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A Quick Guide to Navigating Your Administrative Career Path

7/31/2017

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As an administrative or office operations professional you know that the work you do is extremely valuable to any company, but planning your career growth can be a challenge. As the Editor of All Hands, a publication from Managed by Q about life at work, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with administrative and operations professionals about how they have built their careers and the advice they want to share with others in their field who are looking to do the same.

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Erica Ravich, the Marketing Manager and an Account Executive at Clarity Staffing, has worked with hundreds of job seekers to match them with administrative roles that are a fit for their experience and career ambitions and has expert insight into the different career paths administrative professionals can take. She explains, “I’ve worked with career admin professionals who love their day-to-day. I have seen them climb the ladder from a Junior Admin to Admin Assistant, to Executive Assistant, Senior Executive Assistant, to a Chief of Staff or Director of Administration.”

Other job seekers Erica has advised have been more interested in leveraging an administrative role into a different job. “I’ve worked with job-seeking candidates who took a receptionist role as a foot in the door at a company that interested them. After this initial job they have been able to shift into other departments such as HR, marketing, or facilities and operations management,” she says. So whether your work is a stepping stone or you are in it for the long haul, how do you build your career?

Start where you are

First you need to master the administrative or office operations role, from knowing every inch of your office to cultivating great communication. Be organized, collaborative, and detail-oriented. When Ashley Stires began her job at Tictail as the Executive Assistant and Office Manager, she spent her first nine months at the company focusing on tasks her job such as reorganizing the office and setting up a meeting structure. ”Organizing an office takes a lot time,” she reminds everyone.

Take on roles or projects related to where you want to next
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When you feel grounded in your role, begin to and proactively look for opportunities to take on different skills or roles around the office. After her first performance review Ashley at Tictail began to take on tasks such as payroll and expense reimbursement that had originally been handled in the company’s Swedish office, which then rolled into her taking over HR full time.

“While it happened in baby steps, in only two years that I went to from being an Executive Assistant to running the full HR function in both of our offices. I was able to grow my role because tasks kept coming up and there was no one else to do them and I got to work on setting up procedures and getting them into place,” she explained.

To grow in your role like Ashley did, Erica from Clarity advises, “show an interest in a specific area, and be proactive when the time is right about pursuing growth opportunities within the company.”

Find a supportive community or mentor to help you grow

Building a career that is personally fulfilling and professionally satisfying need not be a lonely endeavor. Finding a network of peers in your field (like OrgOrg) can help you understand how to identify opportunities and and overcome challenges. You can also look further afield and get involved in community organizations and meetup groups for professions you are looking to learn more about.  
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A mentor or career role model is also invaluable as you plan your next steps. Kristine Suh, who began as the Office Manager and is now the Manager of People and Culture and handles recruiting and HR functions at Chartbeat, credits a mentor as a key factor to her growth at the company. “When I was an office manager, the VP of People & Culture was very focused on fostering my career and said to me, ‘This is something that you’re good at, this is something that you like to do — I want to teach you,’” said Kristine, “Honestly, with the growth that I’ve had, having a mentor who said, “Hey, I recognize that you have this passion, come here and I’ll teach you,” was crucial for my development.“

Your career ambitions, as well as the companies you work for, will evolve over time. Check in with yourself regularly to ensure you are making the connections and taking on projects that will help you rise to your next role. For more career advice and to get to know other operations professionals visit All Hands and join our newsletter.
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Eleanor Whitney is the Managing Editor at Managed by Q. She is a writer, musician, and community manager based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2013 Microcosm Publishing released her first book, Grow, a field guide for creatives to build satisfying companies and careers. She is currently working on her second book, a feminist memoir, to be published in 2018.

Managed by Q
 is the platform for office management. Q makes it easy to run an office by connecting companies to services, including cleaning, maintenance, office administration, IT, and security. A solution for recurring and ad-hoc office needs, Q saves companies valuable time and supports office operations for thousands of businesses nationwide.

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Will Catered Meals Boost your company's roi?

7/24/2017

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​Companies can save money—and make money—by offering a surprising perk: lunch.
 
That’s right. Lunch doesn’t have to be a time suck or an isolating occasion where employees eat solo at their desks. And you don’t have to wonder when your staff, after going off-site, will get back to work. One company found that snack and coffee runs alone accounted for 2.4 billion hours of lost productivity. Catered lunches improves productivity, workplace morale, employee health, and your bottom line.
 
Save (and make) more money
 
A typical American office worker spends an average of $3,000 a year on coffee and lunch during the work week. For an employee eating out, an average lunch costs $11, but that per-meal cost can be lower when an organization provides catered lunch.


You may also be able to save on your tax bill (discuss this with your tax professional first). When a business provides on-site food for its employees; unlike the 50 percent deduction for restaurant meals, that cost may be fully tax deductible. Of course, some eligibility considerations apply for a full deduction, including:
 
  • Meals must be provided on the business’s premises.
  • The meals must be available for all staff. Providing meals to select employees (such as management) could be only 50% deductible.
  • Meals must be considered a perk or fringe benefit that’s part of employee compensation. 
Your budget or circumstances may not currently allow you to cater an on-site meal five days a week, and that’s okay. Figure out a catering schedule such as every Friday or Monday, that works for your business and budget.
 
The gains? Employees stay in the office, which means they will likely engage more with one another. That can turn into not only improved morale and company culture, but higher productivity.

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Improve company culture
 
Everyone appreciates a free meal, and your employees are likely no different. Free lunch is a visible perk, and it’s a benefit you can offer at a lower cost compared to other benefits or perks. More importantly, it can increase employee happiness in the workplace (up to 30%, according to a WorkSphere survey) as well as contribute to a greater connection to the company. Typically, the more connected an employee feels to work, the more they are committed and productive.
 
Free catered lunch can also assist your recruiting efforts, especially among Millennials, the generation now comprising the largest part of America’s workforce since Baby Boomers. Quality snacks and lunches are important to Millennials, but it’s smart to expect anyone you interview to ask about your company’s food perks.
 
Work and success are about relationships, and sharing meals builds crucial interpersonal social ties. In a busy office, it can be hard for departments—or even employees in the same department—to communicate effectively and build stronger bonds. A catered lunch helps employees socialize, which leads to improved inter-department communication, say, between sales and marketing or IT and customer service. Not only does that deeper collaboration ease day-to-day headaches, it also incubates innovation, cooperation, and initiatives that build revenue and productivity.
 
Improve health
 
Don’t want to think of it as lunch? Try thinking of catered meals as a core component of your company’s health and wellness program.
 
Absenteeism and working while sick contribute to $227 billion a year in lost productivity, part of an overall $576 billion annual health-related productivity loss. A Harvard study found that for each dollar a company spent on wellness programs, medical costs decreased $3.27. In practical terms, you cut your productivity losses when healthier employees miss less work due to illness, doctor visits, and medical procedures.
 
That doesn’t mean every catered lunch has to be a salad bar. It does mean, however, that you can balance your staff’s food preferences with healthy meals made with quality ingredients.
 
A good lunch at the office even has the potential to get an employee thinking more about their overall health and meal choices, which can lead to a healthier, happier, more productive worker.
 
Improve productivity
 
At the end of the day, though, office perks have to make up costs and bolster your bottom line. A catered lunch at the office can do just that.
 
Want your office to be more productive? Healthy meals can boost productivity 20 percent, says the International Labour Organization (ILO). Overall return on investment (ROI) for catered lunches can reach as high as 150 percent.
 
Conclusion

Instead of employees spending an hour (or more) away from the office, they could be on site, eating good food, engaging with one another, and discussing work issues and projects—all for the cost of lunch. Price out employee compensation over an hour for lunch, contrast that with what you may spend on a catered lunch, and examine the potential tax savings. The difference will likely surprise you—and show you a way to increase productivity, reduce costs, and bring improved innovation, performance, and revenue to your company. It’ll be time and money well spent—all for the price of lunch.
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Megan Palmer is the PR Director at ZeroCater. A news junkie and networker, she loves to discover great stories and the amazing people behind them… and then tell the whole world about them.  In her free time, you’ll find her off chasing the sun (and really great sushi).  

ZeroCater makes planning and ordering food simple for companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, ZeroCater specializes in providing companies catered meals for any occasion from a diverse range of local restaurants, caterers, and food trucks. ZeroCater currently feeds thousands of companies including, BuzzFeed, IDEO, Bleacher Report, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, ClassPass, and Blue Apron. As of March 2017, it is operational in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Washington D.C. and Chicago.
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A Zenefits Update with Sarah Blanchard, VP of Customer Engagement

7/15/2017

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Zenefits, the company that introduced a modern HR software platform, has some mega fans, and some harsh critics in the OrgOrg community. As an organization, we like to remain vendor-neutral, and we're excited for the opportunity to talk personally with Zenefits about where they are today, and how they're addressing some of the most frequent issues customers face. We spoke with Sarah Blanchard, Zenefits’ Vice President of Customer Engagement to get the scoop.

Q1: Zenefits has been through a lot of changes in the last few years. What are you focusing on right now?
Yes, we certainly have. I joined Zenefits over three years ago as the fourth member of our Support Team, and have been customer-facing since. I’ve seen it all from the front lines, and am the first to acknowledge that, historically, we sometimes fell short. However, our commitment to our customers is steadfast – we work hard to put the customer first in all that we do. One of our top initiatives is improving customer experience; this means enhancing our product offerings and improving ease of use, as well as focusing on how to provide better support and advisory services. We’re excited to continue to bring the voice of the customer into everything we do.

Q2: What are some of the really hard lessons you’ve learned?
Today, Zenefits is a fundamentally different company --in almost every way. We’ve taken these challenges as an opportunity to evaluate our company, our values, our culture, our products, and our support from top to bottom. We’re now a much stronger company, and a better, more responsive partner to our customers. We see this in our own data like reduced customer support ticket volume, faster support resolution times, and improved customer satisfaction surveys...and we hear it daily in our interactions with customers. I’ll focus on a few of the top lessons learned:
  1. We’re not only a technology company trying to disrupt insurance, but also a true insurance broker, operating in a highly regulated industry...and we didn’t have our ducks in a row the way they needed to be. The silver lining is we’re now one step ahead on everything as it relates to compliance, and have been able to share these learnings with our customers through our products and services, and with other companies through the free Licensing+ Salesforce application we created.
  2. There is a fine line between iterating on customer experience, and fundamentally changing customer experience. We need to do a better job of proactively communicating with our customers to let them know about changes, the rationale behind those changes, and how the changes benefit them.
  3. We’ve learned to not try to be everything to everyone. This means being very disciplined with the products we launch, and the types of customers we service. With our rapid growth came an excitement to please everyone, and our products and service level sometimes fell short, which is unacceptable. We now have a clear focus, and are diligent about deciding what to take on in-house, versus when to partner with best-in-class providers. We choose our integration and service partners carefully and ensure those partnerships offer a seamless customer experience, as each partner is an extension of the Zenefits brand.

We’ve learned a tremendous amount as we evolved from supporting our first customer in 2013, to more than 10,000 customers today. The learning process is continual, but we believe our “tough” lessons are behind us.

Q3: I've heard from OrgOrg'ers who absolutely love Zenefits and find it to be their dream solution that saves them time/money, but also from those who have been disappointed by unresponsive account reps, serious paperwork errors, and dropped balls when taking care of important employee benefit issues. How are you improving not just your technology and products, but your customer support and services?
As mentioned, Zenefits is essentially a new company today. We’ve made improvements across almost every aspect of our business with a focus on improving customer experience at every step.

Let’s start with the service side. Providing best-in-class service is one of our top priorities, and we have several initiatives in motion to get us there. An example is the creation of verticals within our support team to enable deep product specialization. Zenefits offers a broad suite of products and services --it’s virtually impossible for every support rep to know everything.

Another example is smarter support case triaging. We strive to help customers resolve issues as fast as possible, which means getting them to the right person ASAP. Our new online “contact us” process involves intelligent case routing and a call-back model. We’re able to have more effective and efficient dialogue with customers because --behind the scenes-- we capture who they are, and why they’re contacting us. And customers are responding positively to this change! I’m pleased to announce that today we have the highest Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) in Zenefits history with a 4.6 out of 5. (Our goal is to get to a 5, and we won’t stop improving until we get there!) In the coming months, we’ll launch even more channels through which customers can quickly and easily contact us.

On the product side, we recognize our customers have entrusted us to manage critical services and sensitive information (insurance, payroll, etc.) --and with that comes great responsibility to get everything right 100% of the time. We’ve gotten much more disciplined with our releases. This includes more rigorous testing and quality assurance. In addition to our internal processes, we’ve enlisted a company to test our products for hours every day, which enables us to proactively identify and address potential issues.

Q4: You’ve had some pretty big product releases lately. What are people most excited about?
Today, helping customers buy/manage health insurance is just part of what we do, but not the sole focus. Customers really love the interconnectedness of the product: from onboarding to benefits to payroll to third-party integrations – the data just flows! Zenefits is a powerful, all-in-one HR platform that helps employers manage the employee life-cycle, and build stronger benefits to attract and retain talent by making it easy to offer things like commuter benefits, FSA/HSA, and 401(k). Customers are excited about integrations with third-party technologies like Google, Slack, Expensify, Xero, Quickbooks, Greenhouse, and more. Employees love our new mobile app, which allows them to do things like request time off and access their insurance information remotely. We’ve also overhauled many core products --such as Time Off and Documents-- which are more intuitive and functional than ever.

Q5: Tell me about the Zenefits Customer Community. Why’d you decide to launch it, and how’s it going?
We were inspired by OrgOrg and the community you’ve built of tight-knit, collaborative, like-minded business professionals-- and we wanted to launch something similar for Zenefits customers. The Zenefits Customer Community (ZCC) launched in February, and has been a lifeline for many of our admins. It’s buzzing with questions and knowledge-sharing across everything from insurance contribution plans, to improving culture, to making remote employees feel more included.

Q6: In February, Jay Fulcher joined your company as CEO. What are you excited about with Jay?
Jay is a seasoned pro with a successful track record of running companies at scale. He is the right leader at the right time for Zenefits. He brings a wealth of experience, domain knowledge about the HR Tech market (from PeopleSoft), and a very disciplined approach to growth and customer success. Jay brought with him another HR industry veteran, Jeff Carr, who is Zenefits’ COO. Jeff was a leader at PeopleFluent, Saba, Taleo and PeopleSoft. At Zenefits, he’s leading our Sales, Service, and Support organizations. Together, they’re helping create a more operationally-efficient and customer-centric organization. I’m really grateful to work so closely with both Jay and Jeff.

Q7: If OrgOrg members have questions or feedback, how can they get in touch with you?
OrgOrg members can contact me directly at sarah.blanchard@zenefits.com. Any feedback is great feedback!  Also, in effort to improve our product and service, we’d like to invite Bay Area OrgOrg’ers who are internal HR Admins or external HR Consultants to participate in a luncheon focus group at our new SoMa office in San Francisco. Participants will enjoy lunch and have the opportunity to meet our team, influence our product, and network with one another! If you’re interested, please fill out this four-question form; we’ll follow-up with the date shortly.

Thanks for this opportunity, Kim!
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Understanding Employee Stock Options

7/10/2017

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Not many employees get any education on their stock options. This post is a good start…

STOCK 
Owning a share of stock makes you an owner in that company. If you own a share of Apple stock, you are a part owner of Apple Inc and entitled to receive dividends the company pays, vote on matters that come before shareholders, etc.

Apple’s stock price (any public company’s) can be found at yahoo finance, on CNBC, in the Wall Street Journal, etc. Private companies hire an independent valuation firm each year to estimate their fair market value and share price.

OPTIONS
An option is the right, but not the obligation, to buy a share of stock at a specified price (exercise price) for a specified period of time.

The exercise price is equal to the price of a share on the date you are granted options. You want the share price to increase over time so the difference between the share price and the exercise price (which doesn’t change), called the spread, grows very large.

There are two types of options, Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) and Non-Qualified Stock Options (NQSOs or NSOs). They work the same way, but ISOs are potentially treated more favorably when it comes to taxes.

KEY DATES
Grant date is when you receive your award of options and learn how many you get, the exercise price, the vesting schedule, and the expiration date.

Vesting usually happens over time and a typical vesting schedule is 4-year vesting with a one year cliff. This means that none of your options vest until you’ve been at the company for a year, ¼ of your options vest at that point, and the rest vest each month over the next three years.

Vesting date means you now own and can exercise your options (but you don’t have to).

Exercise date is when (if) you choose to use your options to buy shares of stock. You pay the exercise price per share, regardless of what the current share price is.

Sale of Stock date This is when you decide to sell shares. For employees of a private company, this is typically only after the company has had an IPO (or is sold).

Expiration date This is when your unexercised options are no longer valid, typically 10 years after grant date.

IPO
An IPO is an Initial Public Offering – the first time the company will sell shares (part of its ownership) to the public. The company hires an investment bank to underwrite the offering and they value the company, help sell shares to the public, and get shares trading in public stock markets.

Something else happens at an IPO – the lockup period starts. This is a period of time (often 180 days) during which investors, management, and employees are not allowed to sell shares.

BTW – you’ve probably been wondering how to estimate the value of YOUR options or shares. Here’s a simple approach – most companies’ shares are priced between $10 and $20 at IPO. So, multiplying the number of shares you have (or the number of options to buy shares) x $15 gives you a good approximation of the value you’ll have IF your company has a successful IPO.

TAXES 
The federal government has three ways to tax your income – as Ordinary Income, under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), and as Capital Gains on the sale of an asset.

Ordinary Income (like your salary) is taxed at rates from 10% up to 39.6%. The AMT rate is 26% but applies to a larger amount of income as some tax deductions are added back and other items are added in. Short-term Capital Gains on assets sold one year or less after purchase are taxed as Ordinary Income. Long-term Capital Gains on assets sold longer than one year after purchase are taxed at 15%.

So generally speaking, Ordinary Income “is what it is”, AMT is “bad” and Long-term Capital Gains are “good”.

TAXES ON OPTIONS
There is no tax due at Grant or Vesting date.

​At Exercise date, for NSOs, the spread is taxed as Ordinary Income while for ISOs the spread is included in your AMT calculation, and you may or may not owe AMT – this is the “potentially more favorable” tax treatment of ISOs.

At Sale of Stock date, there is tax due on the gain. Whether the sale date is less or more than one year from purchase (exercise) is the big determiner of whether you’ll pay Ordinary Income rates or lower Long-term Capital Gains rates.

BIG 3 CONSIDERATIONS
There are three things to keep in mind when thinking about what to do with your options:

1. Exercising your options means you are spending and risking your own money.
2. The likelihood of an IPO (or sale of the company) is lower earlier and higher later.
3. Taxes are lower earlier and higher later.

CONCLUSION
You now have a basic idea of the workings of employee stock options – feel good, stock options are a way for you to participate financially in the success of your employer! Download your Financial Check-up List now!

​

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Jeff Nordin is an MBA, CFP® who left the financial advisory industry after 20 years to found Core Financial Concepts. CFC provides independent & unbiased financial education to employees of great companies. We teach people the fundamental financial knowledge they weren’t taught in high school or college through one-hour workshops like Employee Stock Options & RSUs, Be Your Own CFO, Investing Boot Camp, and Estate Planning for Everyone.  Feel free to reach out to him at  jeff@corefinancialconcepts.com and learn more at corefinancialconcepts.com. 

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JUNE HAPPY HOUR IN SAN FRANCISCO

7/3/2017

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If you want to throw a great gaming party, consider Joey the Cat. The San Francisco OrgOrg Chapter hosted our June Happy Hour at their event space, which features classic games like skeeball and air hockey and can accommodate up to 100 people. They also rent their games and have an LA location, making them the ultimate Office Manager's resource.

Our friends at Zerocater coordinated a BBQ feast from Brother Baby's BBQ with finger lickin' brisket, pulled pork and mac n' cheese, plus beer and wine from the bar experts at Office Libations. 

The group had a blast getting to know each other over games and good grub. We even busted out some OrgOrg swag for the occasion! ​
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