You have been looking to start your own business, you have raised some initial capital, but how do you know what business to start! Obviously, it has to be something you are good at, but how do you know it is going to work and it will bring in the rewards you seek. Franchisors know their market and have created formulas proven to work in various markets. So, this might be the best time to own a franchise. Here is our pick of top franchises to buy right now! Checkers Drive-In: Checkers has been around for over 30 years, but has begun franchising only recently in 2010. The fast food franchise is a hot property today and is rated highly for growth prospects, training, and support. With an initial capital investment of $250K and total investments of up to $520K, Checkers is one of the popular picks. The Cleaning Authority: Our second pick, The Cleaning Authority, has been around from 1996. An initial investment of just $44K will get you started and this home maintenance company will help you finance the remaining investment. The home cleaning industry is currently seeing a rising trend, with more people calling in for domestic cleaning services.

Have you ever wondered exactly what task the employee engagement team or person in your organization is actually tasked with? Is it all just fun and games, organizing the year-end Christmas or holiday party, showing up at your desk to congratulate you on your work anniversary, or organizing the cake for employee birthdays? Sure, these are probably some of the front-facing tasks that you see your human resources or corporate communications executive who is in charge of the employee relations and employee engagement initiatives engage in. However, there is a whole lot more that goes into this endeavor, and indeed, some serious reasoning and requirements lie behind the entire employee engagement team. Research has proven, as has real life experience and observation in organizations of all shapes and sizes across industries, that happier employees are more engaged employees and when they are happy and engaged at work, their output is more this means that they are more productive and work better and want to do more for and in the organization. So, apart from the feel-good factor of getting to eat some cake or blow off some steam by having that monthly pizza party or even that much looked-forward-to Friday potluck, there is indeed an organization level reasoning for keeping employee engagement going.

Employee relations are an essential and important part of the operations of every business, whether it is a small, medium, or large sized enterprise. Employee relations, as the term suggests, refers to the relationship between the employees themselves, as well as the relationship between employer and employees. In other words, it is the way all people, who are part of a given organization, associate with, think of, and work with one another. And in this scenario, happy, well-adjusted employees equal more productive, efficient employees. That being said, it is thus imperative for employers and leadership within an organization to keep an eye on employee morale, employee needs, and employee benefits to ensure that the employees are having their needs met within the organization and are working well together. So, given that employee relations is so important, how can one create an environment that is conducive to happy employees? Well, minimizing conflict, be it within a team, between teams, or across hierarchical levels of the organization, is an important aspect of employee relations. Fighting, arguments, insults, suspicion, lack of respect, jealousy, and other such negative emotions will surely create discord and play havoc on the business processes and efficiency in an organization.

A payroll service is set up for every company and is run by HR (Human Resources) department. The HR department takes on hiring, firing, employee welfare and payroll services for its company’s employees. The payroll service is particularly set up for employees handling their payroll process and queries. Payroll services are both offered in person and online. Each and every employee of the company is given access to their individual payroll services dashboard which will be accessed via both internet and intranet links. Components of employee payroll Employee payroll consists of various components, for example, employee performance report, employee hike letter details, tax declaration details and more. All the details are constantly verified and updated. The details are highly confidential. Hence to maintain the confidentiality the details pertaining to an individual is only made available. The details cannot be publicly accessed bearing the privacy in mind. How employee payroll works The HR department can also outsource the employee payroll system in case of cost cutting or for any other reasons. The outsourcing happens only after a formal knowledge transfer and contract signing. The contract may contain Non-disclosure agreements, payment cycles, pay out dates, tax form calculation systems etc. Employee payroll also maintains an employee data even after resignation or termination in their database for various purposes.

Payroll services play an integral role in any given organization in the world today. Qualities a payroll service should possess Services like quality, technology and so on must be a prime objective for any payroll firm. In terms of technology used, it must be safe, secure and reliable enough for its employees to access it without fear or doubt. Every query raised by an employee must be answered with this prescribed timeline. Each of the service availed is billed to the parent organization. Consulting firms whom you have outsourced the work must provide service, handle payroll queries, tax declarations, hike, performance documentation, and counseling. These outsourced companies have different pricing for level services provided. It can even vary upon the number of your employees to be handled by the consulting firm. Right from handling the payroll queries and resolving them as per the agreed terms, the firm is liable to publish individual reports and records on the employee dashboard, hosting all the related information. Most of it is a software with all the automated tasks for each of the employee and maintenance of their database. These databases must be maintained at zero error criteria as some of the information on the employee record is critical for auditing purposes.

The HR (Human Resources) department must exist as long as the organization is there in the market. The HR department can exist independently without an in-house organization to handle; however, an organization cannot exist without a fully functional HR department. HR departments handle and take care of the company and its employees thoroughly by offering the maximum support through there HR department. Right from recruitment to exit formalities of an employee, the HR department plays a vital role in an organization. Within the HR department, the support functions are created like payroll services, recruitment teams, operations and so forth. These departments are dependently and independently responsible for handling the respective job functions. Every sub-team within each department will have a reporting manager and the reporting managers are made to report to the HR head of the department. Listed below are the efficient, comprehensive functions and importance of a payroll team in an organization: Payroll services offer their employees a whole slew of services with efficiency “ these include tax investment and declaration recommendation, payroll queries, and reports, etc. Each employee has his or her individual self-service portals or dashboard, which contains all the payroll related reports, information and more. Payroll services are part of a regular HR department, and along with the rest of the HR department in every organization, form a major chunk of employee handling services in the firm.

The world of business is surely an interesting to realm to find oneself standing in. The arena of business is one where one would find huge amount of adrenaline driven motivation and competition, both healthy and otherwise. Since the time prehistoric men discovered trade and the work that goes behind making a trade option a success, the human brain has time and again created marvels using business directed minds and agendas. Since ancient times it was visibly evident that there is more to a colony’s economy than barter system and give and take. Over the decades the market of business development has moved in different arenas of the human world and in each of them have brought in massive change and development to the inhabitants and participants in the trade. Business is one such mode of profession where sky is the absolute limit to what possibilities can be made into reality. Towards the end of the last century, the arena of business witnessed a shift of attention and focus from large scale industries to small scale ventures. This shift was brought to light by the growing demand of easily manageable business ideas rather than venturing into huge scale plans that did not have any surety of profitability or smooth functioning.

Evolution has always been responsible for breaking myths and false impressions along the way by changing the reality and allowing us humans to enter a realm of change. When speaking from the business point of view, the world has definitely witnessed ample change and shift in attention, but nothing in the agenda has been as tremendous as the growth of small scale business. To help readers understand the ground on which the topic of small businesses is being seen, it’s important for a certain amount of spotlight to be shown on it’s past. The category of the population who earned the much-coveted term of businessmen have always been considered as the elitist and coincidentally the wisest of all commoners in the strata of humans. Being wise in nature, by default business minds always encouraged change, upward movement, and evolution. It never might be the case that the world of business has suffered a phase of being stagnant and motionless. The world of business is a testament to what change can be and do. Traces of small scale businesses can be founds scattered in bits and pieces throughout elements of history but when focused singularly on the recent past, such kinds of businesses saw major fame and craze around the 1950s.

In the arena of business, the common public has seen much of change and evolution in the last decade or so than it has seen in the last century. Business and commerce have entered an era of spontaneous revolution like it has never before. Modules governing the rules of engagement in business have changed along widths and breadths of the realm of existence. The modern world is like an inverted mirror to what the world used to be at one point of time. Business, the term itself meant massive understandings and sizeable investments, a combination that was not too easy to find or comprehend easily. It needed a huge deal of workmanship and certain financial background to facilitate the beginning of any kind of company. Well, this used to be the case, thankfully for the greater good of the ever-evolving economy, creating a business has become a job which can be made into reality with lesser hardship and tantrums. Possibilities have multiplied in all directions possible and have been given way to make it simpler for young minds to invest in unchartered territory. Having derived its existence of what used to be known as cottage industries, small scale businesses have given way to small investors to create a masquerade of employment and new ideas.

If you are running a home-based business, chances are that your marketing budget is very low or non-existent. Don’t be that entrepreneur who gets jaded by initial success or disheartened by initial failure. Instead, try these easy, low-cost methods to promote your business and get the word around. Build a blog : A blog is your own spot n cyberspace to build your brand and make it known. Share your thoughts, ideas, write about what you do, share some tips for customers- there’s a lot you can do with a blog. Blogs can also be used for B2B communication. All you need to do is choose a host and decide on the kind of content you want to opt for. Be a social butterfly : Initially, it might be a great idea to throw a few mixers-invite your peers, possible clients, even people you might want to partner with in the future. Beside this, use tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram to promote your business. A lot of awareness and networking today takes place on the internet. Buy an ad : We know that you want to try and save money. We are talking about locally placed ads like flies with newspapers, ads in local magazines or a smaller space like a park bench or another public spot.

There are quite a few reasons for starting up a business at home. If you want to set up business outside your house, you have to pay an advance on monthly rentals, electricity bills etc. What makes a home-based business easier to start is that it has very little investment. Here are ten best home based business ideas that require very little money and effort: Babysitting : People who like to play with babies and take care of them can easily start babysitting where you just need to look after the baby in the absence of its parents. Unlike other stressful businesses, this gives you and the child’s parents peace of mind in terms of safety and security. Setting up a library : In case you have a lot of books lying around, you could plan and organize setting up a small library for the people of your locality. This you can be done with no investment. With time, you can encourage people to donate books and even turn it into a small reading club. Tutorin g: If you are a trained artist, tailor or a musician, can start taking classes for students who wish to learn art, music, dance, and stitching.