PeerFX HR Article on Manitoba Chambers of Commerce

As a teaser for our upcoming webinar tomorrow, we have put together an HR article that goes over 4 key questions for small businesses and of course included the answers from Raymond To, Founder and managing partner at Go Recruitment. 

If you haven't signed up for our webinar tomorrow yet now is your chance!  RSVP by emailing webinars@peerfx.com!  Our next webinar will be on online marketing for small businesses on May 10th. 

The full HR article is here.  Enjoy!

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PeerFX Power Tuesdays - May 4th!

We're starting a webinar series sharing knowledge for small and medium sized business owners and key management personnel.  Our range of topics run from recruiting the right people, managing your finances, online marketing and more - everything you need to know if you plan on getting your hands dirty and getting things done for your business.

Our first session is set for May 4th (Tuesday) and will be hosted by Raymond To, Founder and Managing Partner at Go Recruitment.  Raymond has specialized in IT recruitment for the past 18 years and was one of Business in Vancouver's Top 40 Under 40.  His company has sustained a high retention rate for all of their clients and Raymond is looking to share some key points on how you can attract, engage, manage and motivate your employees.  Join us at 11am on May 4th for this half hour session and register for it by emailing webinars@peerfx.com today!

Become a Household Name

Best selling author, entrepreneur, and agent of change Seth Godin blogged today about the importance of being a familiar name to your prospective customers and I couldn't agree more.

Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they've heard of.

As a web entrepreneur that runs a hyper-local technology blog reliant on advertising revenue through banner ads, this is often a benefit I tout when dealing with sales objections. While click-through rates wallow across many industries and banner ad blindness has become a threat on many high traffic sites, Godin still believes there is immense value in brand-building awareness campaigns.

It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads. Banner ads are fairly worthless in terms of generating clickthroughs... you have to trick too much and manipulate too much to get clicks worth much of anything. But, if you build ads with no intent of clicks, no hope for clicks... then you can focus on ads that drill your name or picture or phrase into my head. 100 impressions and you're almost famous.

Repetition breeds familiarity and eye-catching graphic banners ads still get noticed. So if you're breaking into a new market or just trying to remain relevant in your local scene, pick a couple sites serving your demographic and give banner advertising another chance. You're be surprised at just how easy it is to become a household name.

Daniel Pink

This past weekend was re-reading one of my favourite light-hearted commentaries on thinking creatively. Daniel Pink had a nice little hit with his "A Whole New Mind" and there is definitely some fun value in his stories and structure. Perhaps my favourite chapter in the book is his call to action on "play" - the idea that to engage the right side of the brain and become more creative we need to learn how to play again. Something that is sadly beaten out of most of us throughout our education experience (see Sir Ken Robinson on that one). The chapter fizzles out a bit by focusing simply on games, humor, and joyfulness - but it still strikes me that stress and "busyness" that we often embrace in our activities (especially our entrepreneurial ones) limits our ability and desire to playfully let our mind wander. So the challenge to lay down on this blog entry is that each of us should take some time this week to just get silly, play with some leggo, or use some jump rope. To see new possibilities and find opportunity in the world around us we need to foster a playful attitude that enables openness, creativity, and imagination.

The Tech Guy's Perspective

Greetings! I’m a firmware engineer with a bit over four years of experience in the industry, and today I will be sharing my thoughts on working for a large corporation versus a small startup in my field, which may be relevant to other fields as well.

Let’s first start off with the corporations first. Here are the good things:

• Lots of resources
If you need a new piece of computer/test equipment, you will usually get it. There’s usually adequate test equipment for you to carry out testing if your work calls for it. The amenities in the office are very good: the two corporations that I’ve worked for had their own cafeterias with caterers, and one of them even had its own Starbucks!

• Standardized work processes
These are corporate-wide processes that everyone needs to follow. What I’m talking about are things like writing design/specifications/test documents, getting them reviewed, approved, and signed off and submitted into document control, all before actually starting work on the project. There are also reviews of all your work before it can be signed off. All these standardized processes take time and may be really tedious, but it’s well worth the effect in the long run.

• Lots of room for growth
The corporate ladder is a long one. In a large company, it usually goes from new grads, juniors, intermediates, seniors, leaders, managers, directors, VPs, then the chief whatnots. You can keep climbing the ladder as high as you want as long as you put in the effort and do what’s necessary. If there’s no room to be promoted in your team, then it’s just a matter of transferring to another team so you can get promoted there.

Then we have the startups. Again, the good things first:

• Decisions are made in good time
Because the number of people is usually small in startups, decisions can be made within 1-2 meetings where everyone who has authority has given their consent. As a result, there’s no idle time where the team is just sits around waiting for the final decision before they get to work.

• The energy
In a startup, there is no job security. If your company’s product does not sell, then you lose your job along with the rest of the people in the company. This means everyone in the company believes in the product that they are building. When everyone’s sailing the same ship, everyone helps out. When all your colleagues are focused, you become motivated to come into work and contribute.

• Competent people
Since startups have limited funding, they usually only hire smart, hardworking people. There is no room for slackers. The teams are small already, and no one likes to be around someone that needs to be babysat.

• Variety in work
Again, because the number of resources is limited, each person may be tasked to do quite a few tasks that may or may not be related. It’s a great chance to broaden your knowledge set, i.e., more things to put on your resume. You will also find yourself constantly learning new things instead of doing the same old task over and over again.


So what are the bad things for each of the corporations and startups? Well, basically just the opposite of the good points of the other. So which is better? I have to say that each has its good and bad, and its better if you can experience both; just remember to take the good things you learn from one, and apply it to the other. If you love your current job, then by all means stay there. But if you were like me and got fed up with the way things are, then try the alternative- just don’t burn any bridges before you leave in case you need to go back one day.

Thanks for reading!

ES

What is a Start-up friendly?

Hi all, Yipe. This is Raymond To and I am honored that Florence has asked me to break the champagne on her boat called PeerFX. The last 6 months have been fun working with her and Julien,the other significant part of the team...and this is a great launching topic I want to share with those of you who want to consider working for a start-up. In my 17 years of recruiting and HR consulting, there is only 1 thing that makes any start-up work and that is "you gotta believe". I am not saying the drink the koolaid kind of belief but one based on research, creativity and follow-through.I am biaised in that most of my clients are start-ups but I really like working for them because the people who work there are in it to change the world! How cool is that? We all have limited time on this earth so why not maximize it by investing your time in changing the world?Another insight I would like to share is that you have to be a problem solver! This is not a cliche. I hate it when I work with an anti-start-up person who asks me "how do I solve this?" That is the wrong question! IMHO, the right question is "I saw this problem and here are my suggestions for potential solutions. There are pros and cons to each option but I recommend this one"If you ask any CEO or executive team member of any of my start-up clients, they will tell you this is the type of attitude they expect if you are going to fit in a start-up.A word of caution: Not all start-ups make it to the next stage for a variety of reasons. 90% of them fail. Most don't make it past 2 years. My attitude though is "so what!?" because the journey is worth it and imagine all of the lessons learned along the way.Do you agree or disagree? I welcome some insights or debate.