ARTICLES

If your company sends employees on extended assignments in other countries, there are several steps you can take to help improve the chances of success in a venture that can be extremely costly if it fails. Over the course of a typical three-year...

Many food producers, wholesalers, retailers and restaurants seek out opportunities to donate excess or unsold food inventory to charity. If you could give inventory to charity and claim a deduction at fair market value, there would be a double...

The familiar banks of flickering fluorescent tubes lighting many warehouses and manufacturing plants will soon be switched off permanently. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 called for the gradual elimination of T-12 fluorescent bulbs and the ballast...

Do you ever feel like there must be a better way? That some of the things your company is doing are not as efficient as they could be? In today’s economy, when many companies are facing decreased demand for their products and services, it is...

A team is a group of people working together toward a common goal. The beauty of teams is that they can accomplish far more than the same number of people working independently. This is another way of saying that the whole is greater than the sum...

What should a manager do when two or more employees are squabbling with each other? Chronic conflict can hurt productivity, cause customers to leave and induce talented employees to look for a more agreeable place to work. But if managers jump in...

The old saying goes, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” But in the world of fraud, this may not be the case. In the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse, 1,843 cases of...

How you grow your company can be as important as whether you grow your company. Business growth carries with it a certain amount of risk. To avoid potential pitfalls, consider the following tips for successful growth. 1. Find your key...

You have probably seen them – barcodes that look like strangely deformed checkerboards. But you may not be sure of the business purpose or opportunity. These two-dimensional barcodes store a lot of information that can be read automatically by...

The dreaded Internal Revenue Service audit is one of the universal concerns for companies everywhere. While there is no guaranteed method to avoid an audit, a variety of situations may increase the chance for examination. IRS officials are...

Many companies faced layoffs during the past year as the economic downturn continued. If your company was one of those, you may soon find yourself facing the other issue of deciding who or how many people to bring back. The question “What is the...

When an employee tells you she is pregnant, it is important for you to know what you must do, and what you must not do or say. Following are highlights of the federal laws. Also be sure to check your state laws because some states mandate more...