This bias can take several forms, salaries might stagnate, they might have fewer or no opportunities for advancement, they might not be included in training and professional development programs. And they could be the first to be laid off and the last to be hired.

According to recent U.S. government data, unemployment rates for older IT professionals increased faster than they did for younger tech workers since the recession began three years ago.

Age bias is a simplistic label for what is a complicated set of factors and issues that influence job prospects for senior employees for every industry. When considering workers over the age of 50, employers have to take the following factors into consideration:

• Both the relevance and currency of skills.
• The level of wage expected, which is typically higher than the salaries younger people seek.
• Behaviours and attitudes, which could become narrow-minded with age.
• Energy level, which is presumed to be less than that of a 25-year-old.

While these are generalisations and are not necessarily true for any particular candidate or employer, they are still is a stereotypical assumptions.

The harsh reality is that when times are tight if you could have someone fresh out of education who is likely to by up to date with current technologies,  and pay them half the wage that someone of 45 years would expect, who would you hire?

To find out what your employees really think why not conduct our Staff Engagement Survey

Paying attention to sustainable development is not just important to the pocket, but it can be especially sensible when so many potential customers and clients are actively seeking greener products and services.

Making environmentally conscious decisions about your business operations can be good for the bottom line. There is a misconception that in order to make a company greener it requires a cash injection, when in actual fact a lot of the changes are small, have very low overheads but make a difference and lower outgoings – actually saving you money.

As predictions about the availability of energy, water and other natural resources are validated, going green may also enable companies to keep customers and investors happy, maintain market share, become more efficient, it may also help avoid liability for environmental damage. For small businesses to be actively involved in sustainable development, they need to adopt environmentally sound business principles and translate these into action.

High oil prices and global warming are driving the move towards going green, the knowledge that our natural resources won’t last forever is increasing the number of customers and shareholders that are demanding a move toward the corporate social responsibility of a companies actions.

As far as an organisation is concerned adopting environmental practices is all about money. Taking on board environmental practices could help save money and gain new business, however some ‘green moves’ can be very pricey, but the deciding factor is often that going green helps companies enhance their public relations, how the public perceive an organisation can have a strong impact on company profit.

There are certain things as an organisation that you can do to make your company greener:

Perform an energy audit: Some utilities offer businesses free on-site consultations on how they can reduce usage and save money. Most common suggestions can include: Insulation upgrades, timers to automatically turn off lights, and energy efficient light bulbs.

Go paperless: Encourage e-mailing. When paper is necessary, print on both sides and use old letterheads/non sensitive documents as scrap paper.

Recycle: Recycle glass, paper, plastic, metal and manufacturing waste, and reuse packaging for postage.

Include Green issues in the Staff Satisfaction survey: Dedicate a section to Green issues within the annual employee survey.

Reduce commuting: Encourage carpooling, offer passes to employees who take the bus or train, add bike racks for cyclists.

Reduce business travel: Teleconference instead of travelling. For must-go trips, keep track of the miles driven and flown and buy “carbon offsets” to make up for the greenhouse gas emissions.

 Buy green: Tell suppliers that you’re interested in sustainable products, set goals for buying recycled, refurbished, or used.

Detoxify: Talk to suppliers about alternatives to toxics, such as used batteries and copier toner, and make sure you properly dispose of the ones you can’t avoid using.

Rethink transportation: Consider the fuel it takes to ship and receive products. Purchase or lease energy-efficient cars and trucks for business use.

Provide leadership and resources for going green: – Assign a respected person to head up Green initiatives. Include “green” in your company’s mission statement and business plans.

Get employees involved: Create a team to lead the company’s eco-efforts and determine where you can have the biggest impact for the least amount of money.

Communicate Green issues: Inform suppliers and customers about your efforts. And get in touch with local regulatory agencies, many offer financial incentives to businesses that implement green initiatives.

Save water: Monitor sinks and toilets for leaks that waste water.

Explore alternative energy sources: Consider using solar energy, bio-fuels, wind power and other alternative energy sources.

Implement green manufacturing: Use energy-efficient equipment, and streamline processes.

Implement green policies: Establish policies and standards.

Becoming a Green company doesn’t need to cost the earth, but it just might save it. For more information on Green computing and Staff Satisfaction surveys please contact Taylored Assessments.

On a basic level most would say that customer service is about enhancing the level of satisfaction that the customer feels when doing business with a company, but in reality it is so much more.

There are many different models of customer service but they all agree on one thing: that organisations should have clear answers to basic questions.

For the Institute of Customer Service ”Customer service is the sum total of what an organisation does to meet customer expectations and produce customer satisfaction”.

In order to meet these standards an organisation has to look both internally and externally and assess the systems in place to find out what customers expect.

Once you know what your customers want and expect you can work out if your staff deliver the very same level. If there is any performance vs. expectation differences, then they need to be addressed and constantly monitored.

Key to customer service is getting all members of your organisation to embrace it through training and development, at individual and team level.

To do this an internal assessment might be considered as a wise way of gathering the information needed in a time efficient manner with minimal cost. As the assessment will already be written for you, all that you need to do is to get your staff to complete it.

After all It is people who make a business, and where your staff are not aligned to your business objectives you will be missing opportunities.

Carrying out regular staff satisfaction surveys along side the customer ones will help you to create a culture of openness which will improve communication, staff engagement and productivity, resulting in increased profitability, and happy customers.

Good customer service is the livelihood of any business. You can offer promotions and cut prices to bring in as many new customers as possible, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won’t be profitable for long. Its not just bringing them back its keeping the customers happy too- happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.

At Taylored Assessments we have just the assessment to get you the answers you need in reference to customer care and staff engagement.

For more information on the importance and relevance of Customer Care and Staff Engagement Read below.

Customer Care:
How would you survive without happy customers?
Do you know how happy they are?
Could your key customer be about to leave you?

Staff Engagement:
Staff Engagement Surveys are a vital tool for assessing and developing your people.
Personnel who are engaged are ambassadors for your organisation, are loyal and are keen to support you in your success.

The social networking site Facebook paid out a massive $40,000 in the first three weeks of testing for security bugs and rouge apps.

‘The bug bounty program’ was set up by Facebook aims to encourage security researchers to help harden the social networking site against attack. The programme gives monetary rewards to those that find security bugs, the minimum amount paid for the detection of a bug is $500, and it goes up to $5,000 depending on the severity of the bug.

In 2010 Facebook set up a system which promised not to take legal action against those that find bugs.

One security researcher has already been awarded the maximum amount for discovering bugs, and received $7,000 for finding six.

Many cyber criminals have infiltrated Facebook and have been using it as a way of gaining personal information, promoting spam, or selling counterfeit goods.

Many other international companies, including Google and Mozilla, run similar schemes to that of Facebook’s ‘bug bounty program’ and they have proved useful in sourcing out bugs. However hackers may find that they are paid more in the underground market for the information than the organisation is willing to pay, and if that did happen, where would that leave Facebook’s security?

Executives wanted to make female sales reps feel less isolated and more a part of a cohesive team. But the problem was how to go about this when their workers are spread across the country, frequently on the road, and working odd hours.

MillerCoors, a $7.5 billion company with roughly 8,500 employees, and they turned to Triple Creek, a company that makes enterprise mentoring and social learning software which gave staff an opportunity to connect with each other, giving a personal connection.

Last summer a regional sales executive noticed that the company was losing women in sales positions at a much faster rate than it was losing their male counterparts. It was a problem the company wanted to quickly curb.

MillerCoors decided to provide mentors to some of its saleswomen, connecting them through the Mentoring software. It is designed to let mentors and workers connect one-on-one or in groups and enables people to share documents and post comments.

The wonders of social networking.

The latest Omnibus study, which draws on Sage’s 800,000-strong customer base, found significant discrepancies in the number of women that head up businesses in different areas of the UK. Scotland leads the way with 30 per cent of businesses led by a woman, while the North East lags behind with less than 10 percent of businesses polled led by a woman.

When it came to business priorities, the poll showed that both men and women were equally concerned about the performance of their business and the wider economy, but achieving a good work-life balance was more important among female business owners.

In February, Business Secretary Vince Cable and Home Secretary Theresa May called for FTSE 350 companies to set goals for increasing the number of women in the boardroom by September 2011.

It is positive that the government is looking to address inequality, however the equality that we seek and quickly turn in inequality when companies start to favour one sex over another because the government said so.

It has been said that it may be time to consider different approaches to increase female representation at the top of companies, perhaps through training or mentoring programmes for in order to address this key issue. But surely if the women are getting mentoring then the men should too, that is of course if we truly are looking for ‘equality’

But really what it should boil down to is this…. should it matter? Surely the best man or woman should get the job irrespective of their gender?

The 13 mile route takes participants from Newcastle to South Shields, passing local landmarks and thousands of well-wishers along the way.

Along side raising millions for charitable causes through sponsorship, the event has an enormous impact on the local economy, bringing in £22.1 million for businesses all over the North East last year, researchers are predicting that the figure will be even higher this year as the Run celebrates an important birthday.

The boost to the local economy couldn’t have come at a better time and is more than welcome. Last year 73 percent of the runners came from outside of the region and of those, 80 percent spent a night in a hotel, and over half enjoyed a meal out, a fantastic opportunity for local business to make a good impression and really represent.

On average at the 2010 Run there were 2.45 spectators for each person competing, and on average each of those spectators spent a further £111.62 each. This all points towards a very lucrative run, both for the charities, and for the region as a whole.

As the attendance for last week was predicted to be higher than that of 2010, this means nothing but great things for the region. The money is a major boost, but as the world’s head turns towards the region, the positive image of the region that will reach the millions watching the iconic event is priceless.

A study of more than 1,000 UK employees found that good communication, the ability to motivate, and integrity are seen by workers as most important.

The study by leadership consultancy Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann found that the majority of bosses don’t demonstrate these qualities in the workplace.

Being a good communicator is the quality most commonly associated with being an effective business leader according to the findings, but only 21 percent of workers believed their boss has this skill. The second most important characteristic was the ability to motivate staff , and just 13 percent thought their boss sufficient.

From the 1,000 employees studied just 14 percent thought their boss had integrity, UK workers think bosses that are bad leaders are those that are arrogant, have poor communication skills, and are uncaring.

Employees are also critical of the type of boss who is obsessed with targets, places more interest in investors than employees, is indecisive or risk-averse, or focuses on cost control rather than growth.

http://www.taylored-assessments.net/products/insights/management-insights

Our Ideal partners

To join Taylored Assessments, no consulting or business analysis experience is needed, as training in all aspects of our business will be provided.   However, you will need to be a self starter and have the motivation to build your own business in your exclusive territory.

You will be responsible for building a network of specialists who resell the products, providing them with support and motivation to continue to use the product.

You will ideally have the following attributes

• A sound business background, either as self employed or senior management / director level  – you may have come out of employment and are looking for a new challenge, or have an existing business that you would like to add existing services and products to.
• Excellent account management
• Have the ability to sell at all levels
• Have excellent interpersonal skills and have a wide network of contacts
• Have a full understanding of Information Technology
• Be happy networking and attending functions
• Have a good grasp of the full management role including leading and developing others.
• Be organised, disciplined and have good planning skills
• Be comfortable presenting to a mixed audience

About Taylored Assessments

Taylored Assessments is growing quickly in a global economy and we are expanding our business by collaborating with others who would like to embark on an exciting business opportunity.

We offer on-line business analysis tools  for consultants and trainers to use as their own, enabling them to identify performance issues within their client’s businesses, overcome buying objections and show Return on Investment.  This is a creative approach to collecting data, analysing results and presenting an accurate picture to assist businesses to grow and prosper is all areas.

This is an ideal opportunity for a pro-active individual who is looking to develop their own business, in their chosen territory, either as an additional service or a new venture.  You will become part of a young dynamic team that is growing quickly in different parts of the World.  We are looking for business savvy partners who are able to establish and grow the brand in your area, becoming part of an internationally growing success story.

You will be provided with ongoing leads for your area as well as introductions to those organisations that we are already working with to help you get started.

Full training and marketing support comes as part of our service to you, as well as telephone, on-line support and regular meetings to help you succeed.

Our products cover all areas of business and we offer the ability for other professionals to create their own diagnostic tools to match their particular service offer. Our latest product range is a full solution to developing, implementing and evaluating Information Security Policies and Procedures.  This is an area that is growing rapidly with the increase in the fines being levied for a breach in security of up to £500,000.

We develop products for other companies and our partners include the Institute of Leadership and management (ILM), Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland, (ICAS) The International Association of Accountants in Innovation and Technology Consultants (IAAITC) in the UK and Professor Graeme Cocks, of Melbourne Business School in Australia.  You will have access to all of the products developed in partnership and be able to promote in your territory alongside Taylored Assessments’ own Business Analysis products.

Our solutions to developing effective business are ahead of the game and this is an ideal opportunity for you to join us and be part of our exciting journey.

For the right person we offer a full support package, providing you with marketing material, assistance in marketing your territory and ongoing development to help you grow your area.

The Market

The consulting market in the UK is in excess of £7.5 billion and is on the increase.  This is only one segment of the market as you will also be able to sell into organisations such as:-

• Accountancy practices
• Training companies
• Legal Practices
• Outsourcing companies
• Finance and Insurance

You will be selling to those professionals who have a client base that they offer professional services to – there are no limits and you will have the support to develop new products and markets as you spot opportunities, with our support and guidance.

Benefits to You

• Proven business model, supported by major organisations in both the UK and Australia
• Innovative and customisable business analysis tools, white labelled for your clients
• Fully supported marketing and lead generation
• Strong brand reputation
• Apply your business acumen, expertise and professional experience to develop your own business
• Exclusive territories throughout the UK and other areas of the world
• Full training and ongoing support provided and designed to suit your requirements when you need it
• The opportunity to grow with a dynamic team who are all eager to succeed
• Fully supported products with continual development plans moving forward
• Recurring income
• Fully supported Cloud computing systems  ensuring your technology always works and is up to date, wherever you are.

This is an excellent opportunity to drive your own business forward.  There are no limits to what you earn and we will support you to get the most from your Territory passing leads wherever possible.

Interested to learn more – contact Wendy Taylor on 0845 900 2140 or email wendy@taylored-assessments.net  for further information and to arrange an informal discussion.

The study of more than 45,000 companies found a 68 percent increase in the number of UK businesses hiring remote workers in the last 12 months. 71 percent of respondents said flexibility and cost savings for employing non-office-based staff were the reason for move into remote workers.

Businesses claim they are saving 23 percent on staff costs due to this shift. The surprising find is that that the move to remote workers is not a temporary and caused by the recession, almost 70 percent of businesses said that they plan to continue using freelancers in the next year.

Is the question of quality and quantity an issue?

Will the staff that are not office based do the same amount of work as those based in the office . The results produced by PeoplePerHour.com found that 91 percent reported that the quality of work done by remote workers is as good or better than full-time office based staff.

Could this be the saving grace and the way forward for your business?