Community Weekly Report 2

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COMMUNITY WEEKLY REPORT

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Volume 3, Edition 2

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Page 2

Inspire, Inform & Educate

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January 13 - January 19, 2022

Steps To Help

Small Businesses Emerge From COVID-19 Challenges

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Page 2 What Every Small Business Owner Should Know Today

Page 3 Smart Flu Prevention Tips for Workplaces

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2 | December 30 - January 5, 2021

Community Weekly Report BUSINESS

BUSINESS

Steps To Help

Small Businesses Emerge From COVID-19 Challenges By d-mars.com News Provider

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has impacted small businesses across the country in numerous ways. From new health guidelines and supply chain woes to hurdles with hiring and retaining employees, weathering the dramatically altered business landscape continues to be challenging for small businesses.

This has been especially difficult for small businesses of 100 employees or less. While the pandemic has affected each organization differently, navigating the tight labor market amidst the pandemic is a shared problem without a simple solution.

"A close connection to an organization's mission and a more personal work environment used to be enough for people to want to work at small businesses, but expectations have changed," said Zarifa Reynolds, Head of Strategic Growth Markets & Small Business Segment at Guardian. "A mission-driven intimate work environment is no longer enough to attract talent and retain employees as they are looking for employers to provide them with a great place to work as well as provide resources to address their health, wealth and lifestyle needs."

This evolving reality for small businesses is highlighted in the 10th Annual Workplace Benefits Study from Guardian titled "Inflection Point: How Small Businesses are Emerging from COVID-19." The report highlights some of the strategies small businesses should consider to help them attract and retain talent, including:

Flexiblework workpolicies policies Flexible The pandemic accelerated the trend for flexible work policies. Investing in collaborative technology and communicating regularly with employees helps maintain workplace connectivity and boosts productivity, whether a workforce is in-house, remote or hybrid.

In fact, nearly six in 10 small firms plan to continue remote work in some capacity in the future. Continued agility as work cultures change is essential.

Additionally, changing work dynamics during the pandemic has prompted small businesses to focus on disability programs and paid leave policies, including paid sick time. Offering flexible scheduling allows employees to adjust their work hours to accommodate their personal lives, such as for caregiving responsibilities, childcare needs, or personal health conditions.

Voluntarybenefits benefits Voluntary Many small firms have faced revenue and staffing losses during the pandemic, yet overall have improved employee benefits. These important actions directly impact hiring and retention, making small businesses more competitive as they look to attract and retain talent.

While small business owners might have ideas about noteworthy benefits to add, most are seeking strategic guidance from a benefits broker, consultant, or individual agent. Specifically, small business decisionmakers have

leveraged the deep knowledge of industry professionals for guidance on voluntary benefits and technology solutions that will help them standout in the competitive marketplace for talent.

A notable trend within the small business segment is the growing interest in voluntary benefits, also known as supplemental health, which can either be a shared cost between employer and employee or paid solely by the employee. Voluntary life insurance products have been increasingly popular as employees seek to protect themselves and their families. Additional voluntary benefits such as accident insurance, hospital indemnity, and shortand long-term disability are also gaining traction among small businesses.

Mental Mentalhealth healthand andwell-being well-being Nearly half (46%) of small firms offered a wellness program in 2021 compared to only 23% in 2018, showcasing a trend of small businesses prioritizing employee health and well-being. Most small firms also took some action to help improve employees' physical (65%) and mental health (76%) during the pandemic.

Some top wellness programs for small business employees include: * Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that offer a range of services such as mental health and substance abuse counseling, financial guidance, and legal advice. * Wellness initiatives that promote better nutrition, fitness, and overall health awareness. * Telehealth medical and dental consultations for evaluations, diagnosis, and treatment through digital channels. * Mental health resources, such as access to counselors or meditation apps.

Technology Technology Offering benefits has become increasingly important for small businesses to attract and retain employees, but many are overwhelmed by the complexity of the process and ensuring that their employees receive a good customer experience. This is especially true for organizations that don't have a dedicated HR manager. Fortunately, technology can help overcome barriers.

In addition to investing in technologies that support remote work functions such as employee collaboration and customer service, many small businesses are offering technologies for human resource functions as well. In fact, nearly all (96%) of small firms now outsource one or more HR functions to an external third party, including payroll (91%), benefits enrollment (78%) and ongoing benefits administration (75%).

"Small businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, but the pandemic has hit them particularly hard. Sharing these insights on how small businesses have continued to support their employees by providing needed benefits has helped these businesses and their employees to thrive," said Reynolds.

What Every Small

Business Owner Should Know Today By d-mars.com News Provider

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iven how much has changed about the way people do business over the last few years, experts say it may be time for entrepreneurs to rethink how they store and protect company data, and collaborate with their teams.

According to Brian Mallari, a marketing director in Western Digital’s hard drive business unit, a shared storage or network attached storage (NAS) solution can help, and here’s why: • Cost: As every owner of a small- or mid-sized business (SMB) knows, cutting costs without cutting corners is key to protecting the bottom line. While cloud storage fees can incur ongoing costs, adopting a NAS solution is a great way to pay once while keeping sensitive data local to the office or home.

• Capacity: Before selecting a storage solution, consider your needs. From wedding photographers to graphic designers, many businesses need a storage solution that can grow over time.

Popular NAS storage drives for small and medium businesses, such as the WD Red family of products from Western Digital, range in capacity from 1 terabyte (TB) to 18TBs, making them a good solution for those who work with large amounts of data.

• A shifting workplace: With hybrid and remote workplaces becoming the norm for businesses of all sizes, this has added new challenges for business owners and their staff wishing to easily collaborate, edit files and work with shared files and databases. With a NAS storage system, all users’ PCs and laptops can be assigned permission to access the storage solution, giving them the ability to load files and data wirelessly or via connected ports. What’s more, such a system can help protect your team’s work and data against loss from a network outage or potential cyberattacks, as remote/ home data can be backed up to the storage device itself at the office. Because NAS solutions use several hard drives, they can provide protection of data via redundancy, also referred to as RAID. In other words, should one drive fail, the data lives on.

• Getting set up: Getting set up with a SMB NAS storage system is easy. The solutions are available at consumer electronics stores and online, and you can choose from a NAS system that includes from two to 24 slots or “bays” for hard drives to make sure all your data is covered. Most NAS solutions, especially twoand four-bay solutions, can simply plug into an internet router via Ethernet.

To learn more about NAS-ready data storage options, visit westerndigital.com.

“In today’s world, small- and mid-sized businesses need both reliable, affordable data storage solutions, as well as tools that allow for collaboration among workers near and far,” says Mallari. “Rethinking how data is stored can help entrepreneurs achieve both these goals.”

Source: BPT

Experience Our World of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Communication

Source: StatePoint

December 30 - January 5, 2021 | 3

Community Weekly Report HEALTH

Smart Flu Prevention Tips for Workplaces home and care for sick family members.

• Advise employees to stay home if they feel ill.

Individuals with the flu should stay home for at least four to five days after symptoms begin.

• Ask unwell employees to go home. Employees who appear to have flu symptoms at the workplace should be promptly separated from others and asked to recover at home.

• Provide facial tissue, no-touch trash cans, handwashing stations, as well as alcohol-based hand sanitizer to promote preventive actions.

• Provide signage, such as posters and flyers, that explains healthy habits and employee policies.

• Help promote flu vaccination among your staff.

By d-mars.com News Provider

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t’s estimated that influenza sent up to 400,000 people to the hospital with flu complications and caused an estimated 22,000 deaths in the United States in the 2019-2020 flu season. As more Americans return to their workplaces, employers can play an important role in flu prevention.

While experts aren’t exactly sure what the upcoming flu season will look like, relaxed COVID-19 preventative measures such as physical distancing, reduced travel, staying home and strict mask-wearing policies, will likely result in the return of seasonal flu. And because of a mild 2020-2021 influenza season, the 20212022 flu season may begin early and could be severe.

Vaccination is the best way to help protect against the flu and over the course of over 50 years, hundreds of millions of Americans have safely received routine flu shots. Build vaccine confidence by addressing employees’ questions and concerns and by sharing accurate scientific information and facts. Offer vaccination opportunities in the workplace or nearby in the community, as well as paid time off for vaccine appointments and recovery from illness. For more workplace flu prevention tips and insights, visit lung.org/fend-offflu.

“All employers should actively promote healthy habits to help prevent the spread of flu, address barriers, and make it easier for employees to get vaccinated at their earliest opportunity,” says

Albert Rizzo, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Lung Association. “Keeping staff healthy

benefits not only individual workers, but employers too, making flu prevention not only an obligation, but a smart business strategy.”

As part of its Fend Off Flu campaign, the American Lung Association in partnership with Anthem Foundation is offering these tips to help businesses and organizations prevent the spread of flu and other illnesses in the workplace: • Offer flexible paid sick leave policies to encourage employees who fall ill to recover without fear of lost wages.

• Offer telework policies that allow employees to stay

Influenza is a potentially serious disease that can lead to hospitalization, severe complications and death. Because people spend so much of their time in the workplace, employers have a special obligation and opportunity to help reduce employees’ risk for contracting flu.

Experience Our World of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Communication

Source: StatePoint

4 | December 30 - January 5, 2021

Community Weekly Report

Experience Our World of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Communication