All businesses are not alike, and finding suitable space will all depend on the needs of your business. If you are an artsy, creative type, a building located further away from downtown might be a better solution for your business, and in many cases, it might add to your brand. However, if your business mandates you are within close vicinity to the downtown centre, finding space will not only be difficult, it might be expensive.

Office space for rent in most American cities all depends on your location. The closer you move into the downtown area the higher the rents. As office space radiates out toward the suburbs, prices drop, unless the area is particularly affluent. The hunt for the perfect space can be a major task that requires much consideration on the part of the business owner simply because most leases outside ask businesses to commit to longer contracts.

Let’s take a closer look at how to find office space that is perfect for your business.

Size

When looking for office space, most city and state laws have occupancy rates, which determine how much space per person you need. When looking for space, consider how many people plan to be in the room working and then estimate the square footage of space that each piece of furniture will take up. This can tell you just how much space you will need to comfortably work in the office.

Then, make sure to project for future growth. Moving an office is no easy task, and you want to plan to remain in the space a few years. When looking at space, consider whether or not there is room to grow in the office. This is important because many leases last anywhere from one year to seven, and you do not want your office to spill into other areas as business grows.

Go Through An Agent

Commercial real estate agents have the expertise to help you understand the important parts of a lease. Without an agent, you risk leasing a space without really understanding the terms of the contract. With a leasing agent, tell her/him your business needs and they can show the places that fit the bill. Plus, you do not have to worry about talking to landlords who might or might not be as forthcoming as they should be.

Ask To See The Contract

If you find a space that you like, look at the details of the contract. Review late payment policies and breaking the lease penalties to determine any costs that might be assessed. Also, up for consideration is knowing the common areas and office areas. This is important because leasing offices might not include common areas as a part of maintenance. This is also important in terms of being able to place signage and other objects in front of the business.

When looking at the contract, you want to pay attention to what is included with the office. Some spaces will include utilities and other amenities as a part of the rent, and while the rent will be slightly higher, you only pay fewer bills a month. Alternatively, rent that does not include utilities will be significantly lower, but you will pay more bills every month. This is only important for budgeting purposes in that if you are a start-up it might be easier to pay one all-inclusive bill.

Rent That Is The Perfect Fit

Finding office space does not have to be complicated. In fact, with the right leasing agent and your own preparation, you can be in your new space quickly. When looking for space, though, focus on the size of the office and the contract, and you can manage to find space that meets most of your business’s needs.

In a world of constant technological advancement and evolution, it is a challenge for most businesses to stay up to date with the current business technology trends. The importance of moving forward with technology cannot be overemphasized especially with how interrelated business and technology has suddenly become. According to a report by the UK Office for National Statistics, ICT has played a huge role in driving e-commerce and the business world as a whole.

With the large number of technological tools currently available and the new inventions that are still being churned out, it might be quite daunting to stay informed about what’s new and what’s not. It would seem frustrating to invest in tools that are supposed to make your work easier, only to discover that something new has been created for the same purpose.

Some technological business tools have been around for more than five years and now might be the time to switch them for a newer upgrade. Here are some business technologies that have become obsolete and how you can upgrade to keep your business moving with the times:

• Desktop PCs: The development of smart phones, laptops and tablets has had a huge impact on the need for desktop computers. These days, people do not need to be in an actual physical location to carry out business. In fact, they carry their business everywhere with them thanks to smart phones and tablets which serve most of the functions you would originally rely on your desktop PC for.
• Printers: The new wave of smart phones and tablets which has everyone doing business on-the-go has also eliminated the need for people to print actual copies of documents. Electronic signatures and storage (these devices mostly come with high storage space) has almost eradicated the need for people to print out documents. 3D-printers, however, seem to be the future of printing with reports showing a 52% percent year-on-year growth in their volume sales.
• In-House Servers: The use of in-house servers; which are a group of computers connected in a network, is slowly being replaced with cloud computing. Asides the fact that cloud computing does all the storage and processing of data that servers do, it also serves so many other functions that makes it much more advanced. Businesses which adopt flexible cloud computing are most likely to outshine their competition.
• Landlines And Phone Extensions: We have definitely come a long way from landlines with the advent of mobile phones. These days most businesses link company mobile phones to virtual switchboards which perform well regardless of weather, time or geo-location constraints.
• Digital Cameras: Many smart phones and other devices come with inbuilt camera options which have gradually replaced the need for digital cameras. More businesses do not feel the need to invest in digital cameras when they already have devices which can serve the same function; this has resulted in a serious decline in the sales of digital cameras since 2010. No matter what type of business you operate, you need visuals in form of images and videos for advertisement and other reasons.

If your business still makes use of some or all of these tools, you should consider upgrading so you don’t get left behind.

“Always treat your employees just as you want them to treat your best clients” by Stephen R. Covey

As a business owner, you may wonder why employee engagement is so critical especially because you think you have everything under control. You look at the sales, and they are not badly off, in fact, you made a 20 percent increase in prof it compared to the last month. Well, this article is for you. Employee

Employee engagement is getting the best out of your employees. It involves motivating them and having tools in place for them to achieve optimal results. Highly engaged employees report fewer incidences of quitting and being more committed to the work.

Employers need to ensure they have the necessary finances to help fund their business and sustain the workforce. However, for startups, it can be a challenge to even get any financing from banks, most especially if your credit score is poor. However, there are checking accounts for people with bad credit which means it’s also possible to get financial institutions that offer loans to people with a poor credit history.

Why is Employee Engagement so Important?

1. Increased Productivity

An engaged employee is at the top of their game. They learn to appreciate their work and the tasks allocated to them. Employees can be temperamental; if they feel unrecognized, they end up not doing what they are supposed to do. High employee engagement increases productivity.

2. Less Absenteeism or Sickness

As a business owner, has there ever been a time you got a call or email from your employee ‘claiming’ they were sick? And you suspected that it could have been false? Well, sometimes when an employee is highly demotivated, they will look for ways not to show up at the workplace.

A company with a high employee engagement will have fewer cases of absenteeism or sickness.

3. Increases Profitability

If a company has a high employee engagement, it means profits are high. It also portrays that the employees are doing what they are supposed to do. Employees have the morale to take on tasks and accomplish them within the stipulated time.

4. More Innovation

When it comes to millennials working in the company, just like any other person, they love a place that has room for innovation. Considering how tech-savvy they are, they want a company that is reviewing its management and software systems periodically.

In this case, employees end up becoming even more innovative and discovering better ways of doing things for the benefit of the company.

5. Recruiting the Best

With information available online, before people look for jobs in their target companies, they research on the company’s work system. A little research can tell if the company is a great fit or not. If your company has come up with ways to engage your employees, you will always attract the best fit for any positions you advertise.

During recruitment, as a company that has room for employee engagement, you get people who will not leave the firm after just two months; they’ll be there to stay for years and years.

As an employer, you need to remember that employees have feelings too. Take steps toward improving their engagement. How do you do that?

Ways of Increasing Employee Engagement

1. Rewarding Achievements

As the company grows, employers get obsessed with profit realization until they forget that employees are the ones who actualize them. To retain your best employees, once you assign tasks to them and they complete them, appreciate them. A simple personalized thank you note could go a long way in putting a smile on their faces.

Once you close in that client you have wanted, through their help, you can give them a bonus to keep motivating them.

Reward their ideas by letting them take the lead on the project of actualizing them, leading to sales conversion.

Most often, employees leave because they are not happy and don’t feel appreciated in their workplace. Make an effort to do that, and you’ll retain them for a very long time.

2. Providing Growth Opportunities

The issue with employers is that they don’t want to recognize employees who are doing a great job. Your company should provide growth opportunities to the employees. Consider promoting them when they show tremendous personal growth and when they increase the company’s growth rate. Let the company be an avenue for growth.

There are pieces of training offered by organizations tailored for each company to help their employees be the best at what they do. Schedule an annual or bi-annual program where the employees go through training on how to be the best at what they do.

3. Address Them by Name

This sounds minor, but I assure you it is not. If your firm is small sized or medium sized, it is possible to know your employees’ names. Address them by their name. Once they are aware that you even know their names, it helps in breaking the ice. They also get to understand that you value them since you have taken the time to learn their names.

Every organization has different ways of making sure their employees stick around. The above pointers should help you streamline any loopholes you may have which could cause your business stagnate.