the opportunity for productivity. Small as these moments may seem, nobody said that productive work has to be of a certain duration. By taking advantage of the spare moments before a meeting starts, or when your usual breakfast is cooking, or any other time that would otherwise be lost to the ether, you can accomplish that much more.

How often do you find yourself having some of your best ideas during these moments?

You Just Need to Be Ready for When These Moments Arise

By having the right tools and strategies prepared, you’ll be in a good position to take advantage of every spare moment. Chances are good that you regularly have access to a mobile device with some form of a note-taking app. Get in the habit of quickly typing up your ideas.

If you’d rather rely on a low-tech option, make sure you’re always carrying a pen with you. Everything from a receipt to a napkin can be used to quickly store a thought until you have the opportunity to more permanently record it.

Furthermore, it is important that you manage your expectations. It’s very unlikely that your quick notes will be an earth-shaking idea. Much more likely, it’ll just be the first draft of many ideas that eventually become a real strategy or initiative.

While We Can’t Give You the Inspiration You Need, We Can Give You the Tools You’ll Need to Act Upon It

Reach out to us to learn more about our IT services and support options, and how we can help you and your team accomplish more. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to get started.

Operational problems can not only stymie growth, they can trigger a lot of other issues that can be detrimental to the long term success and sustainability of a business. Unfortunately, it’s often a little difficult to see while you are in the heat of battle. Let’s take a look at some of the solutions that can solve some of the common operational problems that small businesses run into.

Communication and Collaboration

With businesses using remote work more often, it requires efficient communication and collaboration tools. Technologies like video conferencing, project management software, and cloud-based document sharing enhance teamwork and communication.

Inventory Management

Inventory management software and systems can help organizations optimize a lot of different things such as managing stock levels, reducing carrying costs, and preventing overstock through real-time tracking and demand forecasting.

Data Management

Data overload and disorganized information can be overwhelming for users to deal with. Technology, including databases, data analytics, and data visualization tools, can help manage and make sense of large volumes of data for better decision-making.

Supply Chain Management

Technology can improve supply chain visibility, traceability, and coordination. IoT sensors, blockchain, and supply chain management software can help reduce delays and improve overall efficiency.

Customer Service

Chatbots, AI-driven virtual assistants, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems enable businesses to provide better and more efficient customer service, including self-service options for customers.

Risk Management

Risk assessment and management tools, including predictive analytics and cybersecurity solutions, help organizations identify and mitigate risks more effectively.

Asset Management

Tracking and maintaining physical assets and equipment can be challenging. IoT-based asset tracking and maintenance systems provide real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance.

Project Management

Project management software and collaboration tools help plan, execute, and monitor projects more efficiently, keeping teams organized and on track.

Running a business can be difficult, but with technology, you can accomplish more and do it more efficiently. If you are searching for help in your efforts to improve efficiency, give the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

Adding More Organization Into Your Chrome Browser

Admit it, you have a tendency to use too many browser tabs. At any given time, you may have 5-10-20 browser tabs open. If you use more than one screen, it could be more. Way more. Most users use their Chrome browser for so much of your online life that you hardly pay attention. Then you wonder why your PC is running slow. The truth is people use a lot of browser tabs, and they are better off for it. 

Google, knowing their users’ behavior better than most companies has come up with a new feature that will allow you to assign a certain color to a browser tab and then group them together with like-colored tabs. This feature will be rolled out to users in this update. 

The update should be coming this week, but it will hit everyone at different times (Google is deliberate about their updates). You may already have the feature in your Chrome browser. When it does come it will be as a default browser update, and will be a change for all Chrome users. All you will need to do is right-click on tabs, group them together, and assign a color.

Are you a tab-hoarder, or a tab-minimalist? Is this feature going to help you? Leave your comments below and be sure to return to our blog for more great information about technology.

Let’s go over what this means, how you can go about doing so to your business’ benefit.

Your Wireless Network and its Bandwidth

When you sign on for Internet services from your service provider, you’re effectively subscribing to a preset amount of bandwidth—hopefully, enough for your staff to do everything they need to do. However, once some people start a few resource-intensive tasks, they could potentially pull network resources away from your other users… not the ideal situation.

For example, take a point-of-sale system as it collects customer data and efficiently processes payments. If network resources are being expended in other places, the POS system could experience some challenges, and negatively impact the customer experience. Internet-hosted communication systems, like email or VoIP, are also vulnerable to this.

Fortunately, partitioning can help avoid these hold-ups.

Understanding Partitioning

To understand partitioning, it helps to look at your Internet bandwidth as the wait to be seated in a restaurant. Regardless of whether there are ten people waiting to get in, or two, the restaurant can only hold so many people. Bandwidth is like the number of seats available—once it is filled up, some will have to empty before operations move along. When it comes to your data, running out of bandwidth causes a bottleneck.

To continue this comparison, partitioning is a little bit like reserving a table at our metaphorical restaurant. When you place your reservation, a table is set aside for your specific use. When you partition your bandwidth, that section of bandwidth is reserved for a specific use as well. So, returning to reality for a moment, partitioning your bandwidth essentially just means you’re reserving some of your Internet resources for a certain task. In the case of a POS system, whether you partition your network could potentially be the difference between having the necessary reliability for your payment terminals, or not. This is also used often for VoIP systems, offline backup, and other bandwidth-intensive systems.

What Does Partitioning a Network Require?

When you partition a network, the first step is to establish how much of your network could be partitioned for specific tasks without causing an issue for your business.

Then, it’s just establishing what processes should be partitioned. If you were trying to ensure that a VoIP platform would remain functional, you could partition your network at the router, specifying that so much bandwidth is meant for VoIP processes, and protect this bandwidth with an authentication system. As a result, your telephony would remain crisp and clear, as its bandwidth wouldn’t have other processes borrowing from it (or the other way around).

For assistance with partitioning your business network, or with any other aspect of your business’ IT, Coleman Technologies is here to help. Reach out to us today for predictable and professional managed IT services and support by calling (604) 513-9428.

For Much of History People Worked From Home

In medieval times people predominantly worked at their place of residence. Many people of this era in Europe lived in what are known now as longhouses. They lived a subsistence life, looking after their crops and livestock. Individuals that lived in these communal buildings typically found a way to justify their inclusion by gaining a trade that would help the rest of the people out. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-18th century where people started going outside their immediate community to go to work; and even then, the people that ran the factories lived and operated out of small buildings adjacent to the main factory.

Office Work In the 20th Century

As industrialization took hold, there was demand for clerical workers and salesmen that necessitated building an office. Inventions such as electric motors, telegraphy (and eventually telephony), and the typewriter facilitated a major change for business. 

Only a few decades later, much of the job market was represented by clerical work. The workers that still worked in production were made to hold fast to management's new standards for productivity. The standard that kept increasing. Managers of the time began to keep detailed figures of how long a task should take. According to a productivity field guide from 1960, swiveling in your seat should have taken .009 minutes. At this juncture, the cubicle was invented, bringing unparalleled distraction prevention to the modern office.

Technology Helped Encourage Remote Practices

As computing became more commonplace, so did remote working. Factories, the base for the 20th century American economy, started to close as the price of labor started to be prohibitive for business. Service jobs filled the gap and a new level of productivity was established. Major innovations such as the personal computer, home Internet service, and ultimately cloud computing have expanded the availability for a worker to have access to everything he/she needs from anywhere.

What better place than home?

Remote work had been growing pretty rapidly as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In mid-May, 66 percent of people that could work from home, were working from home. That number is sure to go down as businesses reopen, but it may be that enough has been learned from this situation that employers will offer more flexibility to their staff than they had previously.

Remote work can provide your business some serious benefits. To talk to our professional consultants, call Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

1. Prioritize

One of the biggest time sinks to be found in any business is the simple act of deciding what to work on next. We’ve all been there at some point: having finished one task, we suddenly reference our to-do list and encounter the same problem as a kid has in a candy store… too many options.

Taking a few moments at the start of every day to organize these tasks can greatly improve how you spend your time throughout the rest of the day, and can ultimately lead to far less waffling later on. With a set process laid out, you no longer have to make the decision over what to work on next - it has already been made.

To create this order, look at everything you have to work on and establish how urgent each task is compared to the others. Deadlines are a handy way to help establish this, or if someone else in your organization needs it before they can continue their work. Identifying these qualities and ordering your tasks accordingly from the start is a small time investment, especially when you consider the impact it can have on your productivity later on. Utilizing a communications and collaboration solution can help you establish the organizational priority of each of your tasks with the help of your team.

2. Habitually Limit the Time You Spend on Rote Tasks

There are always those tasks that pop up throughout the day that seem insignificant at the time. Take checking your email, for example… how long does it take to do that? However, checking email and a variety of other tasks can quickly grow from a momentary activity to an extended process.

After all, there’s always the chance that briefly responding to an email could pull you into an extended and time-consuming debate.

Furthermore, some of these tasks carry the expectation that you will immediately drop what you’re doing to take care of whatever’s needed. Emails are notorious for communicating this urgency, whether or not it was intended. Regardless, it puts pressure on the employee to switch their focus, which hurts productivity.

Instead, establish a practice of setting a concrete period out of your day where you will check and respond to your email, or whatever task it is that applies to your situation. Actually schedule this time into your day, using the business management solution that your company has in place to control schedules. Outside of that time, leave that task alone… if an email’s contents are truly that important, you’ll find out about them some other way before long.

3. Delegation and Outsourcing

We get it, business matters and activities tend to be kept close to the chest. After all, if you can’t trust yourself to do something right, who can you trust? Who else has the incentive you do, to do the best job possible?

Frankly? Someone you’ve hired to do a job.

Delegation can be difficult, of course, but only if you don’t trust those around you. However, there are plenty of resources out there, both inside your business and available through outsourcing, that could do exactly the job that needs ro be done. As a result, you can divert your focus to tasks that need it more, trusting the resource to produce.

You may have to put in a bit of time picking the best resources, especially when outsourcing, but the results will be well worth the time.

Coleman Technologies can help you put these practices into action, with the added effects of the solutions that can be implemented to make these practices easier. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to further discuss any of the solutions we’ve described here, and for more handy tips that could help you better leverage your time, subscribe to our blog!.

Technology is the cornerstone of most modern business operations, making supporting this technology more important than ever. That’s one reason we’re so proud to provide IT assistance to our fellow businesses.

As we’ve done so, however, we’ve noted that some assistance is required more often than other forms of support. Let’s go over what some of these usual suspects are, and why it is so helpful to have someone (ideally, us) assisting you in managing them.

First, we need to talk about perhaps the most well-known of them all…

Passwords

Passwords have been the go-to security measure for years, leading to more than anyone can realistically memorize—especially with best practices requiring unique ones for each account. Frequent password resets only add to the challenge, forcing users to either reuse a single, insecure password across multiple accounts or constantly forget their secure ones and rely on support for resets.

We're always happy to help, but some tools make this even easier. Modern password managers let you and your team maintain many strong, secure passwords while only remembering one to access an encrypted vault of credentials.

Subscription Chaos

Business subscriptions are essentially like gym memberships: you sign up with good intentions, forget about half of them, and suddenly realize you’ve been paying for something you haven’t used in six months. Your team can’t get work done if you have too few licenses. You have too many, and you’re throwing money away. With our help, you’ll keep only what you need, ditch the extras, and make sure no subscription negatively affects your budget.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

With so many people working remotely, a bad Internet connection is basically a business-wide crisis. We’ll make sure your network is reliable, fast, and won’t mysteriously die in the middle of a crucial Zoom call. 

Hackers Don’t Take Days Off

Cybercriminals are out there, sharpening their digital tools and waiting for the perfect moment to strike… which usually happens when your team is most distracted. Sure, your employees can help keep things secure, but they’ve got jobs to do. That’s where we come in: making sure your defenses are strong enough to keep hackers out so your team can focus on actually doing their jobs.

Data Loss Is a Disaster

Losing your business data is like losing your phone: you don’t realize how much you rely on it until it’s gone. Whether it’s accidental deletion, hardware failure, or some rogue employee deleting or overwriting critical data, data loss can be a nightmare. We make sure your data is backed up, retrievable, and safe, so you never have to panic when disaster strikes.

Need IT Help? Call the Pros

We do way more than just fix IT problems; we stop them from happening in the first place.

Whether you need a fully managed IT team or just a little extra support, we’ve got you covered. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to have a conversation about how we can help fix your IT issues.

Both Microsoft and Google offer work profile solutions that are designed to separate personal and professional use on mobile devices. These profiles are commonly used in enterprise settings to enhance security and manageability while allowing employees to use their personal devices for work-related tasks. Here's an overview of work profiles from Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft's Work Profile

Microsoft Intune

Microsoft's solution for managing work profiles is often integrated with Microsoft Intune, a cloud-based device management service. Intune allows IT administrators to control and secure corporate data and applications on devices running Microsoft's operating systems, such as Windows and Android.

Android for Work

Microsoft also supports Android for Work, which is now known as Android Enterprise. This is a set of features and APIs built into the Android operating system that allows organizations to create and manage work profiles on Android devices. Microsoft's Intune integrates with Android Enterprise to provide advanced management capabilities.

App Management

With Microsoft's work profile solutions, IT administrators can manage and deploy corporate apps to the work profile on a user's device. They can also control app access, data sharing, and other security-related settings.

Separation of Personal and Work Data

Work profiles on Microsoft-supported devices keep personal and work data separate. This separation ensures that work-related apps and data are isolated from personal apps and data, enhancing security and privacy.

Google's Work Profile

Android Enterprise

Google's work profile solution is primarily based on Android Enterprise, which provides a range of tools and policies for managing Android devices in a corporate environment. Android Enterprise supports several deployment modes, with the work profile being one of them.

Work Profile

In the context of Android Enterprise, the work profile is a container on the device that separates work-related apps and data from personal ones. Users can switch between their personal and work profiles, and IT administrators have control over the work profile's security settings.

Google Workspace Integration

Google's work profile solution integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). This allows organizations to manage email, calendar, and other Google Workspace apps within the work profile.

Security and Compliance

Google offers various security features, such as remote wipe, encryption, and app management, to ensure that corporate data within the work profile remains secure. IT admins can enforce policies to protect sensitive information.

Both Microsoft and Google offer work profile solutions to meet the needs of organizations looking to enable a bring your own device (BYOD) policy while maintaining security and control over corporate data. The choice between the two often depends on the specific needs and existing tech ecosystems that your organization uses.

If you would like to learn more about work profiles and how they can be used to protect your business’ data, give the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

1.  Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Even in the best of times, clear and comprehensive communications are necessary to the success of any business initiative. Without them, a team simply cannot function as they should, leading to delays, redundancy, and missed steps.

To avoid these ramifications, you need to set a precedent that encourages your team to communicate with one another. In addition to frequently reinforcing the importance of their collaboration, give your team the opportunity to do so in various settings. Regular meetings are a must to keep everyone on the same page. You should also provide your team with the solutions that facilitate communication (like VoIP, messaging, and good old email) and set an example by using them yourself.

2.  Identify and address risks.

Murphy’s Law clearly states that, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” This is important to keep in mind, especially regarding your business. Acknowledging the risks that you’ll face and determining how to address them proactively will prove to be exceptionally useful, as you can figure out which is the most likely to impact you and your operations and prepare for them accordingly.

One of these risks could involve scope creep, where your project expands beyond its original limitations and deadlines. Make sure that you’re accounting for these kinds of delays as you plan it ahead of time.

3.  Clarify responsibilities.

When multiple people are working together on a project, it is critically important to establish who is to see to which task. Otherwise, you encounter the same issues that a lack of communication will cause.

As your project progresses, you need to firmly establish each team member’s role and the responsibilities that they need to uphold. Not only will each member have a clearer idea of their part in a project, they will better understand the process and be able to contribute to it in a more productive way. Make sure that you work with the members of the team to distribute these tasks to the best available person for each one. This will help contribute to the team having ownership of the project and inspire them to contribute their best efforts.

For the IT tools and solutions to assist you in your project management, or the other processes your business relies upon, reach out to Coleman Technologies! Give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Have you ever felt like there was simply too much to do and unless you light a fire under your butt, you have no chance to get it all done? What if this state is standard operating procedure? For many small business owners and employees, this is the reality of going to work every day. In this week’s blog we thought we would discuss three strategies that work to lighten the load when it seems like the to-do list is just too big.

Work When You Are Most Productive

When there is a lot to do, it is easy to get distracted trying to get everything done. One of the best ways to gain the focus needed to get this work done is to work when you work best. Different people are more productive at different times of the day. Scientifically this is called biorhythm.

A person’s biorhythm is separated into three parts. There is the physical cycle that measures energy levels, endurance, strength, and dexterity. The emotional cycle covers your emotions, stress levels and moods. The intellectual cycle measures things like decision making, problem solving, and your ability to concentrate. These three biorhythm cycles work on different timelines, but if you can pinpoint the maximum highs and lows, you can plan to work on tasks that take a certain skill at the time you can maximize your ability to complete them. 

Prioritize Importance of Tasks

One of the best things to do before you get down to business is to ensure that you do the most important tasks first. The simple reason for this is that when you set out, you don’t have the hours and hours of work under your belt that could kill your concentration. If you come at the most important parts of your day with the vigor you have when you first start it will certainly benefit your overall productivity. 

One very simple and effective way to prioritize tasks is through what is called the Eisenhower decision matrix. Named for former U.S. President and Commanding General of the Allied forces in World War II, the basic gist is that you prioritize tasks based on this criteria:

• Important
• Urgent
• Important and Urgent
• None of the Above

By focusing on the important and urgent tasks first, you will be able to get a good start whittling down the task list and do so while your brain is fresh. 

Stop Reacting to Everything

Distractions can hinder progress like nothing else; and, today, there are more distractions than ever. If you are facing a mountain of work and need to get things done, you will want to limit the amount you change what you are doing as to give your best attention to the thing you are working on at the time. Business may not allow you to simply ignore things while you are working, but it doesn’t have to keep you from being productive. 

The best way to accomplish this is to set aside time in the day to respond to situations. You can’t possibly do your best work if you are stopping mid-task just to answer questions and handle other situations. Your best bet is to set time out of your day where you turn your notifications off and utilize the do not disturb functions that you have available to you. The more you set your sights on accomplishing the planned tasks, the better you will perform. 

At Coleman Technologies, we help businesses by helping reduce downtime and proactively keep an organization’s technology working effectively. Give our professional technicians a call today to get the technology your business needs to be its most productive.

Running a business has definite highs and lows. When things start spiraling seemingly out of control, it’s important to maintain the confidence that with the right decision-making and conscientious action, you can get through any problem that a business faces. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss some of the technology that can help you get through tough situations. 

Cloud Computing

One of the best technologies available for businesses today is cloud computing. It allows organizations to access technologies they typically couldn’t afford and allows them to be much more flexible with many strategies, including where their employees are located. With so many benefits, you’d wonder why businesses wouldn’t want to gain the myriad benefits cloud-based systems can present.

Collaboration Tools

One of the best tools for keeping employees engaged and informed is collaboration apps. Not only do they allow employees to consistently engage with each other, but they can also function to keep them on task. Many of these apps also come with several integrations that can enhance operational efficiency, push projects forward, and allow for quick communication and scheduling. 

E-Commerce

For the retail business, online presence can keep businesses selling products when foot traffic is low. Today’s e-commerce platforms are secure and provide many reliable ways for customers to interact with your business. 

Data Analytics

When things don’t seem to be going well, it can really benefit an organization if it is able to make solid business decisions based on measurable metrics. By taking the guesswork out of business, an organization can push the right products and services to the right customers and improve revenue generation when it is needed most. 

Supply Chain Management

Businesses that control their inventory and supply chain best tend to waste less capital than organizations that use antiquated means to manage them. Having information about how products and components are managed and how they fit logistically into your business can prove useful in the overall management of your business. 

Technology can be a huge benefit for businesses that, for whatever reason, are having some troubles. If you would like information about how Coleman Technologies technicians can fit technology into your business’ game plan, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.

What is it to be Proactive?

It’s all about preventing issues and risk. Being proactive is simply action taken after a risk assessment. Many times, risk is inherent, so being proactive is just managing situations to keep risk at bay. It goes without saying that taking proactive steps, especially in business, can be some of the most effective strategies to get ahead. Why is this? It comes down to time. 

When a person sees a problem and fixes the problem, the time that is spent fixing the problem is waste, especially when taking proactive action could eliminate the problem in the first place. Managed services are predicated on this very concept. The more you do to keep problems from presenting themselves, the more time there is to be productive. We measure this in uptime.

Downtime, the Business Killer

Your business isn’t Google. It isn’t Google in 2013. That was the year that Google went down for almost five hours. Imagine five hours without Google! It cost the company--in 2013--an estimated $545,000. Now, Google can afford that, but it just illustrates how expensive downtime can be. It can be problematic in several ways, including:

• Customer frustration - Downtime is extremely problematic for your customer relationships. Not only does extended downtime flood your business with calls and messages, it also fosters distrust. 
• Staff frustration - For many small businesses, employees wear a couple different caps. One of those caps, that many workers would rather not wear, is that of a customer service representative. If someone on your production team can’t get at the resources they need to do their jobs, you are paying them to either be PR or janitorial staff. Either way, they tend to get impatient pretty quick when they can’t do what they were hired to do.
• Exorbitant cost - The two previous examples fuel rising costs. If you are paying your employees and they aren’t producing anything tangible, you are losing money, period.

Limiting downtime is a priority for every well-run business, otherwise you are just throwing away money. 

Proactive Services

At Coleman Technologies, we have a couple proactive solutions that can really benefit your business. They include:

• Remote monitoring - By remotely monitoring your network and infrastructure, our expert technicians can see if there are inconsistencies, infiltrations, or irregularities that we can take care of before they become problematic. By staying ahead of hardware issues and monitoring for malware and other network-related issues, you avoid the downtime it takes to fix these issues when they come to a head.
• Cloud computing - Another option is to take your computing infrastructure offsite. Cloud solutions often come with comprehensive management baked into the price so that your employees will have anytime, anywhere access to the data and applications they need. 
• Patch management - Software vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers and cause significant devastation on your company’s network. By updating all of your software systems with the latest updates, you mitigate the risk that comes from running older versions of software.

Proactivity doesn’t just happen, you have to make it happen. If you would like to stare down some of the biggest risks to your technology and data, and improve your business’ uptime, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

Many business owners considered allowing their employees to work from home like opening Pandora’s box; once opened, there was no going back. Unfortunately, for these administrators, they were faced with the very real prospect of losing their business if they didn’t allow it. Millions of people started working from home in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now that public fear has diminished, how have companies reacted? Let’s discuss some remote work statistics to get an answer.

Employees’ Side

Before we get into the business side of this issue, let’s briefly take a look from the remote workers’ side. As you would expect, remote workers like being remote workers; even if it's only for part of the time. Some insights include:

• 98 percent of remote workers would work remotely for the rest of their careers.
• 98 percent of remote workers would recommend remote working to others.
• 90 percent of remote workers think they are more productive than they were in an office.
• 66 percent of remote workers think remote work should be an employee’s legal right.
• 29 percent of remote workers believe they should receive a raise if they were asked to return to a traditional work model.

So it’s safe to say that people who work remotely like working remotely. This isn’t a big surprise, but as many people who currently work remotely have done it for a few years now, the percentage of remote workers who consider it essential for a positive work experience is staggering. 

The Business’ Side

Not surprisingly, the fact that many businesses started supporting remote work out of necessity leaves a sour taste in managers’ mouths. After all, we’ve all worked for a manager or two who only rubber stamps things they think are their idea. Being forced into supporting a work strategy that they would have never supported in normalcy will skew their judgment. That’s not to say whether or not it is a fit for their business. Still, with the overwhelming support from employees, it’s hard for business owners to roll back their employees' flexibility and freedom while working from home. 

Let’s take a look at some statistics on how remote working affects businesses:

• 47 percent of businesses still have remote teams working today.
• 78 percent of CEOs see remote collaboration as central to their long-term success.
• 30 percent of business owners see maintaining corporate culture as the biggest concern in using remote teams.
• 71 percent of businesses have taken steps to track employee productivity remotely.
• 61 percent of businesses have increased the amount of online meetings with remote employees.

This shows that, while skeptical of remote work, business owners now understand that a lot of today’s prospective (and current) employees view remote work, whether completely work-from-home, or in a hybrid setup where they come to the office at scheduled times, as the new normal. 

Largest Challenges of Remote Work

Make no mistake about it, there are challenges in business regardless of where your employees work. To finish off this look at remote work statistics, let’s look at some of the biggest challenges that supporting remote work brings to a business and what they can do to overcome them. 

1. Maintaining collaboration and communication - It stands to reason that there would be a gap in communication in a situation where someone is two towns away instead of two desks away. Businesses have begun to really lean on technology to make it possible for remote teams to complete tasks and keep projects on the rails. Collaboration software has packaged everything you need into one platform: Instant messaging, group chats, one-touch communication, file sharing, and application integration to speed collaboration up and to keep work efficient.
2. Maintaining productivity - The main point of contention of many business owners and managers about remote workers is the distractions that workers need to overcome to get their work done efficiently. The best way a business can confront this is to shift the thinking away from the traditional model of hour-based metrics to a more task-based tracking system where productivity is measured through results rather than time.
3. Work/Life balance - Employees have always been frustrated with their ability to balance their work with their home life. Remote work gives them a little more freedom as it eliminates the daily commute and allows them to handle issues they would otherwise have to deal with before or after work. Remote work does more than any other strategy to promote a palatable work/life balance for employees.

Overall, remote work seems to be here to stay, so if your business is looking to maximize its potential with the help of remote workers, you need the technology in place to make it work. To learn how the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies can help you streamline your process and make it work with distributed teams of employees, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.

It doesn’t matter if your workplace is your typical office space or if it is remote. There will always be factors that can contribute to burnout. These struggles are not exclusive to the location of the office, and if left unchecked they can impact work performance, productivity, mental health, and so on. It’s important that you have coping mechanisms and strategies in place to address burnout before it becomes too severe to counter.

Let’s go over some of the ways you can encourage employees to prioritize their own mental health to reduce burnout from the workplace.

Minimizing Burnout

Here are some strategies you can use to keep burnout at bay.

Stop, Take a Breath, and Focus

If enough pressure builds up, you’re going to break, no matter how strong-willed you are. You need a break every once in a while. It’s important that you make your breaks as impactful as possible by taking a moment to clear your mind of all the clutter and take slow, deep breaths. Once you’re ready, you can get back to work.

Encourage Communications Across Departments

People rely on others to help them get their jobs done, so you should be prepared to ask for help from other departments or other people at your company to handle tasks as needed. You shouldn’t isolate yourself and your tasks from others who might help you get things done in a more efficient or stress-free way.

Be sure to establish clear lines of communication with other departments so when the time comes for collaboration, you’ll know exactly who to talk to and when. Collaboration lightens the workload for all, and it can reduce burnout in spades.

Consider Low-Pressure Hobbies

Some people bring their work home with them, so to speak, when they use their personal time and space to work or worry about work. This kind of stress can wear people down over time and create burnout.

We recommend that all employees have hobbies and interests outside of the workplace so they can get their mind off things when they need to. This will help to mitigate burnout and help them do things they enjoy.

Implement Procedures to Help with Stress

One of the best things you can do for your workplace is to implement procedures that take the stress out of work. You can streamline processes by automating them and reducing the margin for error, allowing employees to invest that time in better, less stressful and more meaningful work, thereby reducing stress further.

Combat Burnout Before You Get Burned

If you keep your team engaged in their work, burnout will eventually become a factor, so take steps now to keep it in check. Coleman Technologies can help you in this effort by making sure that technology struggles don’t exacerbate the problem. To learn more, call us at (604) 513-9428.

How the Cloud is Like a Rideshare

Cost Efficiency

Let’s say you are with three people and you need to get someplace and don’t have access to a car. You all could call an Uber or a taxi that would cost you $20 or so. If you are going to the same place, you could all share the cost of a ride for $7 each. You all get to the same place for a fraction of the cost. 

This is a lot like how cloud services work. Since you are paying for access to storage, processing, or application deployment on an outside computer, you are just paying rent for the privilege. This means that you can get the computing resources your business needs at a substantial cost savings. This is because you are often not the only one using these resources. 

Just like you pay less if you split your transportation costs, cloud service companies allow for substantial cost savings by virtualizing computing resources and making them available at attractive rates. 

Reduced Maintenance

The combination of leasing these virtualized computing resources, while taking on a majority of the management of these resources, provides substantial value for businesses and individuals. 

Let’s say that, to continue the rideshare metaphor, you decide to lease a car from a local dealership. One day the car breaks down. You’ve spent a premium amount of money trying to get a reliable ride to work, but if you don’t have access to your car, your investment isn’t cost effective. This is the same experience a business has that purchases hardware and has issues with it. Outsourcing the computing resources (or the management) ensures that you have continuous, reliable access to them. 

Productivity

Finally, just like ordering a shared ride, cloud services allow you maximize productivity. With cloud computing you can even work from anywhere with an Internet connection and utilize your time reliably. Turning to cloud computing resources is a great way to free yourself from the costs of purchasing expensive hardware, while giving you the resources your business needs to get where you want to go.

If you would like more information about cloud services and how they can improve your business, call the It experts at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

Security Considerations

Even though you aren’t in the office, you still need to follow the same security protocols and the processes you would need to follow if you were working in the office. In fact, these processes become even more important, as your home network is likely less secure than the one in the workplace. Here are some tips:

Be Hygienic
We aren’t telling you to brush your teeth or wash behind your ears, we are talking about practicing good security hygiene while you work remotely. Don’t reuse your passwords, use multi-factor (or two-factor) authentication to secure all accounts, and don’t share out information over email if you don’t know for certain who will read it. In other words, all the basics still apply.

Be Mindful
For similar reasons, you also need to be extra careful of online scams or phishing attacks while working remotely. Lost business data is lost business data, regardless of where you were when it was left vulnerable. Make sure you are up-to-speed in terms of identifying and mitigating breach attempts.

Use a VPN
Finally, because you will not be protected by the defenses on the company network, you need to implement a few extras, such as a virtual private network. A VPN uses encryption to conceal the contents of any data you transmit over the Internet, protecting the contents from virtually all attacks.

Business Practices

Again, as you aren’t in the office, your remote work needs to follow the same processes as it would if you were in-house, and you will need to be more deliberate about carrying them out. For instance:

Use Communication and Collaboration
Since you are not working alongside your colleagues and coworkers while you are working from home, you should be extra diligent about remaining in contact with them. Use your email, instant messaging, and phone capabilities to keep the rest of the team apprised as you progress with your tasks.

Follow Processes
As we don’t want anything falling through the cracks as we continue our operations, it is important that each team member sticks to procedures with every task they touch. This will help ensure that all the ‘i’s are dotted and each ‘t’ is crossed, and that things progress productively.

Schedule Strategically
While you should still work the amount of time you would be in the office, you may have a little more freedom and autonomy as far as your schedule is concerned. Don’t be afraid to arrange your tasks around any scheduling conflicts you may have, or shuffle your tasks to better fit your productivity levels throughout the day.

Personal Wellness

Finally, it is crucial that you are able to manage yourself and your time while not in the office environment. Here are a few tips to help you do so, that may be useful to keep in mind.

Set Limits
While the assumption surrounding remote work is that employees are prone to slacking off, it is also likely that you may be tempted to push yourself a little further than you should with your day to try and accomplish as much as possible. While this is an admirable goal, it isn’t effective if you overwork yourself one day and accomplish almost nothing the next as a result. Moderate yourself and stop when it’s time.

Build Patterns
Process is crucial to working effectively from home. This means you need to actively make sure you get into a work routine (even one that resembles the one you follow normally). Get up on time. Make yourself breakfast. Make sure you get dressed (at least most days). Establish a place that becomes your work area. Consistency will help keep you on task and feeling sharp.

Resist Temptation
There are a lot of things at home to help distract you from doing what you need to do. Hobbies, that TV show that you always meant to watch, even household chores can tempt you away from getting down to business. Shut these excuses to procrastinate out, and if you must procrastinate, do so in a beneficial way. Meditating can help you refocus, or even switching to another task briefly can help you refresh your mind.

Remember, your team is here to support you, but they also need that support to be reciprocated. Make sure your remote work is just as productive as your in-house work would be.

What Am I Paying For?

If you utilize a managed service provider (MSP) who handles the maintenance and support of your IT infrastructure, it’s likely that you pay a flat monthly, quarterly, or yearly rate to cover the upkeep of your workstations, servers, and network infrastructure. This model has become increasingly common and it makes a lot of sense; it takes a decent amount of maintenance to keep a business network running smoothly, and when it’s handled proactively there are fewer issues in the long run.

One thing to note; we can’t account for every British Columbia provider, because everyone has their own way of quoting and billing for their IT service, but typically if you get a monthly flat-rate bill per user or per device then your IT company is providing some level of service on a regular basis. That may or may not be all-inclusive support for end users, cover hardware failures, etc. We’re not really here to nitpick the minutiae of an agreement though, what’s important is that you are getting what you pay for, and perhaps more importantly, that your IT is handled in a way that isn’t setting you up for failure down the road.

All that out of the way, when reviewing your regular technology bills, when you see that line item for maintenance and support, you might look back at how often your team had to call for support or put in a service ticket over the past several months. If your IT has been running smoothly the past few months, you probably have that one big question…

It’s the Pareto Principle

A little tangent here; but you know when it’s time to pay that homeowner’s insurance bill, and you think to yourself, “Man, I didn’t have to use this at all this year. I’d probably feel a little better writing this check if the insurance had to pay for a new roof or to recarpet my basement.” You are not alone, and that’s the same feeling you might get with good IT management.

Back on track, the Pareto Principle, more commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule, states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. Basically, it’s an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.

That’s exactly how IT works. If you set everything up right, configure it and document it well, and then carefully monitor it, you won’t be running back and forth to keep fixing it. It’s typically much more cost effective to manage and maintain your network than it is to set it and forget it, and only come back when something goes horribly wrong.

If your IT is running smoothly, and your users are productive, and your security is passing every audit with flying colors, then that ongoing management and maintenance is performing exactly how it is supposed to.

It’s not like insurance, where you continue to pay for the peace of mind that when something happens you are covered. Instead, you are paying to prevent something bad from happening in the first place.

We hope this helped explain how most managed IT bills work. If you have questions, or want to know how we can help keep your organizing running smoothly, don’t hesitate to reach out to (604) 513-9428.