Onboarding Best Practices That Every Business Should Use

Onboarding new employees is an essential part of the recruitment process. Skipping this requirement can backfire big time.  But here's the thing: onboarding a new hire takes months until reaching efficiency. Hiring the wrong fit is often a 5-figure investment (and past $100K for some roles), considering mentorship, training, and involving other team members and management in the process. Onboarding Is Crucial To Reduce Hiring Costs Since hiring is so expensive, it's approached carefully. I try to simplify the recruitment process by hiring motivated people eager to solve problems, avoid cultural misalignments (and a toxic environment), and ensure everyone can… Continue Reading

Effective Hiring Tips (For Startups And Growing Teams)

There are fast-paced startups where execution is mission-critical. Then, there are the startups relying on an ongoing and regular business model - think of manufacturing or an ongoing type of activity that could easily take 60–80 hours a week. In other instances, freelancing may be a great model for a lean startup. The beginning phases of your startup have a lot to do with organizing and managing a team. Here are some tips you need to remember throughout the startup hiring process. How Hiring Works Below is a video I created on the 4-step checklist for hiring freelancers especially for your… Continue Reading

The 18 Core Topics Businesses Need to Evaluate and Refine

Working with 400+ consulting clients involves handling various recurring problems and pain points. Some of the 6-7-figure businesses I have been consulting on generate $750K to $50M in annual revenue (I charge $6K - $20K for 4-12 weeks of advisory.), and having been immersed in actual work as a corporate business advisor, I know first-hand that most of the business problems are around the following: navigating recruitment managing technical teams handling operations running successful agencies building distributed teams employer branding (to name a few). scaling their operations automating processes growing digital presence Producing high-quality content  In particular, these are the… Continue Reading

11 Traits Of A Great Manager And Top Tips To Develop Them

There are good managers. And then, there are great ones. According to The Predictive Index, nearly 30% of employees believe their managers fail at team-building skills, and a portion of them suck at handling feedback, delegation, and time management. Managers who are successful in their respective fields leading large teams need to bounce between daily activities with various team members and then to the global responsibilities of the organization. While some best practices to obtain qualities of a good manager are inherited over the years (starting with the way families raise their children), the evolution of management builds on top… Continue Reading

8 Step-by-Step Guide To Hiring a Smart Business Assistant and Focus Only On Increasing Your Business Value

Although it can be a rewarding journey, being an entrepreneur also has its share of difficulties. You must be a jack of all trades and a master of all hats if you want to succeed in running a business. If you're managing a tiny firm, this might be a daunting undertaking. You must juggle a number of tasks, including managing finances, providing customer service, developing marketing strategies, and managing daily operations. In particular, entrepreneurs, who have just started their business, are burdened with a variety of tasks related to their enterprise, including accounting, day-to-day operations, traveling, scheduling meetings, offering basic… Continue Reading

The Practical Guide to Hiring Employees

Hiring new employees is among the biggest problems businesses face. From micro businesses to large enterprises, finding and closing top talent is a major challenge that we're all eager to overcome. Hiring Employees With Qualified Talent Having led over a thousand interviews, I’ve faced challenges with almost every role I looked for in IT. Software engineers — needless to say, companies are competing for top talent in engineering, not the other way around. Resources are scarce and companies keep growing, therefore demand is through the roof. As an extra challenge, top engineers often switch to management/training, open their own companies,… Continue Reading

9 Important Lessons About Burnout In The Workplace

While I’m not a medical professional, I’ve been through several burnouts and some of my team members have blanked out for a few weeks before getting back on track. Here are several observations and thoughts of mine regarding burnouts. 1. Burnouts Are Often Not Directly Related to Work All of my burnouts and most of the cases I’ve observed were not directly related to work. Sure, work overload is a contributing factor. But more often than not, there are family troubles, sick family members, additional responsibilities or duties (looking for a new house, car troubles), or an uncomfortable office environment… Continue Reading

6 KPIs Your Hire Needs to Hit to Pass the Probation Period

Regardless of whether you enforce a probationary period or not, you need to ensure that your new hire has completed the onboarding process successfully and fits the organizational culture. Even the best recruiters out there can't gauge employment efficiency during the interview cycle. And several studies, including a recent survey by Checkster Research, show that 78% of applicants misrepresent themselves. While we continuously refine and improve our recruitment process, certain metrics can't be deducted over the course of an interview or two. Speed of execution, working in a team environment, and attention to detail are some of the common denominators… Continue Reading

7 Reasons Why It is Difficult to Manage New Projects (Or Inherit an Old One)

What makes projects so difficult to manage? As a project manager, you need to assess the culture, your role, your team, how problems escalate, what your responsibilities are and how to tackle edge cases (delays, problematic team members, running out of budget, handling scope creep, disagreeing with a client, etc.) And within the right environment, everyone follows the company mission statement and the core principles of the organization. This will turn your decision-making process into a quantifiable, well-oiled machine, which should facilitate the team and get the work done. Project management is, in theory, the activity of ensuring a project’s… Continue Reading

Strategies In Managing A Software Development Team

Prior to launching my own web development agencies over 10 years ago, I’ve jumped between the role of a senior developer and a manager multiple times – including leading and managing a software development team role. My first stunt in management was back in 2007. We were building a Java-based distributed software for a telecom group operating in multiple countries. I spent a year and a half with the company as a developer before joining the project along with our Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and a couple of other developers. The CTO and I spent several months working closely together… Continue Reading