May 17, 2023
We may be OOO this week on our company retreat, but we couldn’t leave you without another edition of The Manual Weekly! You’re welcome. (Got questions on your Trainual account? We’ll be back to business as usual on Monday. In the meantime, check out our help center!)
Hot off the SMB press this week:
STARTER PACK
Whether you take your team to The Bahamas for a company retreat (an SMB can dream) or send them across town to do a sales pitch, it’s important to establish a set of travel guidelines and ground rules. Otherwise, your employees might start swiping the company card left and right, making guesses at what they can and can’t do, or hunting you down to ask you a million questions.
Will they be reimbursed for gas? Are they responsible for covering in-flight internet? Can they have a beer with dinner? They’ll never know… unless you give them the answers ahead of time! In a resource they can go back to 24/7 if they need a refresher (or even in the palm of their hands if they’ve got the Trainual mobile app for iOS or Android).
👉 Put your traveling employees’ minds at ease with our Company Travel Policy template. Prepare them with expense reimbursement criteria, how to represent your business while traveling, and the guidelines behind booking, preparing for, and communicating around travel. All it needs is your personal touch and it’s ready to share with your team.
Can’t wait a whole week for your next template? Check out our entire template archive of free, multimedia-enhanced, and customizable policy, process, and role starters. New to Trainual? Try for free.
TL; DR
PACK YOUR BAGS
Hey, we’re not going to tell you what to do. But…
… we’d be remiss if we didn’t tell you that when you set aside time to gather and grow together as a team, all the evidence points to more effective team collaboration, higher attraction and retention, and increased employee impact. So, it’s probably time you make it a priority.
Now’s the part where you say, “I’d love to plan a retreat. But we just don’t have the money or the time to…”
We’re gonna stop you right there.
Before you come at us with all the reasons you think you can’t plan a retreat this year, let us be perfectly clear: You do not have to break the bank to plan a team experience that’ll make an impact.
What you do need is time set aside to show your team that you value them. To celebrate individual, team-wide, and company accomplishments. And to get everyone excited about what you’re building together, and the role each person is playing in your success.
So, nip those counterarguments in the bud. Because a company retreat is always worth the time and money spent. Here’s our proof.
👉 More reasons you need to plan a retreat.
ATTACK OF THE (CYBER) CLONES
Scams are everywhere.
Phone calls, emails, text messages — con artists and cybercriminals keep developing new ways to steal unsuspecting victims’ money and personal information. And while we can recognize their more obvious attempts (there’s a 99.9% chance that we don’t have any relatives in a foreign jail who need bail money), sometimes, people fall for it.
In fact, 95% of cyberattacks can be traced to human error, mostly because many people haven’t been properly trained to recognize and report cybercrime. And because of our growing reliance on the internet, it’s unlikely that these cyberattacks will stop, which puts your personal — and professional — life at risk.
I’m smart enough to avoid scams, and my business is protected.
Cybersecurity programs are crucial, of course, but they can only do so much. And if your team isn’t trained on how to properly recognize and handle cybercrime attempts, then it could be costly to your business — cybercrime is expected to cost the world $10.5T (T as in trillion) annually by 2025.
The more employees you have, the more you’re liable to lose. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?
Good point. So, how do I go about training my employees?
You’ll need to implement measures that will minimize any human-related errors. Here are a few ways to level up your company’s cybersecurity: