September 2020 Toolbox

TOOLBOX

THE #1 COMMUNITY OF SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTORS

CCN

SEPTEMBER 2020

FROM THE PRESIDENT

IN THE TOOLBOX President’s Letter: Reasons for Optimism The Secrets to Employee Engagement Outsourcing – An Option for Your Company?

Learn to Exploit Risk Make the Most of Virtual Training CCN 3.0: What Has Changed?

Keep Leads Flowing with Online Reviews

Reasons for Optimism SCOTT SIEGAL Scott Siegal, President CCN

It’s a Good Time to Be a Contractor.

When the COVID crisis began, I was worried about staying in business. Every move I made was defensive, but every big change brings opportunities as well as challenges.

I feel like we have a good handle on the challenges now. CCN members have worked together to adapt especially well to the new normal. This month, I want to talk about how we can go on offense and take advantage of new possibilities.

I don’t want to downplay the suffering in our country and our world. I’m worried about COVID-19 and the hurricanes and fires threatening so many people. The election is a huge source of uncertainty for everyone regardless of political affiliation. Many companies are going out of business, especially in the restaurant, hospitality, and entertainment sectors. It’s bad for a lot of people.

News programs are exploiting all these crises. Suffering makes for great ratings. Keep that in mind as you watch the news. They’re making money stoking fear. The nightly news isn’t telling the whole story.

Some Companies Are Having Their Best Year Ever.

Toolbox Wants To Hear From You Have something different, unique or particularly successful you’re doing with your marketing? Is there a method or process you or your staff has developed that solved a problem? Is there a sales or production superstar on your staff?

Toolbox aims to bring news, views and above all the best practices of CCN members and member companies to the attention of the overall membership of CCN. If you have a story to tell, we're eager to share your news to all CCN members!

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Zoom, FedEx, and UPS are taking advantage of shifting customer demands. Dress shoes are sitting on shelves, and sweat pant sales are exploding. Lipstick sales are down 49 percent, but eyeshadow is flying off the shelves according to Prestige Beauty Trends. These companies happen to have a business model that’s perfect for the current market, or they’ve shifted to meet the moment.

Long before the pandemic, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw a need. He knew how convenient and lucrative online shopping could be, but not with slow, expensive shipping and a tiny selection across a thousand websites. Remember when we couldn’t get a package faster than two weeks without paying more for shipping than what we ordered? Bezos built the biggest online store on the internet, and now he’s the richest man on Earth.

This is possible for all businesses, not just the Fortune 500. The thousand small businesses trying to get to the top of a search page or a single shelf in a department store can now sell their wares on Amazon. They too have seen more success in the past six months. As a business owner, I love this. You can see a need or a problem in your industry and start a business the next day to solve it. Your customers are happier, and you’re rewarded. continued on page 2

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FROM THE PRESIDENT

continued from page 1

TOOLBOX THE #1 COMMUNIT Y OF SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTORS

MISSION STATEMENT To enhance the professionalism, performance and perception of the construction industry. We promote ethics, education, leadership and innovation, so that the construction industry and the community achieve mutual benefit.

CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS 6476 Sligo Mill Road Takoma Park, MD 20912 301.891.0999 800.396.1510 866.250.3270 fax www.contractors.net STAFF Scott Siegal, President scott@contractors.net John Martindale, Principal johnm@contractors.net Catherine Honigsberg, GM catherine@contractors.net Matthew Winslow, Director of Operations matthew@contractors.net Anthoy Brooks, Director of Sales anthony@contractors.net Sindy Wohl, Director of VIP sindy@contractors.net Denise Metheny, Accounting denise@contractors.net Troy Timmer, CCN Business Consultant troy@contractors.net Dave Harrison, CCN Business Consultant dharrison@contractors.net Daniel Murgo, Events Manager danny@contractors.net Brian Wohl, Membership Consultant brian@contractors.net Carla Sarabia, Help Desk Administrator carla@contractors.net Toolbox is a publication of the Certified Contractors Network.

Toolbox is a member benefit.

Non-members may subscribe for $75 annually. design: Stacy Claywell www.thatdesigngirl.net editor: Jessica Vaughan jessica@contractors.net

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What About Contracting?

According to Pew Research, white-collar workers are more likely to own a home; they’re also more likely to have a job they can do remotely. This means most of your customers still have income.

They also have far fewer ways to spend that income. Restaurants and stores are closed. If they’re open, supply chains are disrupted, and products are sparse on shelves. They can’t take a vacation. The big wedding or graduation they planned is cancelled.

Instead, they’re spending a lot of time at home. What’s more, even when the vaccine arrives, many workers will never go back to the office. With every month that goes by, more companies are announcing permanent work-from-home policies. Gone are the days of emergency Zoom meetings in dimly lit rooms with kids screaming in the background. Businesses and employees are investing in remote technology and learning how to manage people from afar.

I’m doing the same in my own company and thinking hard about what we’ll do when this is over. I have 4,000 square feet of office space, and right now we’re using less than a third of it. The benefit of meeting in person may not outweigh the cost of rent.

Finally, interest rates are at historic lows. Borrowing money will probably never be cheaper than it is right now. Lenders are bending over backward to offer favorable terms to borrowers. CCN sponsors EnerBank and GreenSky have revamped their loans to make financing attractive in the current environment. They’re now offering more no-interest financing with longer and more flexible terms than ever before.

Taken all together, you have customers with money to spend and cheap or even free money to borrow who are getting tired of their houses.

What Will the House of the Future Look Like?

Architectural Digest magazine interviewed a group of architects on 2020 building trends. They agreed our houses aren’t designed to be lived in full time. Open floor plans and small bedrooms are great for families who spend most of the day apart.

What’s more, the popularity of open floor plans is an accident of home improvement television shows. These shows wanted to attract more male viewers and learned the more sledgehammers a show featured, the more people watched. Suddenly, every show was destroying as many walls as possible in every home they renovated, and America copied them.

The open floor plan is now dead. In the future, homes won’t only feature private rooms for sleeping with a few public spaces for gathering. They will be built with multiple private rooms for sleeping, work, school, and play. They may also include enclosed porches with refrigeration and lock boxes for deliveries.

If I worked in the interior business, I would be advertising Zoom rooms and home offices with optimal lighting and soundproofing for presentations, as well as children’s playrooms for homeschooling or babysitting.

What Challenges Will We Face?

Most CCN members are busier than ever, but that doesn’t mean our jobs are easier.

However necessary, COVID-19 safety measures are expensive and time consuming.

They limit productivity. All materials are difficult to source and will continue to be with borders closed and factories operating under the same limits.

We’re also experiencing manpower shortages. Attracting qualified employees is a challenge. Nationally, we have record unemployment but not in contracting.

Administrative workers are easier to find since they have transferrable skills, but skilled sales and production people are already working. Retention is also a challenge. More people are leaving contracting more often. We’re going to have to get creative with recruitment and do everything we can to make them want to stay with us.

If we can adapt to the new normal and take advantage of its opportunities, we’ll build our businesses for the long term.

CCN Can Help with Training.

All CCN core training programs are going virtual. We held our first Sales Mastery program last month, and it was a huge success. It works because we can increase training frequency, so attendees retain more of the material and get more practice.

CCN can pivot faster between one training and the next and make sure people get the most up-to-date information. It’s also a much smaller investment. You aren’t paying for flights, hotels, and food. Salespeople aren’t losing a week of appointments traveling across the country.

Because of this, we’re revamping our membership levels. Diamond members have all training included. You can train your people every month. When you hire someone new, they can take multiple programs and onboard quickly. For existing employees, they can attend one day every month to stay fresh. As the saying goes, some employees have one year of experience they’ve repeated twenty times, not twenty years of experience. The best want to keep growing.

This helps with customer satisfaction because you’ll have a better-trained team and more satisfied employees. Professional development is a big draw for highquality candidates.

Stay involved in the wider world.

Even as we take advantage of this opportunity, we shouldn’t ignore the many crises in our world. Whatever your political affiliation, I encourage you to vote, especially in your local elections. Your city council and state government can have a big effect on your business. Learn about the candidates, and meet with them if you can, to evaluate their business acumen and plans for your city. You may spend a lot of time increasing your sales through better advertising, but another lockdown may wipe out any gains you make. Cultivating relationships with the people who can shut you down, issue permits, and change building codes is good citizenship and good business.

If we develop our employees, build relationships with our vendors, and take care of our customers, we can support our communities in the short term.

If we can adapt to the new normal and take advantage of its opportunities, we’ll build our businesses for the long term.

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The Secrets of Employee Engagement JESSICA VAUGHAN

How do you engage an employee who only works with two other people on a team, or who you only see in a Zoom call once a week?

Why Is Employee Happiness Important?

First, caring about employees is the right thing to do. Second, robust research links employee satisfaction and profitability. The Harvard Business Review performed an analysis of over a dozen studies on worker satisfaction. It found satisfied employees were, on average, 31 percent more productive than unsatisfied or unhappy employees. Satisfied employees also generated 37 percent higher sales. In addition, the rate of work accidents and serious injury claims dropped as employee satisfaction increased.

Many companies and researchers have studied what makes employees happy. It’s long been understood pay isn’t the primary motivation for most employees. Once people are paid enough to live and cover their bills, money becomes one of the least important factors in their job satisfaction.

According to Gallup, author of one of the oldest and most respected employee engagement surveys on the market, job satisfaction comes from only a few key areas.

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People need to know what their job expectations are, and have the equipment and training to carry them out. They need to be in a job that matches their skills and abilities. They need to believe there is room for development and growth. They need their supervisors to praise good work and care about them as a person. They also need supervisors to respond to their feedback.

Finally, they need to believe in the mission and culture of the company.

Sounds Hard? It Is. Some of these needs seem to contradict each other. Employees need to be in a job that matches their abilities, but they also need to grow. They need managers to set clear expectations and care about them as people.

If you, as a leader, are extremely good at only one of those skills, you may be lowering your team’s satisfaction. For instance, if all you do is praise good work but never set high standards, you’ll lose your top employees who may not see any point in

The best thing you can do is hire people who are passionate about your company and mission. You can teach someone to swing a hammer, but you can’t teach a person to get along with your team. performing better when everyone gets showered with praise regardless of performance.

Gallup surveys of companies all over the country found the rate of “actively engaged” employees averages 34 percent. That was a miserable number before the pandemic hit, and now it’s become exponentially more difficult to engage employees with teams scattered to the wind. This statistic shows the true work of a manager is increasing employee engagement. Here Are a few tips for Remote Employee Engagement.

Revisit Your Job Descriptions and Daily Worklists.

If employees don’t know what’s expected of them, they’re not going to care about your mission. Building a system of daily expectations for every role will give them clarity and help you manage from afar.

Instead of vague conversations about what they accomplished that day, you can go over their worklist with them and ask specific questions. No matter how often you check in, make sure you’re looking at their work regularly. Don’t just set up a system and forget about it.

A system that includes regular checks cuts down on teams arguing among themselves about one person doing more than another. Having clear expectations for every role helps clarify authority and stops one team member from trying to manage another. Clear expectations also simplify corrective action; you can just point to the tasks employees failed to complete if they’re underperforming.

Do Teams Have the Equipment They Need?

In one company, a key tool was broken for two weeks. The general manager only heard about it when he called his foreman asking why the siding for the next job hadn’t been cut. His foreman erupted in frustration, saying that he couldn’t cut anything. It was an easy fix once the right person knew about it. In the past, the grapevine was a reliable way to get equipment fixed or new equipment ordered. Now, you may need to formalize the process. Is there an email for teams to use to submit questions or problems?

Do Teams Have Good Training?

Especially now, training is a win-win for employees and leaders.

Leaders have more on their plates than ever, and good employees are looking for growth. What can they take off your plate?

When and how are teams trained? What training can happen remotely to minimize exposure? CCN can help with this. In the past, companies sometimes succeeded by the heroic efforts of a small but highly competent team that often included the owner. Workers picked up new skills by tagging along with a different team or catching the right person at the end of the day. The owner caught mistakes and showed the new worker how to use the bandsaw.

No one has that bandwidth anymore. Like everything else, training needs to be planned and formalized when your team works remotely. You must ask more from your teams more consistently because you won’t be there to save the day. When you hand something off, workers must own it. When they’re learning something new, they must retain it.

Praise Good Work.

Research shows it takes seven positive interactions to maintain a good relationship for every negative interaction you have with an employee. This process doesn’t have to take much time.

Saying hello when you see workers in the hallway counts. But what if you never pass each other in the hallway? It takes effort at the end of a phone call or an email to remember to share some appreciation for people and connect personally, but it’s one of the most important things you can do.

The best way is to build habits. End every email with specific thanks. Budget time in every meeting for sharing appreciation.

Send one additional note every day just to praise good work.

Build Relationships.

Remember, money is important until employees make enough to cover their bills. Then it’s not important at all. Two of the most surprising things Gallup found as essential to employee satisfaction were a manager who cares about each employee as a person and having a “best friend” at work.

In the old world, it was natural to ask about the pictures on somebody’s desk or chat about what they did last weekend.

Remote work and isolated teams mean much less informal time. It might feel weird and a little intrusive to write an email that says, “Please get the report to me on Tuesday. How are your kids?” But writing that email is important.

There are also fewer water cooler conversation topics available.

The Weather Channel is showing drifting smoke and hurricane paths. Sports come and go depending on virus test results.

Musicians have given up on concerts. Nobody is supposed to be hosting parties. Politics and pandemics aren’t great for building relationships. That’s why it’s more important than ever to build what bridges you can with your employees.

As I mentioned earlier, “Having a best friend at work” was a surprising finding to Gallup researchers. They eventually figured out this finding relates to your culture. If you hire people with similar values, they feel connected to you and to one another.

The best thing you can do is hire people who are passionate about your company and mission. You can teach someone to swing a hammer, but you can’t teach a person to get along with your team.

Why are you in business? What are you trying to do?

There are millions of ways to support ourselves financially.

Aside from our family, the work we choose is our main source of accomplishment and our primary legacy. Most employees want to take pride in their work. It’s up to you to give them a sense of accomplishment and enlist them in your mission. Why would someone choose contracting? Why should they choose you?

Your work goes far beyond hammers and nails. You fix the homes people shelter in, where they raise their children, and where they do their work. You’re there when the worst hurricanes, fires, and wind storms hit. Talk about the big picture in meetings. Let your people share in your mission. Make sure your crews know how important their contributions are.

Some of the most important parts of your job are team building, maintaining morale, and increasing employee satisfaction. It makes the tough times easier, makes companies more profitable, and decreases accidents.

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I 5

Learn to Exploit Risk JESSICA VAUGHAN

Risks Are Opportunities.

Risk isn’t a negative word. To be in business is to get comfortable with a level of risk most people can’t stomach.

Most business owners are skilled at dancing with risk to both exploit opportunities and minimize damages.

How Do You Perform Risk Assessment?

Brainstorm risks that might affect your business. What could put you out of business, cost you money, or hurt you and your employees? Risks can take many guises: physical, financial, or regulatory, and they can come from outside the business world altogether.

Contracting is physically risky. If your star player quits, the lack of good replacement candidates is a risk. Theft and economic uncertainty are financial risks. If nobody’s working at the office to process a permit, regulations will cost your company business.

COVID-19 is a good reminder it’s impossible to foresee every risk. How many of you had a global pandemic on your 2020 business plan? Once it hit, how many of you thought it would lead to new business opportunities?

Though we can’t see everything coming, it’s still valuable to anticipate as many risks as possible. It’s a mistake to throw up your hands and say, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

It’s also a mistake to look at plans you’ve made and assume you have everything covered.

For Each Risk, Balance Likelihood with Impact.

What are the odds of this risk happening? If this risk did happen, what impact would it have? The results of this exercise might surprise you. A bank performed this exercise, thinking robbery would be a huge risk, only to discover a fire would be more devastating and more likely. And a single OSHA fine could wipe out your profits for the year. When was the last time someone inspected your scaffolding?

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Don’t just think about negative impacts. A hurricane would be devastating if it destroyed your office, but a hurricane also could be the biggest sales opportunity of the year. Do you know how to sell insurance work? Are you ready for surge capacity?

Don’t let the storm chasers beat you to the profits.

Once You’ve a Good List of Likely and Impactful Risks, What Do You Do About Them?

Accept Risk. The sun’s going to become a red giant and destroy the Earth. Is it likely? Not in the near future. What will the impact be? Catastrophic. Can you do anything about it? No. This is just something we all accept. Sometimes it’s shocking what risks we all accept every time we walk out the door.

Avoid Risk. Are there risks you can avoid? Working from home is one of the main ways we avoid risk right now. If you stay home, you avoid people who could infect you. The more people you avoid, the safer you are. What other business risks can you avoid?

Transfer Risk. Insurance is the main way we transfer risk. We pay a little every month, and if something happens, insurance pays the price from everyone’s contributions, transferring the risk from one company to every company in the pool. What risks can you transfer?

Mitigate Risk. Most times, you can’t avoid or transfer risk, but you can lessen the impact. Some workers can’t stay home, but wearing a mask and staying six feet away from others mitigate the risk. They can still get sick, but they’ve made it less likely.

Exploit Risk. It turns out when people are stuck at home, they have money to improve their home. That’s a huge opportunity at this time.

Brainstorm what risks you’re facing, how likely and impactful they might be, and how you’re going to deal with them.

Contracting businesses, that stay in business, are really good at dealing with risk.

Keep Leads Flowing with Online Reviews JESSICA VAUGHAN

Hold a Review Drive for Past Customers.

If you’re hurting for business, circle back to past customers and ask for another review. You could try offering something in exchange, like a discount on future work.

The ethics of offering something for reviews can become murky. Some people swear by it, and some swear never to do it. As long as you specify you want an honest review, it doesn’t violate advertising laws. It’s something I would reserve for ad hoc instances like this. Ensure you reward everyone who leaves a review, whether it’s positive or negative.

Manage Reviews.

Assign someone to read reviews regularly. As you read them, remember your customers were giving this feedback to their friends already—you just had no way of knowing it. Don’t sweat the negatives too much and be grateful you have a way to eavesdrop now.

Positive online reviews are a key driver for business referrals. Negative reviews are a potential business killer. You need to pay constant attention to your online reputation. Here are some best practices for keeping your online presence clean.

Actively Seek Reviews.

Some contractors are so focused on avoiding bad reviews they avoid all reviews; this is a massive mistake. Imagine you’re shopping for a service and comparing companies online. The first company has no reviews. The second has one five-star review. The third has a dozen reviews with a four-star average. Which company sounds the most credible?

Another benefit of frequent reviews is better search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is how you push your website to the top of search engines like Google. Two things that help your SEO are mentions and links. If your name is constantly mentioned or linked on a multitude of review sites, it will boost you higher in the search rankings without any other work on your part.

How Do You Get Reviews? You Ask! You need to ask for reviews at the conclusion of every job and make it as easy as possible to say “Yes.” Whether it’s Angie’s List, Yelp, or a local site, make sure the customer gets the link to your specific page(s).

This may cause a customer complaint to surface. If they say, “You wouldn’t want to see my review,” never try to dissuade them. Tell them you welcome all feedback.

Ask to hear their complaint so you can make it right. If you’re open to their feedback and rectify the situation, sometimes you’ll end up with a happier customer than if they’d never had a problem.

Where Are People Posting Reviews?

Yelp, Facebook, and Google are the major national listings.

Angie’s List, Home Advisor, Houzz, and other similar sites are more niche. Don’t give your customers links to every site. Focus on one or two sites and then rotate every few months. Make sure you’ve claimed your business pages on these sites so you can edit them and respond to reviews.

Respond to every review within 24 hours.

Research shows 88% of millennials, who see unanswered reviews on your business page, won’t give you an opportunity to get their business.

If a customer posts a negative review, treat it like they said it to you instead of to the Internet. If their brand-new roof is leaking, you definitely want to get in touch. Write a polite note sympathizing with their problem and tell them you’re dedicated to 100 percent customer satisfaction.

Then move the conversation offline as soon as possible.

Give them an e-mail or your company’s phone number to contact you right away. Stay positive and helpful. Don’t try to win an argument online!

You Can Get a Review Taken Down.

Contrary to what sites say, they can take down reviews if they include inflammatory language or personal attacks.

It’s hard to do, and it will never work for grievances about your work. However, if they come after you or your employees personally, contact the website to get it removed.

Don’t Feed the Karens.

“Karen” has become a meme for a certain type of customer who always asks for the manager. In a contracting business, they demand a full remodel for less than $5,000—starting tomorrow. When it doesn’t happen, Karens want to complain to the owner.

Don’t sweat these reviews because if they sound crazy to you, they sound crazy to your potential customers. If you’re comfortable online, you can craft a careful response to point out how unreasonable they are. The only way this works is to sound as reasonable as possible. Some businesses have generated a lot of positive publicity this way. A fine dining restaurant responded to an unreasonable person demanding delivery by pointing out they don’t deliver and why. If Karen is still ranting after one response, ignore it. If they keep typing, they’re not looking for resolution—they’re looking for a fight.

Reviews are the lifeblood and the bane of your business.

Master them by creating systems of how you ask for them and how you respond when they’re less than glowing.

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I 7

ON HR

Outsourcing – An Option for Your Company?

By Anita Dombrowski, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP; president and senior HR consultant, Fourth Dimension Enterprises LLC

M

any owners of small firms are surprised at all the administration involved in maintaining their businesses.

You started your business because you were really good at roofing or construction or you were working for a company where you felt you just could do things better. You didn’t sign up for paperwork! You could really use some assistance with administration. Outsourcing some of these tasks may save you time.

Recruiting Staffing agencies can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you by recruiting staff. Although many companies try to handle recruiting internally, recruiting takes time. Placing the ad, reviewing résumés, and setting up interviews are chores that can be handled by a staffing agency.

In today’s world, candidates apply for an open position but then it seems impossible to connect with them to set up an interview.

Agencies have specialties. Some are more administrative, but many are industrial and manage manufacturing candidates.

A good agency normally has a network of potential candidates ready to fill routine positions in their specialties. If you’ve a more specialized position available, they can manage the advertising and prescreening, so you only speak with candidates who meet your specific job requirements.

Building a relationship with your agency recruiter is invaluable in helping them identify the kind of employees you’re looking for.

Staffing agencies can also help in “temp-to-hire” situations where the agency provides a temporary employee you may eventually hire. This is a tool that allows employers to assess a potential employee for a period of time before they bring the candidate on board.

In a "temp-to-hire" situation, the agency finds the candidate for you, and you pay the temporary rate for a while, normally about six months. The temporary employee can transition to your workforce at no additional cost if he or she works the entire term of the contract.

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you. Engaging in the "temp-to-hire" process can help you remain productive while assessing the temp’s ability to grasp the responsibilities of their job.

A temp-to-hire arrangement also eliminates termination issues during the first few months the candidate works for you. It’s basically a no-fault trial run.

Staffing agencies aren’t the only form of recruiting assistance you can find. Internet job boards like CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and some of the larger payroll companies offer additional modules that can assist with recruiting, job posting, and applicant tracking. Some can handle the communications with the candidates who submitted résumés to your site.

Basically, when the résumé is submitted, the system handles the process at your direction. It moves the candidate forward to the next step in your hiring process so the candidate is eventually added to your employee payroll system. Over time, these modules will pay for their additional costs in saved time, especially if you’ve high turnover.

Benefit Administration Payroll. The most common outsourcing initiative is payroll.

Companies of all sizes use third-party administrators (TPAs) to handle payroll. With the ever-changing IRS rules, it’s worth having an outside company not only process your payroll but also handle the garnishments, make the direct deposits, mail the checks, and even file the payroll taxes.

If you happen to be a multi-state employer, a payroll company can help you keep up with payroll taxes in different states. Also, payroll companies can help you navigate compliance issues such as final paychecks when you’re terminating an employee.

Although many states embrace the rule a final paycheck can be issued in the next payroll period, other states have rules that assert the employer must pay the employee’s final wages on the last day of work. Employers don’t want to be in violation of the final paycheck rule.

The employee data in your payroll system can be used to generate compliance reports. In addition to expediting a variety

of standard reports, agencies can provide writers who can assist with reports tailored to company needs. For instance, the system can calculate your EEO-1 report, which is certainly easier than pulling the data together manually.

Extra payroll modules for recruiting, onboarding, expense tracking, and compliance reports (I-9, workers comp, etc.) are some of the routine modules available. Many payroll companies are also moving into Learning Management Systems, survey tools, and training modules.

Self-service is frequently an option offered with payroll administration. Self-service offers employees the ability to enter address changes, add family members to their files, or access personal payroll information.

Medical, Dental, and Other Benefits Other benefits such as medical insurance, dental, vision, flexible spending accounts, and 401(k)’s can all be outsourced to a TPA. The TPA can help you enroll your employees, handle the communication of any changes like adding a new baby to your plan, terminate employees from the plan when they leave employment, and handle compliance reporting such as giving you the balances for your employees who have flexible spending accounts.

It’s especially important to have assistance in administering plans governed by ERISA, the law that governs plans such as 401(k)s, pension plans, disability plans, or flexible spending accounts. These plans have many compliance requirements. TPA assistance is especially helpful with loan administration, Form 5500 compliance requirements, and investment due diligence.

COBRA Administration. COBRA administration is also a function that’s easily outsourced. COBRA has many explicit time-based requirements that can get an employer into trouble if not completed in a timely manner. If you retain a COBRA administrator, all you need to do is advise the administrator when an employee has left your employment, and they handle the rest, including accepting former employees’ checks, keeping track of the number of months employees are on COBRA, and handling open enrollment for former employees on COBRA.

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Monitoring Still Required Although outsourcing can save you time and help you with compliance reporting, it’s also important to remember you still need to monitor your provider. You’ll want to make sure the amount of money leaving your employees’ paychecks is the same amount that’s going into their bank account, FSA, or 401(k).

You need to make sure those dollars are being invested in the stock accounts and that loan payments are being credited back to the employees’ accounts too. These are just a few examples of the types of the oversight that might be required should you decide to outsource a program.

Every benefit plan or payroll you process will need some type of oversight. I’ve heard some HR professionals state it’s easier to handle the function on their own if they need to tell the system what to do and then check to make sure it’s done correctly.

I’m not sure the oversight is really that much of a burden. A mistake could easily be made on those manual Excel spreadsheets you’ve been working with for so many years. In addition, it’s really a nice convenience to be able to run a payroll register that tallies up employee deductions and then sends the taxes and garnishments to the appropriate agencies.

Whether you outsource one or more of your benefit or payroll programs really depends on the volume of benefit transactions in your organization and your comfort level in handling them internally. If you’re wearing multiple hats in your company (and who isn’t these days?), outsourcing may be an important option to consider. I’ve worked with many TPAs and would be happy to discuss the pros and cons with you if you wish to contact me.

This article should not be considered legal advice. Should you have any questions about this article or any of the HR articles presented in this newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact me at AnitadombrowskiHR@gmail.com.

BUSINESS PLANNING 201 BOOT CAMP

NOV 5-6 HANOVER, MD

BUSINESS PLANNING BOOT CAMP

NOV 9-11 HANOVER, MD

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Make the Most of Virtual Training JESSICA VAUGHAN

Making the most of your computer training is an art form. It’s not just that you’re sitting a little closer to the speaker at a conference. It’s a new way to learn.

Pretend You’re Out of the Office.

If you were miles away, no one in your office would expect you to answer your phone every five minutes. Shut the door and turn on your out-of-office message. Set expectations with your team. Even though you’re sitting at your desk like always, you’re not available. Empower someone in your place. What emergencies should they bring to you? What business decisions can they make themselves?

When you sign onto the training, close your email and put your phone on airplane mode. Pretend you’re in the room with the speaker. You wouldn’t scroll through messages or social media in the second row of a ballroom. Those apps are expertly designed to steal your attention; don’t let them.

Pack a Lunch.

Buffets make live training easier. Water and coffee magically appear. You even get a pen and paper. Getting there is the major hassle but once you arrive, all those details are handled. That’s not true in your own home or office. I attended a virtual training the other day, didn’t plan well, and ate peanut butter out of a jar for lunch. Don’t be like me.

Get Familiar with the Tools.

During the first session, play around with chat, participant lists, volume, and raising your virtual hand. Make sure you know how to mute and unmute on your phone and computer and how to turn your webcam video off and on. There is a toilet flush on the official record of the Supreme Court because somebody didn’t hit mute at the right time. We’ve all seen viral virtual meetings gone wrong.

Spend Time Networking.

If we were all wandering around a hotel together, you’d bump into someone who asked an interesting question in the last session and introduce yourself. You’d see a friend you’ve known through CCN for a decade and grab dinner with them. It’s harder to connect to a screen full of disembodied heads.

Don’t sign off at breaks. Pay attention to the chat and send your contact information to someone you want to get to know. In sessions or a breakroom, don’t let the silence stretch. Talk first. Ask questions. Raise your hand. You’ll get more out of it, and the whole thing will feel more real.

Brainstorm with Your Team After Good Sessions.

I just told you to ignore your team and engage with the conference, but one of the joys of not going anywhere is sharing good ideas immediately. Discuss what you learned with your team and decide which actions you want to take. Have them start on a project immediately. Imagine if they launched a new marketing campaign and returned to you with questions before the conference finished. You could troubleshoot potential problems with the original speaker during your online training session.

Don’t Get Stuck in Analysis Paralysis.

One action item from one training could transform your business this year, but it will be worthless if you don’t act on it. Do you have a binder full of notes on a shelf you haven’t looked at since the last conference? At the time, you thought those scribbled notes were going to change the game.

It’s better to act on a single idea than take a thousand notes you never look at again.

Don’t wait until you’ve heard everything. Execute before the training is finished.

Every virtual training is a chance to transform your business. Learn to network remotely, stay focused and hydrated, and push new ideas to your team in real time.

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I C O NT R A C T O R S . N E T

CCN 3.0: What Has Changed?

MATT WINSLOW

CCN is going virtual.

We’re updating all CCN training to be more convenient, relevant, and impactful to your bottom line. This isn’t just about the pandemic. This is about addressing the skills gap in this industry. It only takes a dozen principles to run a contracting business well, but few contractors manage it.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates only 36 percent of contractors make it to their fifth year. GuildQuality’s annual Home Improvement Customer Satisfaction Survey reports a whopping four percent improvement in consumer trust last year. You can see, from the failure rate and the reputation of the industry, not a lot of business owners take the time to learn to do this well.

Staffing and Training Will Continue to Be a Challenge.

We’re in the middle of the biggest generational shift in history. The Baby Boomers are retiring. This year, Millennials are half of the US workforce. By 2025, Millennials will constitute 75% of the workforce. They’re the first digital natives. When they enroll in training, they expect it to be online and are used to absorbing information more quickly than their parents. Additionally, they change jobs every two years on average.

If you focus on retention, you may be able to retain them longer, but hiring well and onboarding quickly will remain a key part of business success.

Adult Education Has Grown in Leaps and Bounds in the Last Twenty Years.

The days of long lectures are over. Now it’s all about skill building. What do people need to know to do their jobs exceptionally well, and how can they master these skills as quickly as possible?

Imparting facts is only a small part of effective training.

When Tested Twenty-four Hours After a Lecture, Students Retained Seven Percent of What They Heard.

That was the best-case scenario. Two weeks later, they remembered the food and the hotel most vividly. People retain 70 percent of what they practice and 90 percent of what they teach to someone else.

We’re redesigning all CCN training to include practice and teaching. We’re focusing on skill mastery. We don’t care if they can quote theory; we care if they can sell.

Everything will be fast, relevant, actionable, and interactive.

Additionally, we’ll have follow-up sessions to continue practicing and teaching. This way, we can ensure they retain the new skills they’ve learned.

We Can Be Nimble with Live-streams.

Traditional training materials are sometimes printed months or years in advance. Even if the market completely shifts, you’re pretty much stuck with the old manual. By livestreaming training, CCN can distribute cutting-edge information in real time.

Tom Peters, who wrote In Search of Excellence, says success doesn’t depend on a company’s size or balance sheet. What matters for its survival is how quickly it can adapt to changing market forces. CCN is hyper-focused on helping you do this.

Training Will Be Tested in Contracting Companies Before You See It. Because CCN owners own their own contracting businesses, we’re rolling it out with their people first to ensure it moves the needle in a real company. All the training is original content specifically designed for contractors. There are no outside business theories you’ll need to translate to this industry.

Training Will Be More Frequent.

The new Diamond Membership Program includes all the core training. In the old model, we could only offer boot camps two to three times per year. Now, we’ll offer training every month with follow-up training so your employees can master their roles quickly and stay sharp year-round.

C C N T O O L B OX S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

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CCN LIVE-STREAM EVENT CCN LIVE-STREAM EVENT CCN LIVE-STREAM EVENT

ACHIEVING CLARITY IN THE NEW NORMAL

CCN FALL CONFERENCE SEPT. 30-OCT. 1, 2020 The CCN Fall Conference will take place from September 30-Oct 1 and will focus completely on the new normal and making 2020 beyond a success.

Highlights include a deep dive into the CCN 3.0 Sales Mastery training and best practices for selling virtually.

The Masterminds have always been the heart of CCN conferences where contractors can take advantage of the network, but they’ve never been more important in this rapidly changing landscape.

Additional sessions devoted to COVID and keeping workers safe and succeeding remotely will unfortunately be as important as ever. But there will be an equal focus on moving forward with new online marketing strategies, the best technology for success, and a panel on just what the new normal is going to look like.

For more information call us at 1 800 396 1510 Additional long term coaching is available.

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CCN PRODUCTION MASTERY PROGRAM SEPTEMBER 15-17, 2020