Projection Perfection

"...Predicting the future has never been easy, and in this economy, forecasting how much business your branch will do has become increasingly difficult. The trick? Remain optimistic, but be realistic – and give incentives to customers who are willing to commit..."

A Plan for the Worst

"Question: What would happen to your branch in the event of a flood, a hurricane, or a fire? The media images that all of us have been exposed to just this year alone demonstrate the fatal danger and crippling effects that disasters large and small have on people and companies. If you aren’t proactive in devising a plan on how you would react in the face of an emergency, you risk losing not only your business, but the people who make it possible..."

What They Think

"...You’re stiff. A little too serious. Not really interested in negotiating with people - you’d prefer to bark orders and boss them around. When it comes to what civilians think of those that have been in the military, we’ve heard it all before. But what about civilian employers? Are employers’ perceptions of veterans just as narrow...?"

Labor for Hire

"...We can all conjure up images of the classic temporary workers: the agency-provided souls who arrive at a company and pick up the slack before silently slinking away, often forgotten shortly after the door closes behind them. For businesses, this temporary labor is a relatively cost-effective way to deal with momentarily excessive workloads or special projects. For the temps themselves, it’s a way to supplement their income while they search for a full-time job. For the agencies — well, there are those fees..."

Power Trip

"...It would be difficult to find an entrepreneur that wasn’t, at some point, guilty of micro-managing. However, the reality is that if business leaders don’t empower their employees, chances are the organization won’t excel to its fullest potential.

But what is an 'empowered employee'? For Donald Guzauckas Jr., general manager of HB Group in North Haven, CT, empowered employees are those who understand the image, culture, goals, and objectives of the company. 'Simply offering a goal does not provide enough guidance for staff to act in a manner consistent with the image that we wish to present to our clients and potential clients,' he noted. While people may say that empowered employees can make autonomous decisions, he added, this is only true if they can act consistently individually, and as a group..."

Pulling It All Together

"...The term 'convergence' as it applies to AV and IT is by no means a new one. However, this doesn’t mean that during AV integration projects Information Technology specialists and their audiovisual counterparts always see eye-to-eye. In many cases, these undertakings feature unfamiliar territory for both camps, necessitating two elements that are arguably crucial in any venture: communication and planning..."

Young and (Already) Retired

"...It’s a common scenario: A young veteran is released from the service and it’s on to the hunt for a civilian job. Every employer wants to know about their prior work experience, but because the veteran joined the military straight out of secondary school, they haven't had the opportunity to gain any. Not only does this make the ‘work experience’ section of one’s resume difficult to fill out, the space under ‘education’ isn’t that easy to write, either - not for those who did, indeed, enlist right after high school graduation. An impossible challenge? Not at all - it just depends on how you examine your situation and your military experience..."