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Operations Following Lifted Pandemic Restrictions

Here we are, in the new world of the telecommuting future thanks to the impetus of the pandemic. Operations following lifted pandemic restrictions will include telework, flexible work hours, working from home, home office, coworking spaces, and turning to jobs online, all a part of the new normal, a metamorphosis in the workforce of the post-pandemic world.

Fortunately, all the necessary technology is readily available for employers to adapt to telecommuting and remote working as we ready to return to the new normal and beyond.

If your business or organization is not already remote-work-savvy now is the time to ready for the new digitally enhanced workplace following in the footsteps of other businesses and organizations that vow to never return to archaic pre-pandemic methods of operating their businesses.

Everything You Need is Here

Some of the first places to look for digitally upgrading your teleworking environment would include software to communicate with and monitor staff, applications for scheduling projects and task management, training programs, and security solutions.

The Top 10 Attributes of Post-pandemic Operations

1. Structure

Organizational structure is important to layout as early as possible for establishing hierarchy and accountability among the digital workforces. The better your structure is formatted, the more secure your remote workers will be adapting to the work from home model. Though, not all your personnel will be working from home. Some staff may still be coming into work, even if only for a day or two per week, then teleworking the remainder of the time. You will have to figure out what works best for your organizational structure.

2. Empower Staff

By empowering your staff to take responsibility for their own tasks, you add the necessary and most impactful component of flexibility to your team. This also relieves you from the responsibility of monitoring each and every employee. Take your attention off of the minute details and focus on the while, allowing each employee to manage themselves.

3. Communicate

Keeping the line of communications open is very important, and especially allowing and encouraging staff to reach out if they are feeling overwhelmed by any piece of the task at hand. Team chat tools can allow team members to stay in contact and report ideas to problem-solve on the fly.

4. Performance Evaluation

Performance evaluation in the new normal is conducted on a large-scale, then at several levels below by reviewing strategic Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure the overall performance of the organization, each team, and for problem-solving, each employee. All efforts can be traced to ensure the success of the organization.

5. Motivation

You might choose to use virtual boards to keep employees motivated (though these only work if everyone is on board, using, and regularly updating them).

6. Culture

The biggest organization-wide tele-employee advantage with the most impact on your overall performance is to establish a positive work culture. Working remotely should be a celebration of all the best attributes of an organization and its employees culminating in a joyous performance.

7. Empathetic Correction

Of course, there will be slumps in individual and team performance which will need to be addressed along the way but do so in a compassionate and empathetic manner. No one should ever feel like they are being punished or threatened by, “It’s my way or the highway,” which is considered barbaric in the current workforce marketplace.

8. Trust and Support

Employees perform better when they are able to accept their own responsibility within the most flexible parameters, and when they feel supported and trusted.

9. Non-work-related Socials

Digital non-work-related social events can help to take the edge off of staff which is feeling the pressure of being on lockdown resulting from a pandemic and executive restrictions. So, feel free to be creative and support Zoom meetings that are just for fun. Maybe a staff talent contest, show off your work-crib competition, fashion review, pet show, cooking show, or host an online karaoke show. Anything to take the edge off potential cabin fever or blues from isolation.

10. Affinity

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” so apply the “non-work-related” label as often as possible when reaching out to and communicating with your employees. The creates affinity among your organization and will put you miles ahead in employee retention.

 

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Top 10 Things You Can Do to Destroy Your Business Forever

Times are tough. I remember, they shut us down for two weeks, then it was two months, now it is going on a year, and already more than half of our businesses are lost and gone forever. What have we learned? Here are the Top 10 Things You Can Do to Destroy Your Business Forever during the pandemic.

Top 10 Things You Can Do to Destroy Your Business Forever

1. Don’t Change the Way You Do Business

The worst thing you could do is to just go about business day-to-day as you always did pre-pandemic. The world is changing. Your customers are changing the way they go about reaching out for your products and services from the convenience of their homes while under lockdown. You can adapt to this new method of doing business, or not.

2. Don’t Convert Old Customers into Digital Prospects

If you have previous client contact information, now is the time to convert them into digital prospects. If you don’t have their email addresses, reach out to them, and reward them to get it to you. Reward them with discounts, incentives, and access to proprietary information that people who are not on your preferred customer list never get access to. Or disregard.

3. Don’t Find New Ways to Deliver Your Products of Services to Homes

Getting your products or services to your customers wherever they may be by any means is a priority if you are to continue to do business in the new economy. Figure this out, and you can continue to operate during the lockdown. Take advantage of shipping and other delivery methods, electronic, if possible. Or not.

4. Don’t Communicate with Your Clients

Communicate regularly (but not so often as to be interruptive or too imposing) via any method possible. Utilize electronic communication, and consider direct mail campaigns, if you are not already doing so. Incentivize them for listening and tell them what they want to hear… not so much about you, but about how their lives will be so much better with you. Be humble and empathetic or disregard them and they will walk away (you are already losing them, anyway).

5. Don’t Strengthen Your Online Presence

You need to have the name-of-your-business-dot-com so that your customers can find you, with daily updates to give them reasons to check-in (and to attract new clients to what you are doing). Be found as active on social media platforms with consistent branding, message, and tone of voice. Or not.

6. Don’t Engage in Targeted Digital Marketing

Face it. Your clients are online, you must get their attention there. Your previous customers are there, and potential new prospects are there, you have no choice but to reach out to them where they are. Or hope to God they find you some other way.

7. Don’t Invite Your Customers to Buy from You Online

Your clients are using the Internet and their credit cards or PayPal to make their online purchases. If you intend to continue doing business with them, you will need to deploy an online marketing platform and allow them to Buy Now with the push of a button to access your products and services, or else, they go elsewhere.

8. Do Decrease Your Ad Budget Because Revenues are Down

This was the first thing we saw those failing businesses do, but the survivors increased their ad budgets and expanded their market reach, spending more in digital mediums. Those businesses that are gone and never to be heard from again? They cut back on advertising due to decreased revenues.

9. Close Your Doors and Wait for Normal to Return

Then, there were the businesses who shut down their operations altogether, hoping to be able to hibernate until the dust of the pandemic settled. But how long can you sustain an inoperable business? Paying the freight (overhead) with no new income? Unsustainable for long, and this pandemic has lingered much longer than we had initially imagined it would.

10. Don’t Fight to Survive in the New Economy

Giving up and not fighting for any way to sustain your business no matter what the circumstances is the death blow to any business or organization. Not fighting for yourself, your business, what you believe in, does not give you the right to represent well in the post-pandemic world.

Times are changing and you must change with it, or not.

 

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New Pandemic Businesses are Killing It

You have heard the worst of it; most pre-pandemic businesses are down and out, or on their way out. Some workers were forced to work from home, while others were sent home with little or nothing to look forward to. No doubt, times are tough, but there is good news: New pandemic businesses are killing it.

Whether you are a fan of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” “when life gives you lemons make lemonade,” “growth necessitates change,” or “necessity is the mother of invention,” amidst these worst of times, even during the pandemic, millions of new businesses were launched, and they are making a killing while others suffer.

Your first reaction might be to be upset, but there is something invaluable to learn from the crisis, the lockdowns, and shut outs associated with it, and examining how a few Americans, roughly 1 out of 10, are taking advantage of the pandemic.

We were all in the same boat in 2020, but ten percent of us put on our thinking caps, took action, and started something new, new businesses that helped to establish independence and to secure our future well into the future, post-pandemic.

These were not the corporate moguls taking advantage of COVID-19, no, these are everyday citizens, half of whom have dipped their toe into the water of entrepreneurialism before, the other half? No businesses experience whatsoever, and they are satisfyingly successful, equally including telecommuters working from home who used their extra time to develop their new business, while the rest had been laid off, on unemployment, or had no job whatsoever.

Some of them launched new businesses that were hugely successful, others moderately, but successful enough to not have to depend on an employer, handouts, or charity to survive and feed their families.

Of all the 2020 new business startups, you might find something that appeals to you. You might even think of throwing your entrepreneurial hat into the right yourself. Or simply opening your mind to the idea of possibilities that may be waiting for you to launch your own inspired new business that will take you to the next level.

Starting your own business today is the answer to the question,

“If I am going to have to work from home, anyway, why not do it for myself?”

You do not have to be the victim or take the pandemic lying down.

I can be my own boss and not have to kiss anyone else’s arse. I can become the master of my own fate and destiny.

Here are some ideas that might inspire you.

Top 10 New Pandemic Businesses in 2020

1. Handmade Face Masks

Many handy home seamstresses are turning their skills into bank by creating unique facemasks. People are required to wear them anyway, might was well make a statement while you are forced to don PPE out in public, right?

2. Home Product Manufacturing

We are seeing a lot of people carving out their own niche using whatever crafty skills they might have. Artists, woodworkers, craftspeople of all kinds are making homemade products and selling them on eBay, Etsy, and Amazon. Creating new products and brand identity, while others are oblivious that these opportunities exist.

3. Physical Subscription Service

Now is the time to start your anything-you-can-think-of-delivered-to-your-door subscription service. America is forced to stay home, and Jeff Bezos need not be the only one providing everything to the rest of us on lockdown. Sure, you could deliver whatever you want onesie-twosie, but those new companies who are killing it are offering their wares on a recurring subscription basis. Everything from aromatherapy to farm produce and products, so the sky’s the limit.

If you need more help thinking of ideas for subscription service, here are some good ones: meals-in-a-box, family activities in a box, home beauty kits, natural spa-at-home kits, homemade organic products, just let your imagination flow, anything that can help make being on lockdown a little more tolerable.

4. Got a Way with Kids?

This is the time to create youth-focused learning exercises and games for children and young adults who are celled-in for the pandemic. You would be surprised at how many parents who are working from home are taking advantage of online activities that can keep the kids occupied while they are on conference calls or trying to get work done. If you can come up with toys, products, activities, apps, or online webinars that captures the minds of American youths, then now is the time to launch it

5. Online Coaching

You may have spent your life helping others out with their personal problems, and if these people are naturally attracted to you, you may be a Life Coach just waiting to be released into the mainstream. In these tough times, people need other people and they are reaching out online to form associations with life coaches who can help them make the best of these tough times, via phone, Zoom, Skype, Facebook Messenger, however you can connect to your potential clientele. Life Coaching can cover any areas of specialty, such as Business Coaching, Wellness Coaching, Financial Coaching, Spiritual Coaching, etc… Get your FREE Life Coach Certification today and start tomorrow.

6. Virtual Personal Trainer

With gyms shutting down all over America, the trainers are taking to the Internet and are developing online virtual classes for pandemic shut-ins. You could od this. Anyone could do this. Anything from working with free weights to yoga and meditation sessions.

7. Digital Marketing Specialist

As you may have guessed, with all this online activity and rush to the Internet to conduct business in America, there is an increasing demand for digital marketing specialists who can help to fill the promotional gaps in any business’ attempts to profit from online exposure. Services cover the entire spectrum of marketing, but you could specialize in what you are already good at, such as web site design, content creation, Facebook posting, social media management, SEO services, online branding and advertising, or other digital marketing consulting. You could consider becoming a certified digital marketing specialist.

8. Virtual Teacher, Trainer, or Tutor

With all this extra time on their hands, people are taking the time to expand their horizons, and learning new things, so that post-pandemic, they will have a better outlook and increased possibility of living a better life. Help them learn something new, increase their skillset, speak a second language, get ready to take college entrance exams, or help young online students get better grades.

9. Pet Products and Services

With more people being restricted to their homes, the pet companion industry is taking off like a rocket. Pets are making perfect home companions. If you offer a mobile pet washing/grooming service or can come up with special diet delivery, customizable pet treats, or toys, this could be the perfect time to launch your pet company.

10. Virtual Assistant

Long before the pandemic, the Virtual Assistant (VA) industry was a well-established goldmine for people (primarily office workers) who wanted to work from home and they are still dominating the online job market. Thanks to the coronavirus, this is still a huge expanding marketplace, and there is no reason you shouldn’t be doing this, if you have skills, such as data entry, phone skills, or online marketing.

I know, you are wondering what is next? Here are the Top 20.

Top 20 New Pandemic Businesses in 2020

1. Handmade Face Masks
2. Home Product Manufacturing
3. Physical Subscription Service
4. Youth Services
5. Online Coaching and Consulting
6. Virtual Personal Trainer
7. Digital Marketing Specialist
8. Virtual Teacher, Trainer, or Tutor
9. Pet Products and Services
10. Virtual Assistant
11. Commercial Cleaning Services
12. Delivery and Errand Services
13. Landscaping and Lawn Care
14. Telehealth Services
15. Home Improvement
16. Telecommuter Team Support
17. Online Babysitting
18. Graphic Designer
19. App Developer
20. Accounting and Bookkeeping

Of course, the handmade face masks opportunity will fade quickly following the pandemic mandates are alleviated. But the rest of these new businesses are expected to thrive following the pandemic threat.

Shouldn’t your business be one of them?

 

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I Should Have More Money Working from Home

The coronavirus lockdown hit, you were transitioned to telecommute, look at all the benefits of working at home, plus you are saving all that money in the daily commute. You review your bank statement, and you say, “I should have more money working from home,” but it appears you are spending more.

What’s happening here?

No more high transportations costs, no parking, dry cleaning, expensive coffees, lunches, after-work rendezvous, that translates to more money in your pocket, right?

On the surface, of course, the answer is, “Yes.” Only, something happened that you didn’t expect, you started spending the money you saved in other ways, and it snuck up on you. You didn’t even know it was happening.

Granted, since the coronavirus pandemic hit, the cost of groceries has increased, but still, that’s barely a blip on the radar. Today, you are ordering more on the fly online. Nothing to see here, just click and wait for it to show up on your doorstep. This is the world we live in today.

Impulse Buying

We have Milton Hershey to thank for all those impulse items stacked up at the checkout stand at the supermarket, today we have Jeff Bezos to thank for nearly everything (“everything” if he has his way) on the planet is just one click away.

And we click.

There are increases in other costs of doing business from your home, like increased electric bills, Internet, printer supplies, maybe some mobile technology-related items that make working from home a little easier or more efficient, the rest? Well, the rest is just unrestricted impulse buying online.

What does that boil down to?

Every American that mutated from traditional office work to telecommuting is saving the money from the old-fashioned commuting but is making up the difference and then some in increased expenses and extraneous online convenience-buying.

How much more?

On average, every person in the USA that transitioned to remote work is spending an extra $27 per week.

$27 per week

$27-a-week may not sound like much to you, but if only the extra (those dollars more than the pre-pandemic regular work expenses) are being spent at Amazon. Well, that is considerable, indeed.

My grandfather used to say, “If you want to find out the truth about anything, follow the money.”

Top 10 Pandemic Businesses

If I were to take his advice and take a look at the Top 10 business (not counting hospitals, insurance companies, and healthcare) who are raking in profits fast that you can say, “Where’d that money go?” the list would look like this:

1. Amazon.com
2. eBay Inc.
3. Apple
4. Netflix
5. Alphabet/Google
6. FedEx Corp.
7. United Parcel Service
8. Microsoft Corp.
9. Facebook
10. Zoom

I don’t know exactly what this list reveals but seeing Amazon.com at the top of it doesn’t surprise me.

And if you are one of the teleworkers in silicon valley who moved outside of silicon valley to cut your monthly overhead, be aware that your bay-area employer may follow Mark Zuckerberg’s lead who announced he will be cutting the wages of those Facebook remote workers who moved outside of the San Francisco Bay Area as a part of the teleworking urban exodus to save a few dollars on their work from home expenses.

 

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The Best Places to Find Telecommuting Jobs Online

Now that telecommuting jobs represent more than half of all jobs in America, you are no longer restricted to your local geographic area to find any of the sweetest remote jobs in the world. If you are currently teleworking but looking for a better deal, they are to be had among the best places to find jobs online, only now, you do not have worry about looking for telework outside your local market, because today it doesn’t matter where you live.

You would not be surprised to discover that the number one best place to find a telecommuting job in the United States was around the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Before the coronavirus pandemic, if you wanted to get a piece of that sweet Silicon Valley action, you would have to pack up and move there. Today? Not so much.

Top 5 Best Places to Find Telecommuting Jobs Online

With remote work being the national standard for the growing percentage of workers all around our nation, it does not matter where you live. What matters is what you can offer. Whether you are already telecommuting in your local job market or looking to land a sweet teleworking gig, now is the time to reach out to the best places to find telecommuting jobs online in the USA.

1. Silicon Valley

So, if you have ever been under the persuasion that you might like to work for the likes of Apple, Google, Oracle, Facebook, eBay, or PayPal, then now is the time to start checking out those job postings. Although online job availability is not just limited to those top companies, there are thousands of other employers who are eager to take a look at your resume.

But wait, there’s more. Other top companies all around the United States of America are also neck deep in expanding their remote worker employee base. The time is ripe for the picking in these other geographic areas as well.

If you live near one of these key areas and you are already set up for telecommuting and working from home, then great. If not, you are still in a great position to get a great job in an ever-expanding network of jobs online, and you do not ever have to worry about having to relocate.

2. New York

Next up, number two on the list is New York. Home to IBM, Deloitte, Pepsi, Chase, and Verizon, just to name a few, and as you are now aware, you can telecommute from your own home at work for some of the biggest most influential institutions in the world.

3. Los Angeles

No need to pack up and move to Hollywood (in third place) as so many have in the past because now you can telecommute from your own home and work virtually for any of the top Los  Angeles-area based companies you know and love, such as, Walt Disney, AT&T, UPS, FedEx, Edison, Warner Bros., NBC/Universal, Paramount, Time Warner, and Sony Pictures.

4. Seattle

In fourth place, the Pacific Northwest, where you will find the bluest eyes and the Seahawks, the Seattle-area serves up some of the best telecommuting offerings from some of the biggest players, like Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Expedia, Nintendo, Starbucks, and Savers.

5. Miami

In spot number five, shift your attention to Miami, Florida, you already know you don’t have to go there in person if you can telecommute or work your job online, if you are teleworking for Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, DHL, Cisco, Nokia, B/E Aerospace, or any of their neighbors.

So, think about expanding your work search to find your favorite job online, and remember, you can work from the convenience of your own home.

How much better does it get?

Top 10 Best Places to Find Telecommuting Jobs Online

1. Silicon Valley, Bay-area, California
2. New York, New York
3. Los Angeles, California
4. Seattle, Washington
5. Miami, Florida
6. New Jersey
7. Las Vegas, Nevada
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Phoenix, Arizona
10. Stamford, Connecticut

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Is Pandemic Teleworking a Corporate Conspiracy?

Under the veil of the current COVID-19 pandemic and lingering restrictions and lockdown, corporations have been able to survive by converting operations to telecommuting and moving jobs online to huge benefit to the corporations and first reports seem to indicate that the workers see the conversion as advantageous as well. Is pandemic teleworking a corporate conspiracy?

While there was a growing interest in telecommuting across the nation, there was a growth-spurt which caught on in the shadow of 9/11 promoted by the government, and other industries took note of how important it might be to have staff that could work from home in the event of any disaster, terrorist threat, or pandemic.

Some organizations rejected the idea of enabling staff to telecommute or work from home out of fear. Fear that the working class could not be trusted. These employers and managers feel like they have to micromanage every step their employees take, suspicious that any employee will do as little as possible or nothing at all if they can get away with it and still receive pay.

Then comes the coronavirus outbreak and even the most resistant businesses are faced with hard and fast choices. Do you give up and close your business or quickly find a way to embrace telecommuting to survive? Do you shut down your factory or crowd manufacture?

And those who were resistant to moving jobs online because they could not adequately monitor their staff for fear of slacking off or having employees that would exploit the employer or corporation, new industries sprang to life to meet their concerns and leaving the staff asking the question, “Is your employer spying on you?” and indeed, they are spying on their employees to varying degrees thanks to remote monitoring technologies.

Other technologies experienced growth to meet the need of this expansive growth in telework across the United States, such as videoconferencing, Zoom, and VPN connectivity.

For the other employers and corporations who were already leaning in the direction of telecommuting, the transition was nearly seamless, and this forced experiment delivered staggering results for the corporate number crunchers. The pandemic work from home workforce increased productivity, at huge savings in overhead for the corporations.

It makes you wonder, is there some other purpose at work here, to force people to work from home?

This pandemic lockdown has benefited the ecology of our world amazingly. Mother Earth has not been in such good shape since the industrial revolution, she is healing from the damage we have caused her, right now.

Corporations are more profitable by not having to cater to on-site workforces.

There is a dark side to teleworking which is emerging, but new technologies are emerging to deal with any shortcomings that might be associated with the work-from-homers.

And factories which cannot embrace a crowd manufacturing model, some of them are investing in housing near the factory, hotels, or apartment buildings to accommodate manual laborers which have not been replaced by automation or mechanization.

Is Pandemic Teleworking a Corporate Conspiracy?

Following this pandemic, many corporations and employers will continue to operate remotely, and they are already releasing leases, selling off, or repurposing properties that were necessary to support on-site workers.

Who are the Top 10 beneficiaries of huge financial growth during the pandemic?

1. Amazon.com
2. eBay Inc.
3. Apple
4. Netflix
5. Alphabet
6. FedEx Corp.
7. United Parcel Service
8. Microsoft Corp.
9. Facebook
10. Zoom

What does the Top 10 COVID profiteers say about the current condition if we follow the money? Is there more going on here than meets the eye?

What does the future hold?

What will the workforce look like post-pandemic?

Are we turning into a society of caged slave labor for increased profit?

Or are we being prepared for new advances in societal living, like The Venus Project?