THE POWER OF NETWORKING - PART 50

THE POWER OF NETWORKING

PART 49

By Nikki Viljoen of Viljoen Consulting

Dr. Renate Volpe, in her nugget cards entitled “Networking Tips” says:

“Often less is more. Don’t overload people with information. Keep it simple!”

Aah! This is absolute music to my ears! I seem to run around like a mad person telling people to keep things simple - simple procedures, simple English, simple, simple, simple!

In days gone by when I still worked in the Corporate world, I remember everyone in absolute hysterics with me, when during a senior management meeting, in absolute frustration I blurted out “We should have a sign made that says, “Our new mission statement is ‘Why simplify things when we can make them as difficult as we please!’ ”

I mean think about it for a moment – we wouldn’t travel from Johannesburg to Durban, via Cape Town – now would we? (Well I suppose some bright sparks would!) Yet somehow we persist in doing things the hard way, making it difficult for ourselves.

I am sure we have all heard the words “It can’t be that simple – can it?” Well actually people – it is and it can be.

So make notes for your ‘elevator speech’ and again for a bit of a longer introduction. Make sure that your information is clear, that the sentences flow into each other and that they actually make sense. Keep it as short as possible – the longer discussions should take place on a ‘one on one’ basis. Make sure that the message you are trying to get across is understandable. Remember you know (we you should know) intimately what you do and you carry that picture in your head. What you are trying to do is put that picture into as few words as possible and hoping that as you say those words, the picture that you have in your head will magically appear in the heads of the people around you. Be clear and careful about this, there are a few people who I have seen and heard at networking meetings over the last two years, and I still have no idea about what it is that they do – their messages are really very complicated and unclear!

Now here lies the challenge – how do I refer someone, when I am absolutely confused about what it is that they do!

So here it is:
Be clear
Be concise
Keep it short
Keep it simple.

Happy networking!

For more information on Renate, please visit her website at www.hirs.co.za

Nikki Viljoen is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist and she can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za.

E-MAIL GANGS WINNING 'SPAM WARS'

Oh dear, human problem or not, spamming affects us all in our daily lives. Irritation aside, it costs us money and time and computer space.

This is one piece of technology that I can't wait for them to perfect - how to detect spam and get rid of the spammers - now there's a great thought to start the day with!

Email gangs winning 'Spam Wars'
Peter Griffiths

28 November 2006 at 09h14

London - Criminal gangs using hijacked computers are behind a surge in unwanted emails peddling sex, drugs and stock tips in Britain.

The number of spam messages has tripled since June and now accounts for as many as nine out of 10 emails sent worldwide, according to United States email security company Postini.

As Christmas approaches, the daily trawl through in-boxes clogged with offers of fake Viagra, loans and sex aids is tipped to take even longer.


Email clogged with spam
"Email systems are overloaded or melting down trying to keep up with all the spam," said Dan Druker, a vice president at Postini.

His company has detected 7-billion spam emails worldwide in November compared to 2,5-billion in June. Spam in Britain has risen by 50 percent in the last two months alone, according to Internet security company SurfControl.

The United States, China and Poland are the top sources of spam, data from security firm Marshal suggests.

About 200 illegal gangs are behind 80 percent of unwanted emails, according to Spamhaus, a body that tracks the problem.

Rise of zombie networks
Experts blame the rise in spam on computer programs that hijack millions of home computers to send emails. These "zombie networks", also called "botnets", can link 100 000 home computers without their owners' knowledge. They are leased to gangs who use their huge "free" computing power to send millions of emails with relative anonymity.

While Trojan horse programs that invade computers have been around for years, they are now more sophisticated, written by professionals rather than bored teenagers. "Before it was about showing off, now it's about ripping people off," said SurfControl's Harnish Patel.

Spam costs firms up to $1 000 (about R7 000) a year per employee in lost productivity and higher computing bills, according to research published last year. Home computer users are at risk from emails that ask them to reveal their bank details, a practice known as "phishing". The latest programs mutate to avoid detection and send fewer emails from each machine. Fast broadband Internet connections, which are always connected, help the spammers. The gangs send millions of emails, so they only need a fraction of people to reply to make a profit.

"This is a constant game of cat and mouse," said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs, an email security company. "The bad guys will not stand still." They disguise words to try to outfox filters searching for telltale words. So, Viagra would become V1@gra. When anti-spam experts clamped down on this, the spammers began to send messages embedded in a graphic instead of plain text. It is harder for filters to scan pictures. Random extracts from classic books are often included to confuse filters looking for keywords.

Anti-spam laws have had mixed results.
The first convictions in the US were last year, while Britain has yet to charge anyone under 2003 anti-spam legislation. It is difficult to fight spam because the problem crosses international borders, said a spokesperson for the UK Information Commissioner's Office, the body which enforces the law. Some believe laws and filters won't defeat spam. It will only end when people stop buying diet pills, herbal highs and sexual performance enhancers, said Dave Rand, of Internet security firm Trend Micro. "The products they are selling by spam are exactly the same products that they sold in the Middle Ages," he said. "This really is a human problem, not a computer problem." - Reuters

MOTIVATION - THE MIND

THE MIND

By Nikki Viljoen of Viljoen Consulting

Today’s quote comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who says “Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

Powerful words these, and certainly ones that I can relate to – actually they produced an “inside my head” type video and that I found quite delightful.

I don’t think I would like my mind to shrink back to it’s original dimensions as it would no doubt squash whatever epiphany I had just had, back out and it would then probably then be lost forever – what a sad thought!

Mostly though, once we have an new idea, it is generally followed by yet another new idea – how cool is that! All you need to do is go with the flow and pretty soon you will be spouting new ideas like they are going out of fashion.

Sadly though, most people , once they have a new idea, take the decision to go no further. So that is as far as they get and yet there is a world of opportunity out there for all of us to share. All we need to do is open our eyes and our minds to the possibilities and they will appear before us.

So let me ask the question – what do you do when you’ve had a new idea?

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist and she can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za

DON'T BE NAIVE ABOUT PHISHERS - THEY HARVEST A HANDSOME PROFIT

Sometimes it can be a very nasty world out there. Think carefully before you give out any personal information on the internet or your cellphone! Remember always that huge plots are being hatched in cyberspace and none of them are about putting money into your account and all of them are about taking money out of your account.

Don't be naive about phishers - they harvest a handsome profit
Debbie Smit

31 August 2007 at 06h55

The suggestion that eNaTIS was hacked is actually laughable. That's not me talking. It's in black and white on the "public" eNaTIS site. According to the website: "The eNaTIS system and database is still secure".

South Africans are no strangers to breaches of security. It is rare to come away from any social gathering - a Sunday afternoon braai, a PTA meeting, coffee at the mall - without having been regaled with first- or second-hand accounts of muggings, burglaries or hijackings.

No one, not even our closely guarded government officials, is immune.

Similarly, it would be foolish to assume that any online system is completely safe from attack.
Estonia is wired. The little nation prides itself on being tech-savvy, conducting much of its business online. About 52 percent of the population, in contrast to South Africa's 10 percent, use the Internet. So, in April this year, when Estonia's major power centres - banks, government departments, political parties and media groups - were simultaneously bombarded by Distributed Denial of Service attacks, apparently in revenge for the removal of a Soviet memorial from a park in the capital, Talinn, it was a wake-up call for governments, corporations and network institutions everywhere.

Little eNaTIS would do well to watch its back.

And now for the little phishers.

Capital outlay to launch a phishing scheme is tiny (about R1 400) compared with the potential catch that can be landed. According to Martin McKeay on his Computerworld blog, if a spammer sends out 2 million emails and only 100 people are foolish enough to submit their personal information, the exercise still nets the phisher a handsome profit. MailFrontier's site quotes the Federal Trade Commission as saying the average phishing loss is about R9 000. For a small outlay a phisher can make nearly a million.

This week we received two very suspect emails. Both looked legitimate because they were emblazoned with logos from Absa and FNB.

Neither was tagged as junk. Because we don't have an FNB account, it was clear that the email from FNB was a scam. The offending mail, addressed to "Dear Valued Customer" with the rather ominous subject line "Final Notification" suggests that, in order to "re-activate your online access" (shoddy spelling is a dead giveaway), it is necessary to click on the link provided. The email goes on to apologise for the inconvenience and reiterates its concern for its clients' security.

The second email looked as if it came from Absa, which is our esteemed authorised financial services provider. This mail, which used an almost identical modus operandi, was so dirty that when I tried to forward it to Absa, my email application spontaneously quit.

Despite continuing attempts to educate the public about scams, about 3,5 million Americans gave personal information to phishers last year. Financial losses from phishing totalled more than R20-billion. It is difficult to isolate any statistics for South Africa, but phishing operations are on the rise. McAfee Avert Labs saw a 784 percent increase in phishing websites in the first quarter of this year.

The irony is that while Britons fear virtual crime over real crime - the Get Safe Online study released by the British government reports that 21 percent of respondents worry about net crime while only 16 percent are concerned about being burgled - the challenge for the average South African is to hang on to their computers for long enough to have their firewall compromised in the first place.

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE - PART 7

ARTICLE 1

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE – PART 7

If you will remember, the sixth indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

6). the person is provided with the tools of trade or work equipment by the other person.

Well that seems to be pretty straight forward, doesn’t it. Obviously they are not talking about pens and pencils and the like, being supplied as tools of the trade, but it would include things like telephones and computers etc.

Should the person be provided with the tools of the trade free of charge or even if the person pays for them at some stage, this would make no difference at all. They would still be considered an employee.

The seventh and final indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

7). the person only works for or renders services to one person.

Clearly someone who has their own business, would not be working and/or rendering their services to only one company, so this is a really good indicator and easy to spot. The code is also really clear on the fact that is makes no difference whether that work is permitted in terms of the employment relationship or whether the employee is ‘moonlighting’ and is therefore contravening the terms and conditions of their Letter of Appointment.

Don’t forget though that it if any one (and not necessarily all) of the indicators is present, then the person is presumed to be an employee until the employer and/or the person proves otherwise.

I trust that that makes it a little clearer about who an employee is.

Next week, we will look at some of the different types of rebuttable presumptions, should the employer and/or the person decide to challenge the ruling(s).

TOSSING THE GREY SHOES

Well I haven't much of what this should have impacted - if anything there has been a steady decline, so I am tempted to say - show me the figures of what has been put back into place.

Tossing the grey shoes
Matuma Letsoalo
31 March 2007 11:59

South African Institutions of higher learning need to produce 1 000 more engineers and 15 000 more artisans per year.

Grey-shoe and red-tape salary structures in the public service are set to be dropped as government battles to fill vacancies. Gone are the days of rigid career progression and set-in-stone pay scales, says Lewis Rabkin, spokesperson for Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. Skills shortages in the state impact fundamentally on economic growth because infrastructure spending and development are critical factors in enhancing growth and wellbeing.

Rabkin says about 21% of state jobs are vacant and most of these are in critical areas such as engineering. The accelerated and shared growth initiative of South Africa’s (Asgisa) annual report, released last week, revealed that half the professional engineering posts in the public service were vacant. Of those filled, many were occupied by under-qualified technicians. The report shows that, of the 231 local municipalities in the country, 79 have no civil or transport engineers, technologists or technicians; 42 have only one civil or transport engineer, technologist or technician and 42 have only one civil or transport technician.

Rabkin said the reason for the high level of vacancies in the public service was that there was no effective mechanism in place to retain staff as the private sector is a much more competitive payer. “All occupations in the public service are remunerated by a single standardised salary structure, therefore posing a challenge for government to adequately and competitively remunerate the diverse categories of occupations, especially critical and scarce skills." “The occupation-specific dispensation aims to improve the public service’s ability to attract and retain skills.”

Rabkin said the dispensation would introduce unique salary structures per occupation, including uniform prescribed grading structures and job profiles, as well as progression and career path and opportunities based on competencies, experience and performance. “The dispensation will also include dual career paths that allow professionals and specialists to earn salaries equal to or higher than managers without moving into management posts,” said Rabkin. He said the implementation of this policy would start in July and immediately deal with the shortage of doctors, nurses and lawyers in state service. Rabkin said his department was also working with the national department of education on the re-skilling of engineers in particular, through targeted training. This was mainly because the output of graduates in engineering the country’s institutions of higher learning was not high enough to resolve the engineering skills shortage.

A recent study by the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) shows that South Africa needs to produce 1 000 more engineers, 300 more technicians and about 15 000 artisans a year.The current estimated figures produced by universities and universities of technology, formerly technikons, are between 1 300 and 1 400 engineers and 5 000 artisans a year.

THE POWER OF NETWORKING - PART 49

THE POWER OF NETWORKING

PART 49

Dr. Renate Volpe, in her nugget cards entitled “Networking Tips” says:

“Make an impact! Walk into a room knowing that you have something important to offer, that is worth sharing.”

As usual Renate is spot on the money! This is a great tip indeed.

I know that, since I have finally ‘got’ the whole networking thing and actually, I walk into a room differently and people have noticed. It’s like I have a secret weapon and whilst I am quite happy to share with anyone that wants it, it is actually mine and that is a very powerful emotion to have.

It’s like having your ego constantly stroked and it certainly puts me on a ‘high’ (without the use of any kind of other substance).

You see, in most instances – I know something that those people don’t know and that makes me a very special person. The fact that I am willing to share my secret with anyone and everyone – well that makes me kind of unique, don’t you think!

What ‘anyone and everyone’ does with the secret that I share with them of course is an entirely different thing altogether and that often is very sad. Actually I used to get very upset and frustrated, when people didn’t understand the whole networking context – now I understand that sometimes things just are. So I share with those that want to hear, to learn and to understand and the rest, well life will take care of them I guess, and at the end of the day it really isn’t my problem at all.

I look at the world differently and I see people differently, and it has nothing to do with whether I like someone as an individual or not, it has to do with that person’s circle of influence, who they are connected to and who I am connected to. It has to do with adding value to people’s lives and having value added to mine.

It has to do with having a secret that I am dying to share with you – would you like to hear it?

For more information on Renate, please visit her website at www.hirs.co.za

THINGS YOU CAN DO BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR DAY JOB AND START YOUR OWN BUSINESS

THINGS YOU CAN DO BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR DAY JOB AND START YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

By James Chiweshe

Many people who are employed secretly desire to be in their own business. In their minds, there is no better heaven than being your own boss. I am not sure what the statistics are, but I am willing to bet that the majority of employed people have at one point in the work career secretly harbored the thought of starting up their own business. In this article we reflect on some practical business start up things that you can do whilst you are still working in your day job.

When you do decide to quit your day job and become an entrepreneur, you will find it less painful and less stressful if you do a few simple things while working for someone else. The simple truth is that while you are working you have certain powerful resources at your disposal such as the internet. DO NOT ABUSE your employer’s trust though as it is never a good thing to leave your employer on a bad note. It is a very small world!

Here are some practical things that you can do before quitting employment and becoming an entrepreneur.

· Write or have a proper business plan written up for your intended business. This is pretty obvious, but writing a business plan while you are still employed allows you time to ponder the consequences of going it alone.

· Choose a name for your business and ensure that you do everything necessary to retain that name for when you start your business.

· Collect and understand all statutory forms that you will require for your business – Income tax, PAYE, VAT, company registration etc. If possible get copies of all the legal acts that affect your business such as health and safety, zoning etc and read them at your own leisure. You do not have to study them, but just have a basic understanding of what you can or you cannot do from a legal perspective.

· Register a domain name in line with your business. Again this will save you the hassle of trying to figure out your online presence in the future and you can also check whether your intended domain name is available so that it is in line with your intended company name.

· Design or have a logo designed for your business. This will save you the effort and time at a later stage when you start running your own business. You may not have time for such “niceties” once you are in your own business.

· Write job descriptions for key staff if you are going to employ staff. This will assist you in determining your staff needs and when you want to advertise for a position in the future you can just pull out a ready made job description.

· Investigate accounting software and compare prices. Even go to the extent of trying out demo versions. (Most good accounting packages have try before you buy trial software).

· Collect as much free information about starting a business, while you are employed and get to understand spreadsheets, financial statements, invoicing etc. This is invaluable as again, you may not have the time or the desire when you start your business.

· Attend as many business courses as you can before leaving your workplace.

· Try to reduce the amount of leave that you take in the year that you will be quitting your job. Increased Leave pay will definitely be a blessing when you start running your own business.

Doing the above should not cost you too much money and anyway you should consider it as part of your investment into the business

MOTIVATION - HAPPINESS

Happiness

The quote today comes from C P Snow, who says:

"The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: If you pursuehappiness you'll never find it."
So what is happiness? How do you, as an individual define happiness and what exactly does it mean in your life?

Well, for starters it’s firstly about the way that I feel about life, about who I am and what my purpose in life is. It’s about acceptance in terms of the things that I cannot change and the commitment (to no-one other than myself) to make a difference, not only in my life and the lives that my life touches, but also in the grand scheme of things and the big picture. It’s about looking at the glass as half full and not half empty and if the reality of the situation is that the glass is indeed half empty – of filling it up.

It’s about turning the ‘can’t do’ into a ‘can do’. It’s about finding simple solutions to what some people consider a huge insurmountable problem and then empowering them to implement the solution and thereby solve their own problem.

It’s about looking around me in absolute wonderment at all the beauty and the good things around me and thinking “Wow! I actually own all of this, through my sight!”

So whilst I agree that physically pursuing happiness is probably a waste of time, I believe that you can change your life style, your expectations and who you are as a person, in order to make it easier for happiness to find you!

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE - PART 6

ARTICLE 6

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE – PART 6

If you will remember, the forth indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

4). the person has worked for the other person for an average of at least 40 hours per month over the last three months.

Although this is self explanatory, please don’t confuse it with the fact that a ‘casual’ worker cannot work more than 24 hours in a month. Once they work more than 24 hours, they are no longer considered ‘casual’ and are entitled to company benefits. So please watch that one.

The fifth indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

5). the person is economically dependent on the other person for whom he or she works or renders services.

This one can be a real ‘nasty’! You see if the person works for you and gets 80% or more of his/her monthly income from you, not only is he/she considered an employee but you are also responsible for paying his/her statutory payments (such as PAYE/UIF etc) over to the Receiver of Revenue.

The person will not normally be economically dependent if they are running their own Businesses as they would generally have other clients too. Please understand that if a Self Employed person does only have one client, this does not automatically mean that they have entered into an employee-employer relationship as there may be other reasons that they are currently only working for one client.

Again, please don’t fall into the trap that because a part time worker is also able to work part time at another client that they too are self employed. This would not change the fact that a part time employee is just that – an employee, albeit a part time one.

This would also include a full time employee who chooses to (and is given permission to) work at another job after hours in order to improve his/her income. They too still remain employees.

Should a person be free to contract with other Companies and/or Businesses to do work for them or provide services for them, then this would be viewed as an important indicator evidencing Self Employment.

Next week, we will look at the final two indicators.

SKILLS SHORTAGES AND UNEMPLOYMENT BITE SA

This is Friday's post.

This is so sad, but the reality is that the Government have made it worse with their BEE requirements and Afirmative Action. Millions of skilled workers have left the county and we are left with those that need help and who cannot do the most basic of tasks as they do not have the life skills!

Skills shortages and unemployment bite SA
Clare Nullis Hout Bay, South Africa
23 April 2007 12:55

Simon Gungqa and dozens of other hopefuls stand at a busy intersection, their eyes watchful, appealing to motorists to hire them for a few hours' casual labour in a country scarred by extreme unemployment, coupled with a crippling shortage of skills. It's a dispiriting daily ritual for 26-year-old Gungqa, a school drop-out and sometime gardener with no regular work, who forms part of what South Africa's deputy president recently described as the country's poorly educated, untrained "army".

At a small community employment centre nearby, programme manager Tania Bownes sighs as she contemplates the 300 domestic workers and glut of gardeners on her list of jobseekers. But there are only a handful of carpenters, stonemasons and seamstresses -- and all the plumbers and electricians have been snapped up. "We have a vast pool of labour but a real lack of trained workers," said Bownes, whose WorkNow project tries to find jobs for unemployed black people living in an impoverished suburb of Hout Bay, an otherwise wealthy town. "Skilled artisans are like gold."

The paradox in Hout Bay, a coastal resort near Cape Town, is witnessed throughout South Africa as it struggles with estimated 40% unemployment coupled with shortages in almost every profession and craft -- top-level managers, teachers, engineers, bricklayers and welders.

The government wants to: train 50 000 artisans by 2010 -- requiring an annual increase of 7,500; more than double the number of students in higher levels of school and training to one million; and dramatically increase the number of engineering graduates. It is also drafting retired people back into the labour force and trying to persuade South Africans working abroad to return home. Even so, it will have to rely on imported skilled workers to meet deadlines for stadium construction, transport and other infrastructure projects for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, as well as provide services when the anticipated hordes of visitors arrive.

Although there is a worldwide shortage of engineers and artisans, South Africa is particularly badly hit because of the legacy of apartheid, which reserved quality schooling, training and jobs for the white minority and condemned a generation of black people to drudgery. The 2001 census showed that of the 45-million population, at least four million South Africans of 20 years old had no schooling at all, while another four million had limited schooling at primary school level -- about 18% of the population in all.

The government has made big strides in education and training since the end of apartheid in 1994. But critics maintain that some of its policies -- including affirmative action, which prioritises non-whites in awarding jobs -- have worsened the skills crisis. "The country has cut off its nose to spite its face," John Kane-Berman, director of the South African Institute for Race Relations, wrote in a column in Business Day. "The massive imbalances between black and white in the possession of skills have their origins in apartheid. A wiser government would have done everything possible to retain scarce skills despite their whiteness."

Kane-Berman - whose organisation last year estimated that about one million white South Africans had left the country in the past 10 years -- said there should be more attention to the shortcomings of current education and training policies."We see a lot of certificates in travel and tourism," said Bownes, of the job bank. "But there is a need for more practical training so they can go out and fix the toilet tomorrow. There may seem to be a lot of glamour in a head office but the money is in the practical work." Bownes says although many young people in the community are eager to be trained as carpenters or plumbers, they don't have the money for the bus fare to Cape Town training centres and would lose desperately needed cash if they were in school instead of working casual jobs.

Young people are disproportionately hit by South Africa's unemployment, which is officially 26%. In reality it's closer to 40% because the government figure doesn't include the informal sector or those who have given up looking for a job. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was named last year to spearhead two programmes designed to halve unemployment by 2014 and boost skills development.At a press conference last month, Mlambo-Ngcuka said that about one million new jobs had been created in the past two years, but the poorest communities remained too marginalised to benefit.

"We don't ... have a comprehensive intervention to deal with those people. Of all the things we have to do, this is the one I am most worried about," she said. "It is also the one that is the most difficult. It is also one that lingers on from what apartheid was about."There is "an army of people we must take care of sooner rather than later", she said. Michael Mafanya, who dropped out of school "many years ago" and had problems spelling his own name, was part of that army.

Barefoot, missing a front tooth and aged beyond his 37 years by a lifetime of disappointment, he lined up at the Hout Bay intersection for casual work. "I can do your garden," said Mafanya. "Or let me wash your car. I can do paving, or painting. Let me do anything." -- Sapa-AP

PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR SALE - MARK CORKE & FRIENDS

Good morning bloggers - this was Thursday's post. Mark's seminar is run from time and I strongly urge everyone who can to book a seat at the next one. Mark can be contacted on www.suitegum.co.za.

Don't delay, book as soon as you can!

PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR SALE
Mark Corke & Old Friends
12 November 2007

Today has been an exceptionally busy day for the airline industry in South Africa, managing the fall out (pun intended) of a motor falling off a 737-200 on takeoff. Planes have been grounded, and there is confusion and uncertainty all round.

Much like many of the businesses I have the privilege of dealing with while helping SME owners prepare their businesses for sale. Further fall out from the (almost) disaster is that I was grounded, uncertain and confused with respect to how I was going to get to my seminar tonight in Johannesburg. Radio stations reported that all flights were cancelled, then that only 737s would be affected, and finally that some airlines would be permitted to take off, but that there was uncertainty as to which ones.

We thought it would be prudent to postpone the seminar tonight. And so the telephone calls began....If we haven't got to you yet, and you were attending tonight, please accept our apologies. I am told though that almost everyone has been contacted personally, and for the most part are happy to attend the next Sandton seminar on 4 December.

Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
The Boeing 737-200 incident last week might have caused 100 odd business people on board to give some thought to where their businesses might have been, had the incident had a less happy ending, while a current client of ours is currently reaping the somewhat disappointing fruits of not preparing for disaster:

Ten years back, two friends developed a new product for an enormous industry in South Africa. The idea was that of the salesman, who I will call Sam. He passed the idea on to his technical friend (Tom). Together they worked to perfect the product which, while it would reduce the need for several of their existing products, would also create such a demand for other products of theirs, and would take business away from their competitors. Once the product was working perfectly, they sought to patent it, which they did, jointly.

As these things very often pan out with time, the two friends started seeing different paths in their business. And so they agreed that they would split the business into a manufacturing concern and a separate sales business. The patent would be shared and controlled jointly. Because their friendship went back to the "old Rhodesia days", trust was high in their relationship. Then Sam contracted cancer, and died within months. He had just enough time to adjust his finances and fix his will. Everything was left to his wife, including his business which she was involved in, as the accountant.

Well, here we sit, a year later, with Sam's wife wanting to sell a business which she is battling to run. Customers are falling off, and some are now buying directly from Tom. Although the patent was "shared", it now transpires that in fact it is registered in Tom's name!

What are the implications from a prospective purchaser's perspective? [This, incidentally, is a question you should ask yourself almost daily, in all aspects of your business.] In this case a buyer will almost certainly bring a lot of pressure to bear to lower the price of the business for a number of reasons:

Turnover is falling off, a year after Sam's death.
There is no continuity of expertise
There is no supplier redundency...
...a whole lot of other rather worrying situations, but most importantly to this illustration:

The major product is at risk, and it accounts for the major portion of the business.

Our job now, in the interest of the client, is to persuade Tom somehow, to do the right thing and agree to provide any prospective purchaser with a shared right to the product. We will sit down across the table from him, together with Sam's widow, and hope that he honors the memory of his late friend. Will he? She thinks he might.

In reality, legally and economically; why should he? These are the realities for the living, while the dead rest in peace. Think of it now, and ask yourself: "Is my business prepared for sale?" What are the implications for Sam's widow?

The business would, (but for the lack of redundancy, forward planning, security, and some other key issues) have been worth about R3,5M, at the profits reported for the last financial year.
As it sits, she will be lucky to get R1M!

There is some unpleasant negotiating to be done prior to the business even getting to the market, making this a doubly difficult business to dispose of.

Had some really key issues, not all addressed in this newsletter, been put in place, Sam's legacy would have been a much more impressive one!

Boyzangirls, do not make the same mistakes with your business. There are key elements, which are really simple to deal with, to be sorted out in almost all businesses. Look to them now, for tomorrow may be too late - not for you, perhaps, but for your heirs.
Cheers

Mark Corke

THE POWER OF NETWORKING - PART 48

Morning bloggers, apologies for the tardiness of these posts - been a hectic week. This is Wednesday's post. Enjoy!

THE POWER OF NETWORKING

PART 48

Dr. Renate Volpe, in her nugget cards entitled “Networking Tips” says:

“Resist short term gain, at the expense of trust and integrity.”

Now this is an interesting one! Many times, a few days after meeting someone at a networking meeting, I have phoned said person only to be told – “I’ve not gotten anything out of the meeting from anyone, so this networking thing doesn’t work for me!”

Oh how sad and how very short sighted! Here’s the thing see – if you go to a networking event purely with the intention of getting some work or selling a widget at that meeting, please don’t go. All you are doing is wasting everybody’s time and energy and more to the point disillusioning yourself!

Think about this logically for a moment. If you do a cold call and you manage to get past the gate keeper and in to see the top brass – how often will you make a sale of your widget and/or service at that first meeting? The answer is pretty much NEVER! So why on earth would you think that you could get it right at one networking meeting?

The truth is that networking doesn’t, but itself, get you any business! What it does do, is get you to meet people, far more people than you would if you were going door to door and cold calling. It is still what you do after you have met those people that counts. It’s how you build the relationship thereafter that makes the difference!

Networking is about ‘warm’ calling – once you have met or even seen someone at a networking meeting, when you call them up – even if they don’t remember seeing or meeting you there, once you introduce yourself and say you were at that meeting, they will remember being there to and it is easier to set up the appointment! Once you have your foot in that door, the building of the relationship can start taking place and the referrals of your own ‘circle of influence’, can take place and the meeting of the other persons ‘circle of influence’ can start to take place and big business can start being done. It has to start somewhere though and that somewhere is at the networking meeting!

So in essence, networking is about meeting new people in order to start building relationships. Once you have grasped that, you will be well on your way.

For more information on Renate, please visit her website at www.hirs.co.za

DANCING TO STEROTYPE

Oh dear! Me thinks the blacks and now tired of the 'black' culture of blaming everything on the whites and apartheid - interesting indeed.

Dancing to stereotype
Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya:
THE F WORD
06 January 2008 11:59

"The problem with blacks," my new friend says, in condemnatory tone, to the rest of the company, “is that we are too harsh on other blacks. You would think they are the only ones who do bad things.” All of us around the table are black. Some dare to suggest that there are a few things darkies need to sort out themselves before blaming the “system” for our sorry plight.

In keeping with that conversation, I will just have to be “too harsh” on blacks again. This time it is about the matric results. It would be naïve to ignore the reality that hungry children, pondering where their next meal will come from while in class, and those who lack the support of parents — who have to wake up too early, or arrive too late from work or are absent for the better part of the year — will always be at a distinct disadvantage. It is difficult to motivate someone who has seen older siblings trapped in ghetto life despite passing matric very well, because there are no funds to further their education.

Similarly it would be too harsh to ignore the reality of teaching quality and sufficient materials that would make learning easier for our kids in the final year of their schooling. But we can control the controllable. We can inculcate in our children respect for academic achievement and enterprise rather than the false glamour of social butterflies.

Perhaps it is my misfortune, but each time I try to watch Soweto TV it is about the new street talk or the latest music videos. Surely that is not all there is to urban black people. What is wrong with profiles of people who have, under the same pressures (often worse given the rampancy of apartheid) as today’s youth, made a name for themselves in areas such as education, business and the arts?

Black parents should question the SABC’s decision to broadcast a show such as Jika Majika (a youth dance competition on Wednesdays at 7pm) as part of prime time viewing, especially when children should be studying. Of course one cannot blame the failure of learners on one TV show. But when a show and its timing reveal what is important in the lives of our young people it is time to question why the show isn’t screened when kids are at leisure. For as long as we perpetuate the caricature of blacks singing (and dancing) when they are both happy and sad, we may as well accept the view that black people are there for the amusement and labour of their compatriots.

It is worse now that President Thabo Mbeki and his perceived haughtiness have brought intellectualism into disrepute and, in its wake, created the impression that what is needed in a leader is the ability to burst into song at the drop of a kanga. It does not help either that the place of intellectual rigour and academic achievement is slowly being taken by what one has to show materially as opposed to what is required for one to be iskhokho (one who is exceptional in his or her field). My friend will have to forgive me, for sometimes we need to be harsh on, and demand more of, ourselves if we are to break the curse of underachievement.

CURIOSITY

CURIOSITY
Today’s quote comes from the infamous Walt Disney, who says “Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we are curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
Imagine, if you will – never having the desire to do something new, or to the desire to learn about something new? For a Gemini, this is the most scary thing to even think about!

Curiosity is a natural thing – think of a young child as they touch something for the first time, or they discover something for the first time. The look of wonder and then joy that crosses their faces and how their expressions changes.

Or how about our animals, I know I am often amused at the antics of my cats, who ‘check’ everything out, like the grocery shopping bags. I often enter the kitchen to find all the cupboard doors standing wide open and I know that young Deushka (my youngest unmarried son of the feline variety) has been ‘checking’ everything out again to ensure that everything is in it’s place.

I am currently running a ‘Today’s Trivia . . .’ on the Business Warrior (www.businesswarriors.co.za) forum and we are having such fun! Some of the answers and the discussions that have come about as a direct result of asking a question, are quite astounding and it’s fabulous to see all the directions that the discussions take us. All because of a natural curiosity.

So don’t, whatever you do, stifle curiosity in your children or yourselves. Let it out and enjoy the travels that it takes you on, down the different pathways of life.

JOBS GROW IN NUMBER AND QUALITY

Well, whilst this is certainly good news, it is still a problem that these poor people who cannot find work, still have to endure on a daily basis. If all SMME's hired at least one person (even if it is just a domestic worker or gardner), this would certainly assist the situation.

Labour force survey shows modest decline in joblessness and a record 12.8m people employed


Jobs grow in number and quality
March 30, 2007
By Ethel Hazelhurst

Johannesburg - More South Africans are employed than ever before and job creation is being driven by the formal sector rather than by street traders and other informal sector occupations. This is some of the good news in the labour force survey, released yesterday by Statistics SA. It showed a modest decline in unemployment between September 2005 and last year, as well as a number of encouraging longer-term trends.

The semiannual household survey showed that the number of jobs rose 4 percent to 12.8 million in the period. Of this number, 8.4 million were in the formal sector, excluding agriculture; about 1 million in agriculture; 2.4 million in the informal sector; and 886 000 domestic workers. Mike Schussler, an economist at T-Sec, said the total was the highest in history. "The strongest growth was in the formal sector, which is encouraging because formally employed workers are more likely to have a constant salary and a pension or provident fund."

The non-farm formal sector had created more than 1.3 million jobs over the past five years, "while the number of jobs in the informal sector is more or less back at the level prevailing in March 2001", said Standard Bank's economic unit. "Relative to other developing economies, and more particularly Africa, this development is nothing short of remarkable as, according to the World Bank, about 90 percent of employment in developing markets occurs in the informal sector."

The improvement comes as job creation tops the economic and social agenda. The government's accelerated and shared growth initiative aims to halve unemployment by 2014. But jobs growth has lagged growth in gross domestic product, which has accelerated to about 5 percent. An increase in employment does not necessarily mean a reduction in unemployment, because the number of people in the labour force (economically active people) varies. However, unemployment declined between September 2005 and last year, from 4.5 million people to 4.4 million - or from 26.7 percent to 25.5 percent of the labour force.


The decline was spread across the four population groups, Stats SA said. Among black Africans unemployment fell from 31.5 percent to 30.5 percent and among white people from 5.1 percent to 4.5 percent. The sharpest improvement was among Indians, from 15.8 percent to 9.6 percent, and coloured people, from 22.4 percent to 19.4 percent. The drop in unemployment was accompanied by a fall in the number of discouraged work seekers, who are classified among economically inactive people for calculations of official unemployment. These fell from 3.9 million in September 2004 to 3.3 million in September 2005 and 3.2 million in September last year.

The latest survey shows that, of South Africa's 30 million adults, 17.2 million are economically active and 12.8 million are not. The number of economically active people has continued to expand, from 16.8 million in September 2005 to 17.2 million a year later. And since there was a less rapid expansion in the working age population, the labour force participation rate rose from 56.5 percent in to 57.3 percent. The survey reported steady improvement in job growth since 2001. "Employment growth has been particularly strong in the two years to September 2006, when over 1 million additional people were employed. As a result, 1.6 million jobs - more than 14 percent - were added between September 2001 and September 2006.

"Since 2001, 588 000 elementary (labourer) jobs have been created, 392 000 craftsman's jobs, 209 000 in sales and service, 209 000 at managerial level, 155 000 clerk's jobs and 115 000 professional posts. The survey shows that the largest number of people are employed in wholesale and retail trade, with 3.1 million, while 2.3 million are employed in community and social services, 1.7 million in manufacturing, 1.3 million in finance and 1 million in agriculture.Stats SA says the survey is based on information collected in face-to-face interviews with about 67 000 adults, aged 15 to 65, living in more than 30 000 households.

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE - PART 5

ARTICLE 5

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE – PART 5

If you will remember, the second indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

2). the person’s hours of work are subject to the control or direction of another person.

If there is a Contract and/or Letter of Appointment and the hours of work are stipulated therein, this is a really strong indicator that there is in fact an employment relationship between the employer and the person.

On the other hand, the lack of stipulated hours in a Contract does not necessarily mean that it is not a Contract of Employment. As soon as there is any kind of control or any indication that the person is required to work a specified number of hours within a specific period (per day, per week etc), this an indicator that the person is an employee as flexi-time working arrangements can also be present in an employment relationship.

The third indicator of how to determine if the person is an employee is:

3). in the case of a person who works for an organization, the person forms part of that organization.

This one on the face of it appears to be somewhat tricky. However it probably applies in respect of any employer that is in the Corporate arena. It would not apply to say someone who employs a domestic worker or a gardener, although having said that both the domestic worker and the gardener are obviously employees.

Let’s see if I can explain this a little more clearly. If a person does work for or supplies services to an employer, as part of his/her own business interests, they do not form part of the employer’s organization. So for example, I have my own business, it is a registered as a close corporation, I supply a services to other organizations, however I do not form part of that organization, but rather form part of my own organization.

So how does that make me different from an employee, who also provides a service as well? Well you see, apart from having a registered company of my own, I also have to bear the risks and be accountable for issues such as poor performance, bad workmanship, incomplete work, price increases etc. In the instances where there is an employment relationship, the employer would be the one to bear these risks and be accountable to the client – not the employee.

Next week I will continue with some of the other indicators.

MINING SAFETY AUDIT FALLS SHORT ON SKILLS

Buyelwa Sonjica, is fast becoming to Minerals and Energy, what Manto is to the Department of Health - an embarrassment! First the Eskom debarcle and now this!

As for the mining sector - wake up people! You don't have to wait for an audit to get your ducks in a row! You know exactly what the safety requirements are, make sure that they are in place and get it sorted. How difficult can that be?

That's like hearing a noise in the engine and ignoring it until the car comes to a dead holt and the engine is seized!

For heaven's sake, it's not rocket science!



Mining safety audit short on skills
October 8, 2007
By Justin Brown

Johannesburg - President Thabo Mbeki's call for all 700 local mines to have their safety checked could founder as the state's mine safety watchdog is facing chronic skills shortages and high turnover.

Thabo Gazi, department of minerals and energy chief inspector of mines, said on Friday that one in six of the positions in his agency, which has an annual budget of R153 million, were empty and that his staff, consisting of inspectors, doctors and engineers, were regularly being poached by the mining industry. Buyelwa Sonjica, minister of minerals and energy, said at a mine health and safety summit that she was concerned about the shortage of skills in all safety disciplines.

Mbeki had called to ask her to audit all mines, not only gold mines, she added. Failure to reduce the mine deaths and risks involved in mining was not an option, Sonjica said. However, Gazi said the safety audit of mines would have to be "prioritised" given the department's limited resources. Mbeki's call comes in the wake of the accident at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand gold mine near Carletonville, which trapped 3 200 workers underground. Gazi was not able to say when the department had last done a safety audit of Elandsrand. Harmony spokesperson Amelia Soares said the company welcomed the move to audit all local mines.

"Harmony employs 54 000 people and last year, regrettably, 27 employees died in work-related incidents on our mines," she added.


The Harmony event followed one of the worst accidents in the mining industry this year: four people died at AngloGold Ashanti's Mponeng mine near Carletonville last month. Sonjica said the accident reiterated her "need for urgent action". Steve Lenahan, an AngloGold Ashanti spokesperson, did not return calls for comment and Gold Fields spokesperson Nerina Bodasing was not available to comment. At AngloGold's operations in South Africa, 23 people have died this year. In the platinum sector, Ilse Meiring, media representative for Impala Platinum (Implats), said there was no one available at the company to comment on Mbeki's call. Implats' safety has deteriorated from seven mine deaths in the year to June 2006 to 13 fatalities in the 12 months to June this year. Simon Tebele, an Anglo Platinum spokesperson, said: "We are not sure how this is going to pan out. Therefore we will wait until we are approached by the department."

Ralph Havenstein, Anglo Platinum's former chief executive, got the boot earlier this year after the group's Rustenberg mine had a significant deterioration in safety: 12 workers died in the first half of this year, compared with two in the same period last year. Dorian Emmett, Anglo's head of sustainable development, said the group had "no problem" with a safety audit being done. Last year 199 people died and 4 000 people were injured in South African mines.

THE POWER OF NETWORKING - PART 47

THE POWER OF NETWORKING

PART 47

Dr. Renate Volpe, in her nugget cards entitled “Networking Tips” says:

“Your elevator speech should sound natural, be interesting and be no longer than 15 seconds.”

Ok, ok – I can hear you all saying ‘what’s an elevator speech?’ So here is the explanation.

An elevator speech is usually a ‘one’ liner that gives a taste of who you are and what it is that you do. It is used in most semi facilitated networking events, where everybody gets to introduce themselves to everyone present quickly. What usually happens thereafter is that you go round a second time and everyone gets a longer time (say a minute or two) to give a little more detail. It is used specifically, when there are a large number of people present and time is limited.

Here’s the best way that I know how to describe it.

Imagine that you are in a lift with Madiba (for those of you who don’t know who Madiba is – it’s Nelson Mandela). It’s one of those slow creaky lifts and he is getting off at the next floor. You have exactly that much time to tell him who you are, what it is that you do and make an impression!

Pretty tall order I know, but then if you are going to do something in life, you might as well do it properly!

Take some time and prepare something short and I mean short! I recently attended a networking event and one of the ladies got up to do her elevator speech and she took longer than the opening of parliament! Don’t do that – not only is it disrespectful to the rest of the people there, they also need to be heard, but it’s also extremely boring. People will ‘switch off’ and travel elsewhere in their minds, while you waffle on.

It must be something catchy, something that will ‘grab’ the attention of whomever you say it too. It must make them want to do the 30meter dash to your side, before anyone else gets to you – in order to do business before anyone else can. It must make you stand out in the crowd, so that they will never forget you – they may forget your name, but they will never forget you.

To give you an example – here’s mine (and no you can’t use it – find your own!).

“My name is Nikki Viljoen. My Business is called Viljoen Consulting. I am an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist and I prevent loss!”

Now everyone wants to talk to me – why? Well because there is not a single Business owner on the planet who would not like to prevent loss of any kind.

Remember it has to make you stand out in the crowd. It’s about what makes you different – imagine if you will that you are - say a bookkeeper and there are 5 other bookkeepers at the meeting or in the room – what makes you different, why should people do business with you and not one of the other 5? See what I mean?

Getting your elevator speech just right is extremely important, especially if you are at a networking event with a number of people. So take the time to perfect it.

For more information on Renate, please visit her website at www.hirs.co.za

COURT RULING SHIFTS BALANCE IN CASES OF UNFAIR DISMISSAL

Wow, this legal stuff is interesting as well as complicated. So it is in your own best interests to ensure that you have a good Labour Attorney, who understands and is up to date with the law, when dealing with sensitive issues like this!

Court ruling shifts balance in cases of unfair dismissal
October 8, 2007
By Ronnie MorrisCape Town -

It was a landmark judgment that had been eagerly awaited by employers and employees, and was of special significance to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and Cosatu, which obtained permission to intervene.

On Friday the constitutional court overturned a supreme court of appeal (SCA) decision that had severely criticised the labour appeal court (LAC). The SCA found that in deciding unfair dismissal disputes, CCMA commissioners should approach the employer's sanction in relation to misconduct with a measure of deference because it was the employer's function in the first place to impose a sanction. The constitutional court rejected this rule. The case involved the dismissal more than seven years ago of Z Sidumo, who was employed to patrol a high-security Rustenburg Platinum Mines facility.

Sidumo was dismissed for failing to apply established search procedures, but he contested his dismissal, referring the dispute to the CCMA.The commissioner found Sidumo guilty of misconduct but said no dishonesty was involved. It reinstated him with three months' compensation, subject to a written warning valid for three months.


Rustenburg Platinum applied to the labour court to set aside the award. The labour court dismissed the applicatiton. The mining company then turned to the SCA, which held the dismissal was fair. Sidumo applied to the constitutional court for leave to appeal. The constitutional court judges wrote four judgments. All agreed that the SCA decision must be overturned. They were unanimous that in deciding a dismissal dispute, the commissioner was not required to defer to the employer. However, the commissioner was not given the power to consider afresh what he or she would do, but to decide whether what the employer did was fair.

The commissioner must have regard to all relevant circumstances. According to Andrew Smith, a senior associate at law firm Bowman Gilfillan, the constitutional court struck a balance between the interests of employers and employees.

GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS

Great Achievements

Today’s quote comes from David J. Schwartz, who says :

"All great achievements require time."

I am pretty sure that we have all heard the saying ‘Stop. . . . . and smell the coffee’. For some of us though, and I am including myself here, time seems to run away!

It’s not that I am unproductive or that I squander my time, or even mismanage it – it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be enough of it ever! I sometimes get the feeling that I am literally running against time! There is always so much to do, so much that I still want to achieve, and never enough time in which to do it!

I am always impatient with people who waste my time, especially banks, post offices and the like. I am thoroughly irritated by people who meander through life, who seem to walk with no sense of purpose. I am frustrated by people who can’t see the big picture or the finer details, and yes – you do need to see them both!

I am frustrated by people, who don’t seem to know what they want, let alone how they are going to achieve it, and don’t get me started on people who profess to know what it is that they want but then when you chat to them it is clearly evident that they are actually quite clueless!

You see, although I can ‘talk the talk’, I am essentially a doer, so once I have had the talk and thought it through, I want to get going. Most of the time, I am frustrated by people, who still want to talk about it . . . for another 6 weeks (by which time the opportunity has moved on), or people who want to think about it for another 6 weeks (again the opportunity has moved on) or by people who are just plain undecided!

I agree that ‘great achievements take time’, but my biggest challenge is taking the first step towards realizing that achievement! If it is something that I can achieve myself, I am usually off to a flying start, however if I am doing something together with others . . . well, I think I have made my point already.

Make a decision and take the first step and for heaven’s sake just get going. Achievements take time, so I would still like to be around to benefit and enjoy the fruits of my labour as and when the achievement is realized.

SMALL BUSINESS CASH FLOW TROUBLES

And what can one say after that!

Written by Lanky Levy

"Small Business cash flow troubles are the main reasons for failure. The problem when sales are flat is generally a recipe for disaster if you do not have sufficient capital stashed away for just such an occasion. And generally speaking, how many of us do have enough resources to sustain us through those very difficult times.

A fable I was told recently may very well shed some light on one's perception of how to extricate one's self from these anxious-ridden days. Way, way back in Eastern Europe when there were traveling preachers and rabbis, a rabbi and his student were traveling around the countryside, and spent a night in each village, being hosted by the villagers in their extremely meager lives.

The rabbi and the student were equally poor, and were sustained only by the generosity of the people with whom they prayed and counseled. One night they came upon a run-down home with a barn at its side in a valley, at the foot of a hill. The couple welcomed the rabbi and student into their home, gave them a meal, and allowed them to sleep in the barn. The couple told the rabbi, that if it was not for the one cow that they owned, they would indeed perish. The cow provided them with milk. They sold any surplus milk that they had, and also sold the cheese that they made from the milk. In this way, they managed to keep body and soul together. The rabbi thanked them for the meal, and he and the student went to sleep in the barn with the cow.

Before daybreak, the rabbi woke the student and told him that it was time to go, and that they should take the cow with them, before the old couple woke up. The student was horrified and asked why the rabbi would do such a terrible thing, and the rabbi replied that it would all be made clear to the student in good time. So, they dressed and untied the cow, and left the farm. They traveled up a hill, and when they got to the top, the rabbi took the cow to the edge of the hill, and pushed it off the top, where it tumbled down and died. He and the student went on their way. Over the next few days, the student continually questioned the rabbi as to why he had done such a terrible thing to the old couple, and each time was told that everything would be explained to him in good time.

Over the next few years, the student continually pondered the problem of the cow. Eventually, the rabbi and student arrived at the very same farm where they had spent the night that they had taken the cow. But lo and behold, the old shack was no longer there, but high on the hillside was a beautiful brick house. The rabbi and the student went up to the house, knocked on the door, and the same couple welcomed them into the house. They were so happy to see the rabbi and were quick to ask him if he had seen the cow when he had left the barn, because the cow had disappeared.

The rabbi said that they had left the barn while the cow was there, and asked the couple how they had managed to become so successful. When the cow had disappeared, the farmer had no source of income, so he and his son had gone down to the town and obtained work in a saw mill. The owner of the saw mill had no family, and was very happy with the farmer and his son and willed the mill to them. However, the mill owner died suddenly, and the mill became the property of the farmer, who prospered and made a lot of money, which enabled them to build themselves a beautiful house and live comfortably.

The farmer and his wife told the rabbi that if it was not for the cow disappearing, they would not have been so comfortable now.

This, my friends, is the end of the fable. BUT, the beginning of a learning curve for all small businesses who are stuck in a situation of bad cash flow. Do you have a cow that is causing you expense with little or no return? Is it perhaps not time to get rid of the cow and re-structure your business? Not all cows are cash cows! Look around you, examine your finances, get rid of excess baggage, diversify your inventory, perhaps even sell or close down the business and move to a new project.

Necessity will determine how you can best re-establish yourself in an upward curve. Learn from the fables..... my grandfather was the rabbi!"

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE - PART 4

Good morning bloggers, sorry no post for Thursday and Friday - just too busy.

Here's Friday's article though

ARTICLE 4

WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE – PART 4

Ok, now that most of you have gotten over your initial shock and realized that you are actually an employer and that the person working for you is actually an employee and not a contractor, let’s get into a little more depth here.

The Manner in which the person works is subject to the control or direction of another person.

So what does this mean in English? Well for starters it means that the person is required to take note of and follow instructions, procedures and policies as laid down by the employer. Take me for example, I am an independent Consultant. As such I don’t have to follow the rules, policies and procedures of any company that I am Consulting to. I don’t have to follow their dress code, I am not required to be at work (on their premises) at the same time as their staff do, I can come and go as I please without having to ask anyone’s permission, I do not get a salary at the end of the month or a pay slip of any kind.

So basically if you have a “contractor” that you are currently in a ‘relationship’ with, in which he/she supplies you with only labour (for example) and you have to direct or supervise the way in which they work , then guess what – they are an employee.

Let’s take the example of a garden service. They come in once or twice a month, there is a whole team of them under the direction of a supervisor (well hopefully under the guidance of a supervisor). They come in, with their own tools and equipment and mow the lawn, trim the hedges, cut back unnecessary growth, etc., and then off they go. From what I ca understand, they are there for a limited period of time. You, yourself don’t need to stand over them and supervise. They know what is required of them and they get on with it. Your only input in this one is right at the beginning, when you set up the contract with their employer to say what your requirements are, in terms of what you want done. You have no say in how the job is done or what tools they should use or what brand of anything they need to use.

In an employment ‘relationship’ the employer has the right to determine which tools will be used, who the staff are going to be, what raw materials are necessary. The employer will determine the work ethics and performance boundaries and rules.

A very strong indicator of when there is an ‘employment’ relationship, as apposed to a ‘contractual’ relationship is where the ‘employee’ is subject to the Company’s, and therefore the employer’s, disciplinary code, company policies, procedures and Code of Conduct.
Next week we will continue with our more ‘in depth’ look at the remaining 6 indicators of ‘Who is an Employee’.