Of all the retirement plans available to small business owners, the SIMPLE IRA plan (Savings Incentive Match PLan for Employees) is the easiest to set up and the least expensive to manage. These plans are intended to encourage small business employers to offer retirement coverage to their employees. SIMPLE IRA plans work well for small business owners who don’t want to spend a lot of time and pay high administration fees associated with more complex retirement plans.

To make it in the automotive industry, you have to be hardworking, friendly and diligent. To make it in the automotive industry as a female, you have to be a confident go-getter, in addition to all of the above. Fortunately, the auto industry is attracting more and more of these strong, talented females, which means women have new career opportunities knocking at their doors. But why would a woman choose a male-dominated workplace over other options?

We all know that the recruiting process for a small business can be overwhelming and time consuming, not to mention how expensive it can be if the wrong person is hired and they aren’t a good fit for the company or the position. So, what can be done to help make the process more efficient and effective to avoid the risk of a bad hire? In one word: Preparation.

I got a call the other day from a fellow shop owner who needed to vent. He runs a big shop and gives his techs a lunch break every day from noon until 1:00 p.m. His techs got into the habit of going to the local mall and hanging out in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and often getting a little too loud. They were not causing any real trouble, but it just didn’t look good.

Is your shop a hotbed of employee conflict? Even if we look only at generational differences, it’s not hard to see why employees can butt heads and morale can suffer. Millennials are replacing Gen Xers, who displaced the Baby Boomers before them. Each group grew up in a vastly different world, and each has their

Companies can’t continue to recruit, retain and manage their workforce with the mindset that was commonplace 20 years ago, and that includes your shop. Millennials grew up with advanced technology, mobile technology, real-time data and social networking, so that’s what they know and therefore expect to see from their employer. Here’s an overview of some of those expectations.
Improving employee performance is a critical issue that most shop owners struggle with on a daily basis. I’ve discovered that building and maintaining a strong team of high performers is an ongoing process that requires a range of strategies, from providing the proper training to offering opportunities for growth.
