An employee's first week is the most important week of the employment life cycle. This is when you create the foundation to the new employee's future behaviors, your future leadership capabilities and their perception of what working with you will be like.  Making sure you provide the right tools, resources and training opportunities will ensure optimal success.  Let's take a look at some common mistakes that small businesses often make and 4 steps to ensuring a great first week.  

Small Business Mistakes:
When it comes to onboarding a new employee during their first-week employers make a few mistakes. First, employers expect a new employee to hit the ground running. Quite frankly, no two business are ever the same. You can never have a plug and play employee.

The second mistake that we often see within an employee's first week is that the required paperwork is not correctly completed... if at all. It is required by law that the I-9 is completed within 3...

I love helping small businesses. Most of my career was spent in the corporate world. However, my husband went off and started a CPA firm, at that time he started working with small businesses. Next thing I knew, he was telling his clients that I was a Human Resources professional. His small business clients started filtering their HR questions through him to me. As the questions became more and more, we spent our dinners and evenings talking about HR while finding ways to help his clients. That's when we found a gap. Small businesses have been left behind in the world of human resources.

Now that we have launched HR Branches, walking in and seeing the positive changes that our clients have been able to make from when they start working with has just been incredible. I never thought I would find such excitement in my career as I have today.

I started a new job, years and years and years ago. When I showed up for my first day I didn't have a computer and I had a cubicle full of boxes....

Your Guide to Creating an Employee Handbook

Creating an employee handbook is a great way to set out your expectations as well as your company aims and ethos. We look at how to create one right here.

Are you wasting paper and printer toner making handbooks that no one reads? Or, are you spending valuable time sending it via email to your staff?

Here's the truth: if your employees don't feel motivated to read it, they won't.

There are a ton of ways to write an employee handbook that actually gets read. You can still include important rules and guidelines. But, the way you put this important book together must change.

Creating an employee handbook can be easy. These steps will take it from paper waste to the important file; keep reading to find out how.

1. Don't Be Dull

One reason your employees don't care about the handbook is that it's boring. Employee handbooks are often written like legal contracts full of threats.

Consider how you talk to your staff. Do you encourage open...

Dress for Success: How to Create a Dress Code Policy

Creating a dress code policy ensures that your employees look professional at all times. Learn how to create a dress code policy with this useful guide.

Dress code policies might seem like overkill for a small business. But every company needs a dress code, including yours.

Why? Today, business wardrobes are leaning more towards casual dress. Some companies forego dress codes altogether. They feel that workers do best when they're wearing clothes that are comfortable.

But not having a dress code is an open invitation to future problems. If there is no dress code, someone is going to push the limit. This could cause safety problems or customer service issues. It could even end with a lawsuit for discrimination.

These are all reasons that it's better to have a dress code policy for your business. For tips on how to create the best company dress code, keep reading.

Why You Need a Dress Code Policy

When it comes to managing a...

So, you have hired your new employee, and he starts in a few days. Where do you even begin? Do you just assume that this person will kick start with a stellar performance in mind reading? You hired him to do a job, that’s all that needs to be done, just the job right? Wrong. There can be a number of fundamental challenges that must be overcome in the first few days leading up to the employee’s BIG day on the job.

Just imagine your new employee arriving early, eager to prove his validation of why you chose him for this job. Yet, nothing has been prepared. No coordinated introduction, an office hasn’t been assigned, you can’t find the new badges, and now you are unsure if all systems have been properly allocated to the employee. Your new employee then creates a sense of dysfunction, which has been permanently imprinted in the mind of the employee as he now waits hours or even days until everything is completely sorted out. Congratulations, this is your...