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Picture of Samantha Stauf

Samantha Stauf

Samantha Stauf graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in technical writing. She completed a six month internship crafting grant applications for an Idaho radio station. She currently works in the marketing department of a start-up. She recently became a regular contributor at Ms Career Girl and Social Media Today.
Picture of Samantha Stauf

Samantha Stauf

Samantha Stauf graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in technical writing. She completed a six month internship crafting grant applications for an Idaho radio station. She currently works in the marketing department of a start-up. She recently became a regular contributor at Ms Career Girl and Social Media Today.

Business Talent Management During Disasters

Snow storms have made their first sweep across the United States. Winter is here. And as we waited for the chill and the snow, many regions of the United States were rampaged by floods, hurricanes, and forest fires. Natural disasters are surprise attacks that managers and business owners must pro-actively prepare to endure. Natural disasters are business killers. According to Can Your Organization Survive a Natural Disaster?, “25% of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster.” It’s a depressing and unsurprising fact. Natural disasters can cause: supply chains to slow or halt. the temporary closure of the company. employee (talent)

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Managers: Warding Off Unsafe Workplace Culture

My friend, a McDonald’s employee at the time, once shared a story about an experience with a funny (but unsafe) workplace culture. His manager told him that if he licked the freezing cold ice cream machine with his tongue, he’d give him a free McFlurry. My friend took that bet. The result was a modern day reenactment of A Christmas Story. While he was able to remove his tongue from the machine himself, the procedure was not without a little blood and a lot of pain. It was an unsafe, unhygienic situation that should not have happened. Every day, thousands of Americans

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Preventing and Stopping Employee Fraud

Most entry level national chains kick off the hiring process with a fifty to one hundred word questionnaire. The questionnaire is often the first attempt to eliminate bad employees. Personally, I’ve always found these types of questionnaires fairly useless. It’s fairly easy to determine what the hiring manager wants to hear. The right answer is never clearer than when potential employees are faced with questions meant to weed out individuals who might commit fraud. Smart and unscrupulous job candidates who plan to rob the company blind, know to answer no to questions like would you take product off the shelf and

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Healthcare Franchises and Maintaining Employees

Over the last few decades, the franchise business model has flourished. People are more familiar with fast food franchises (McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s), but franchises have cropped up across all industries from car care (Meineke and Les Schwab) to healthcare (Right at Home and Brightstar). The “franchisation” of healthcare is unique because it allows non-medical professionals to open, operate, and run healthcare service establishments. The commercialization of healthcare brings a number of ethical dilemmas that new business owners must address. Unlike their fast food counterparts, every monetary and procedural decision will affect the health and safety of patients and employees

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A Path of a Leader: The Importance of Committees to Leadership

Leaders have the social sway to directly and indirectly affect the policies, procedures, and laws of businesses, industries, and regions. The pursuit of leadership opportunities allows individuals to attempt to make real positive social change. Social change that can not only positively affects your place of employment, but also your local and national community. You have the desire to inspire change? Now what? You’re only one person. How can you realistically reach far enough to positively contribute to society on a larger scale? Start by joining a committee at work. Work committees are a great way to practice your communication skills,

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Company Culture : The Magic Ingredient You’ve Been Missing

Company culture. Dozens of business articles highlight the importance of culture, how to diagnose the current company culture, and how to guide culture. Business owners and managers are encouraged to choose characteristics that will lead to a profitable company and encourage all employees to arrive at work with those principles in mind (see Creating A Company Culture Where Ideas Are Encouraged). I work at a start-up. The managers spent months ironing out the principles that the company would incorporate into our workflow which would become the culture. They even devised a fun poem to remind us how we should be developing

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Prepping For Telecommuting

Telecommuting is an enviable luxury that many companies are beginning to offer their employees. Rather than drive in a sleep muddled haze to the office, stumble to the coffee machine, and then begin the day under the glory of too bright florescent lights, you can begin to sleep in, roll out of bed, and begin work on your personal laptop. Before you rush into telecommuting, you should ensure that you are equipped with the proper knowledge, tech, and surroundings to succeed. Telecommuting can be a dangerous game for the unprepared. Here are four steps to ensure your work from home initiative

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Different Options To Pursue Education As a Professional

Learning is never over for professionals in all fields. The healthcare field requires constant classes to keep up with the rapid medical advances. Changes in federal, state, or company policy, could demand that current professionals receive further certification. Sudden moves across state lines, could require you to meet state standards not required in your original state. And let’s not forget the urge to switch tracks to pursue a different career entirely could lead us back to college. At this stage, you might feel the need to have a toddler style tantrum over the idea of sinking more money into your education.

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Preventing and Dealing With Carpal Tunnel in the Office

Maintaining top talent is a struggle that every company must face. So what do many companies do? Some create a kick-ass culture to be envied. Others give out amazing benefits that individuals are unwilling to give up. Still others provide the ability to determine when, where, and how they work. While identifying how to retain employees, managers and business owners need to analyze how the daily work flow of individual employees might contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome in their future. What is Carpal Tunnel? Individuals develop carpal tunnel when repeated hand motions (tapping keys or scrolling on a mouse) causes the

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Workplace Safety: How To Survive Working at Jurassic World

Most businesses have one aspect or another that could lead to employees being injured, maimed or killed. Nurse attendants must move heavy loads, zoo attendants brave cages filled with lions, medical laboratory assistants handle dangerous chemicals, and construction zones are filled with potential hazards. Despite the hazardous conditions, many business and employees fail to take the proper precautions. The Jurassic Park franchise is the quintessential example of a company who insufficiently planned for the safety of their employees. The Jurassic theme parks, islands, and businesses don’t have a good employee safety track record. The original movie, Jurassic Park, opens with the

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Telecommuting? Danger, Will Robinson!

Technology has rapidly developed In the last twenty years.In the early days of the computer, people spent their work days battling dinosaur hardware while bitterly wishing the technology would catch up with the scientific wonders seen in the 1965 television series, Lost in Space. By the time I eagerly watched Friends star, Matt LeBlanc, star in the 1998 movie remake of Lost in Space, software developers like PlaceWare and Starlight Networks released software that allowed organizations to host online conferences with live chat. The digital age was in its infancy. Years passed. Technology continued to develop. As the technology developed, companies

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Keeping Staff When Your Employee Benefits Don’t Cut It

Attracting good employees as a small- or medium-sized business can be tricky. To get around it you hire inexperienced graduates and train them yourself, only to seem them walk off to a larger company with shinier benefit packages as soon as you give the qualifications they need to get in. It seems to be the way things are: you train fresh talent, and then bigger, wealthier companies with life insurance, an incredible insurance plan, and more paid vacation than you can afford poach them. The costs of training new employees and the constant hemorrhaging of your best employees drives down the

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