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What You Must Know Before Hiring Friends and Family
by Donna-Marie Coggins


As you enjoy more success in small business, or you look for trustworthy and reliable partners for your small business venture, it might seem logical to look to those you rely on the most in your private life; often it seems that that the right thing to do is to help those who've been with your throughout the ups and downs of life, or to help those who've helped you. However hiring friends and family is not always a good move for you - either for you personally or for your business. Before you commit to it, you should consider some very important aspects of working with family and friends.

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How Communication and Connection Boost Employee Productivity
by Laura Stack


One of the trickiest parts of leadership is finding a way to strike a balance between your employees as subordinates and your employees as real, live people. Read on for some important points to keep in mind as you work to build relationships with those around you. Not a leader? I hope you’ll read on anyway. Managing relationships with the people you work with (and for) is as important to your everyday productivity as it is to your career.

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Q. We're so busy that we never seem to have time to use all of the vacation time we're allotted. On the one hand, I appreciate my employees' commitment to working hard and getting the job done, but as a manager I also want to be sure my people are happy and don't burn out. What can I do to encourage my team to take a day off?

A. Many organizations have a use it or loose it policy as a way of making sure their employees take time in smaller more manageable annual blocks instead of saving time that can lead to burn out and large payouts at the point of termination. If you have an HR department you may want to discuss a policy like that with them. AppleOne can provide you with temporary help to make sure work gets done while your employees are on vacation or leave. You could talk to your employees about setting up a rotation for when they're all going to be off and let them know you have a resource coming in to cover so they don't need to feel guilty about taking that time. Finally, as a manager you lead by example. If you are always too busy to take time off, your team may be afraid to ask for time because of how that might be perceived.
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