The top cybersecurity tips for protecting your employees — and your business

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: 

• A sample policy for everything concerning company travel.
• The importance of company retreats (or simple get-togethers) in 2023, no matter your budget.
• What to do about cybercriminals targeting your employees.

STARTER PACK

Template of the week: Company Travel Policy

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

This week's highlight reel

• Rise up. Starting June 1, you may be eligible to apply for the Comcast RISE program, which is awarding businesses in five cities a $5K grant and other helpful resources. And if your city didn’t make the list, here’s a reminder to check out your city and state websites — many also offer grant opportunities for local businesses.
• Mind the gap. The largest employer in the U.S. (AKA, the federal government) is making moves to close the gender pay gap. The proposed regulation would ban salary history questions in federal agency job interviews, which have often been used to determine pay offers. While it won’t solve everything about the pay gap issue, we love a step in the right direction.
• To stream or not to stream. That is no longer the question for the main streaming platforms who are increasingly less worried about streaming subscription numbers and more concentrated on profitability. Too bad they’ve decided to raise prices and cut costs to make it happen. If only everyone could all just get along and create one big streaming service for us to share with our great aunt twice-removed.
• Hot sauce! Cholula fans, rejoice! The iconic hot sauce brand is officially expanding its category offerings with the launch of its salsa and taco seasoning lines. Still, making a pivot like this after 100 years of hot sauce domination? That takes some big… tomatoes.

PACK YOUR BAGS

Do you need to plan a 2023 company retreat? (Hint: Yes!)

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.

• It boosts creativity. Before making ideas happen, you need those awe-inspiring revelations. And 34% of employees say they’ve had their most creative ideas on company or executive retreats. If a secluded yoga shesh or food tour can get the wheels turning, do it!
• It adds to offered benefits. A staggering 83% of employees consider corporate travel to be a major perk of their position. (Hello, applicants. Yes, we are a great place to work.)
• It tells employees you care. An intentional day off of work for everyone to visit the local amusement park or have a company picnic goes farther than you’d think. Because when you do something nice for your team, it shows them you value who they are (not just what they do).

‍👉 More reasons you need to plan a retreat.

ATTACK OF THE (CYBER) CLONES

Cybercriminals are targeting employees. Here’s how to protect your SMB.

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:

• Schedule periodic training sessions that will strengthen your employees’ awareness and ability to recognize scams. Teach them what phishing emails look like, how to handle data securely, and when to avoid opening certain attachments and links — and document everything in your Trainual so your employees can reference their training whenever they want.
• Promote open dialogue about cyberattacks in your team’s internal communication channels. Everyone should know about any recent attempts, in case they receive similar emails or messages. 
• Enable multifactor authentication (MFA), which adds extra security for your protected accounts — just in case someone manages to figure out your employees’ passwords.

👉 Learn more about cybersecurity measures.