New York SBDC Research Network

By Roberta Chinsky Matuson From LinkedIn I received a call last week from a CEO who was concerned about the sudden increase in employee turnover in his organization. He couldn't understand why anyone would leave his firm. He then went down a laundry list of perks he recently added, that would have made even Google envious... I see companies spending a ton of money trying to outdo one another in terms of perks and crazy office designs that few appreciate. Tales of kegs being opened at all hours of the day or exotic snacks that are making employees fat seem to be all the rage. Yet, here we are. Employees are less engaged today than back in the sixties when a steady job was the key to engagement. You can access my employee turnover calculator for free. That's right. I won't see the results unless you decide to send them to me, nor will I hound you with follow up email automatically spewed out by some contact management system. All I'm asking here is for you to ta

Article by Caroline Cakebread From eMarketer With retail e-commerce sales growing rapidly in the US, it can feel like online buying is taking over the world. But for consumers, brick-and-mortar shopping is still important. They’ll spend almost 90% of their retail dollars in person this year, and a large portion of that foot traffic will come from webrooming. Webrooming, or researching a product online before buying in a physical store, has helped boost in-store traffic for a few retailers in particular last year... The Home Depot also saw increased in-store traffic last year, something CEO Craig Menear credited to BOPUS (buy online, pick up in-store). “These online shoppers see the relevance of our stores...” Like Ulta Beauty, the company plans to expand its footprint in 2019, something it hasn’t done in several years. Image by Trang Le from Pixabay

By Eric Ravenscraft From PC magazine Data breaches are a regular occurrence these days, but have hackers been digging around in your personal information? These tools will help you figure out if your online accounts have been hacked, and your email addresses and passwords stolen. Large data breaches happen with uncomfortable frequency. It has never been more necessary to secure your online accounts with a password manager and two-factor authentication, where available. But what if a service you use is hacked? The following tools can help you determine if your accounts were caught up in a breach.

By Marco Carbajo From the US Small Business Administration Many businesses start on a shoestring budget so it can be challenging to build the business credit you need to expand your business. But every business has to start somewhere and building your business credit can be done with the right action plan to guide you. In this article we’ll cover how to build business credit without cash flow coming into your business. The first place to start is with your existing operating expenses. Did you know the payments you already make on a monthly basis for expenses such as your business phone line, internet and utility accounts, can be reported to a business credit reporting agency? Unfortunately, many of these service providers do not report your company’s monthly payments to the business credit reporting agencies, so you don’t get the benefit of paying these bills on time. s The good news is there are data reporting services that allow small business owners to link their eligible a

By Joel Libava From Bplans A franchise is a type of business that is owned and operated by an individual (franchisee) but that is branded and overseen by a much larger—usually national or multinational—company (the franchisor). Many of the stores and restaurants that you see every day are franchises: Subway, 7-11, The UPS Store, Ace Hardware, Pizza Hut, Hilton Hotels, Molly Maid, and thousands more. When you buy the rights to open this type of business, you’re buying the rights to use a proven business model and system, with proven prices, products, and marketing techniques. You’re also buying the rights to a brand: You get full access to the company’s trademarked materials including logos, slogans, and signage—anything that has to do with the brand... In addition, you may be given an exclusive geographical territory to cover. Information about territory is always spelled out in your franchise agreement, as is the time period for which you own your franchise business. Typically,

BY DIPAK SUNDARAM AND NIRAJ PATEL From Gallup Unfortunately, a common, fatal flaw organizations tend to make is to treat onboarding as a "new employee orientation class" or "the first 30 days," rather than a year-long process that helps employees get up to speed in their job and integrated into their new team and organization. In our experience, it takes 12+ months for most people to get "up to speed" in most jobs. This ramp-up time is when employees learn their role and with the intention of being fully capable of performing all critical functions at a high level... Often, organizations lose one-third to two-thirds of new hires within their first 12 months on the job. Naturally, this varies by role, as about half of all hires for senior positions leave within 18 months, and half of all hourly workers last just four months.

Article by Ross Benes From eMarketer The belief that consumers crave more targeted, personalized ads has become a digital advertising mantra. But it’s not entirely true... Adlucent found that seven in 10 consumers yearn for personalized ads. IAB presentations state that consumers want fewer, but more personalized ads. Epsilon found that four-fifths of consumers are more likely to make purchases when a brand gives them a personalized experience. In a Segment survey, 71% of consumers were frustrated that their shopping experiences were too impersonal. The consumer demand for personalized content is at an all-time high, according to Adobe. But when consumers are asked about the data collection practices that empower personalized ads, they tell a different story.

By Barbara Weltman From the Small Business Administration If you want to grow your business, you probably need to hire employees to help you. Becoming an employer and expanding your staff entails many responsibilities, one of which is seeing to payroll taxes. Unfortunately, there are many myths about these taxes. Here is the reality: 1. Myth: Transforming employees into independent contractors to save on payroll taxes is easy Reality: You probably know that it costs less to use an independent contractor than to have an employee on staff. The reason: the cost of payroll taxes, along with insurance and benefits apply only for employees. But don’t think you can simply reclassify a worker who’s been your employee as an independent contractor. The IRS, as well as other government agencies, are on the lookout for just such action. The classification of a worker depends on many factors, most of which boil down to a matter of control. Essentially, if you have the right to say when, whe

BY SHANE MCFEELY AND BEN WIGERT From Gallup Here's how it breaks down for an individual organization: *The annual overall turnover rate in the U.S. in 2017 was 26.3%, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. *The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee's annual salary -- and that's a conservative estimate. *So, a 100-person organization that provides an average salary of $50,000 could have turnover and replacement costs of approximately $660,000 to $2.6 million per year. Fifty-two percent of voluntarily exiting employees say their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job. You may assume their manager did everything they could to make things right, but statistically, that's probably not the case. Over half of exiting employees (51%) say that in the three months before they left, neither their manager nor any other leader spoke with them about their job satisfactio

From Money magazine via Engaging Data One of the key factors in the financial health of an individual or household is making sure that household spending is equal to or below household income. If your spending is higher than income, you will be drawing down your savings (if you have any) or borrowing money. If your spending is lower than your income, you will presumably be saving money which can provide flexibility in the future, fund your retirement (maybe even early) and generally give you peace of mind. We can see that on average, those in the lowest quintiles may be borrowing or drawing down on savings to live, while those in the highest quintiles are saving money. This fairly high level of borrowing/drawing on savings from the lowest quintile households may be deceptive because it includes seniors who are drawing down savings that were built up specifically for this purpose, and college students who are borrowing to go to school. These groups generally don’t have significant

By Lou Adler From LinkedIn "When companies continue to use job descriptions listing skills and experiences surrounded by generic competencies and highfalutin statements about culture, diversity hiring implies making compromises." I went on to say that this type of hiring process compromises more than diversity. It eliminates the most promising people from consideration before they even get a chance to be considered. These are the people who achieve more with a different mix of skills and experiences. These are people who get promoted more frequently. These are the people who are assigned stretch projects early in their careers. These are the people who are assigned the toughest projects or volunteer for them at every stage of their career. These are people who are assigned to important multi-functional teams or volunteer to be part of them or are asked by other team members to join. The sad part is that traditional job descriptions prevent these people from considera

The U.S. Census Bureau is releasing two products: the official count of state and local governments for the  2017 Census of Governments  and the  Individual State Descriptions  report. The 2017 Census of Governments release consists of data from the Organization component that reflects an enumeration of active, in-scope governments in the United States. These counts are presented by government type, state, population-size groups, function, and school systems. The Individual State Descriptions report for the 2017 Census of Governments provides information about the legal organization of state and local governments. There is a separate summary for each state and the District of Columbia. The summaries cover authorized county, municipal, township, school district, and special district governments, as well as noteworthy state and local dependent governments. The  Census of Governments  is a three-phased program that collects state and local government data every five years as a part

By Tim Berry From Bplans Startups and high-growth businesses can learn a lot from angel investors, regardless of whether you’re seeking funding to grow your business or not. And if you pitch and get turned down, their feedback can be really valuable in helping you think about what you need to do next to meet your funding goals. I’ve seen this over and over in my dealings, both as an angel investor on my own and as a member of a local angel investment group. Most angel investors don’t just reject startups—we explain why. And we don’t just say yes either; we explain what else is needed... Angel investors are individuals willing to invest their own money to fund new startups. Most of them have made money with startups; they’ve been through the wringer, they’ve succeeded, and they are in a position to share. They can teach you a lot. So if you’re a startup, always focus on listening first.

By Anna Wells From ThomasNet There are some new car options that have been a little lumpy in their rollout – and none more so than the “infotainment system.” Car makers have been continuing their push towards the biggest and most functional dash screens, but a recent report in the Wall Street Journal asks us to pause and take stock of where we’re at with infotainment… and where we’re headed. The Wall Street Journal is calling your car’s infotainment system “the last unconquered screen” and suggests a battle is brewing over how they can be used in the future to market new products and services. Currently, this screen is considered to be the only one where advertisers can’t really reach out – but that, of course, is about to change. A January report on The Drive introduced us to Telenav, a wireless services provider, that’s launching a platform that can deliver location-based ads to a vehicle’s infotainment system. These can be tweaked based on time of day or route but might look

By Lucy Koch From eMarketer A couple weeks ago, headline after headline heralded the moment when US e-commerce (“clicks”) finally surpassed in-store sales (“bricks”), per slightly misconstrued data from the US Census Bureau. This seemed to confirm what many perceive as reality: Brick-and-mortar stores struggle as e-commerce continues to grow at double-digit rates every year. But the headlines didn’t tell the full story, and many people got the wrong impression as a result. What the stories should have clarified was that online sales across all categories accounted for 11.813% of retail spending in February, while sales from general merchandise retailers via their brick-and-mortar stores accounted for 11.807%. (And while “general merchandise” sounds like it could account for everything, it actually represents a more specific segment of retail that excludes auto, food, beverage, apparel, and accessory sales.) We forecast that retail e-commerce will account for 10.9% of total U