How to Use Google Calendar for Business

How to Use Google Calendar for Business

Google Calendar is a great free tool to keep up with both your work and personal responsibilities. It’s easy to use and can be synced across all your devices. Here are a few tips for being more efficient with Google Calendar.

Change Your Timezone

If you are working remotely with a company in another time zone, you can easily change the time zone in the settings. This way, you can easily stay on track of events and deadlines in other countries. You can add multiple time zones if needed. Alternatively, you can click on the Show World Clock option to display different time zones on your calendar.

Get Notifications

In the event notifications settings, you can choose which notifications to get about events, canceled events, event changes, and so on. Never miss an important meeting again.

Create an Event Quickly

You can add an event to Google Calendar without even opening it. Just search “add event” or “make an appointment” in your browser bar or on Google.com, and type in the day and time. Google will automatically give you the option of adding an event to your calendar. You can also use Google Assistant on your smartphone for this by using Google Voice commands.

Browse Interesting Calendars

In the Add Calendar option in your settings, you can click on Browse Calendars of Interest in order to add new event reminders to your calendar. You can choose calendars of different religions to be reminded of religious holidays. There are also all sorts of sports calendars if you are a fan of specific sports. You can show phases of the moon as well. Of course, you can simply add a co-worker’s or employer’s calendar as well to stay in touch with work responsibilities.

For more IT help and computer tips, contact us today. 

Stress is a Killer – Especially to Your Business’ Operations

Stress is a Killer - Especially to Your Business’ Operations

There are situations that happen every day that can be extraordinarily stressful for people. Some people are better under duress, while some people fold like origami, but no matter what type of person you are, the workplace is one of the biggest stressors for human beings. Today, we’ll review some sources of stress and how people react to it.

What is Stress?

Stress is a physical response from the body during adverse or challenging situations. While it is credited of saving humanity, it’s also can be a complete detriment to a worker’s well-being. When stressed, humans typically go into flight or fight mode. If the danger is too great to fight, stress-based fear will tell you that you should flee. Nowadays, a third response is recognized by experts. Some people, despite the hereditary response to stress being what it is, will freeze. Mental health professionals call this dysregulation.

Stress is a Big Problem for Today’s Workers

Stress comes with expectations. When expectations get unrealistic, workers get stressed out. There are several stressors that the modern worker has to deal with. They include:

Physical Stressors

Stressors that create stress on the body. They typically take the form of situations in the workplace like excessive noise, unpleasant smells, or physical discomfort.

Social Stressors

Stressors that cause tension among contemporaries. These could come from relationships you’ve forged, or ones that were forced on you.

Career Stressors

A lot of people find their careers to be stressful. Not getting advancement opportunities, a lack of job security, or the frustration of being overqualified for a position can cause a great deal of stress. There are other kinds of stressors that are closely related. They include:

Task Stressors

People’s jobs often brings with them tasks that are unenviable. Tasks that are highly complex or mind-numbingly monotonous can be stressful, but most task-based stressors will be from being asked to complete difficult work quickly.

Role Stressors

If you are pulled between departments, with no real definitive role, it can cause a lot of stress. Moreover, it can cause stress if your work role interferes with your home life.

Schedule Stressors

If you don’t have a consistent schedule or are expected to work for long stretches of time, it can result in built-up stress.

Organizational Change Stressors

For people, change is often rough. When situations like mergers, corporate downsizing, or new technology implementations are present, it’s easy to get stressed out.

Traumatic Stressors

Probably the most obvious. When situations happen that make you question your idea of self, stress is almost always prevalent.

For the business owner, it has to be a consideration that most of your staff is susceptible to work-related stress. Some workers are better at hiding it than others, but if you consider a situation stressful, imagine what your subordinates, who are often taking the brunt of the organization’s stress on themselves, are feeling.

Reducing Stress

Fortunately for most workers and business owners, stress can be managed. Little things you can do are getting your staff up and moving as exercise is known to significantly reduce stress. Another suggestion is to try to stay positive in your communications with your subordinates. Ranting and raving and blaming people for a lack of perceived productivity is not a good way to deal with a stressed-out workforce.

For the worker, the best way to avoid workplace stress is to get a good night’s sleep and prioritize your mental and physical health over the business that you work for. If you are constantly suffering from stress-related malaise, it may be time to think more positively, or to move on from the job that you have.

For the business owner or manager who presides over a high-stress environment, you may want to consider cutting down your meetings so that your staff can stay productive without interruptions bogging down operations and causing even more stress.

Studies have shown that nowadays, changing technology is considered a very stressful situation, so having a plan in place that will include training, while trying to keep workers from being stressed out, is extremely advantageous for the modern entrepreneur.

At WheelHouse IT our consultants know how to keep your business running efficiently.

Call us at (877) 771-2384 today.

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How a Managed Service Provider Can Support Your Internal IT Team

How a Managed Service Provider Can Support Your Internal IT Team

Many businesses already have an internal IT team managing their network. It is not uncommon to wonder what a managed service provider can do for your business.

As this article mentions, disrupting your own business model before it gets digitally disrupted is a daily grind. Not only are you up against nimble web start-ups, but also your own corporate inertia.

Managed services can provide internal IT teams with various types of support that can help increase business productivity and expand your business.

Create Time for Bigger Projects

Chances are your IT team is already overwhelmed with the daily maintenance of your network. They do not have much time to focus on larger projects that could help expand your business. A managed service provider can take over the day-to-day administrative tasks which frees up your IT team to focus on projects that can benefit your business.

Increase Your IT Team’s Skill Set

IT is always changing and it requires many skills to maintain a network. Locating individuals who possess all of the knowledge and skills necessary to support a network, maintain servers, and manage other technologies is difficult. Managed services can support an internal IT team that does well with some tasks but needs expertise for others. This provides your business with a larger skill set to pull from when needed.

Improved Support

Nothing is worse than having network issues when your IT manager is on vacation and is unavailable. A managed service provider can alleviate the stress and worry of network issues when your primary IT person is not available. Most managed service providers offer 24/7 support which is important for keeping your network up and running while providing added peace of mind.

These are just a few of the benefits a managed service provider can offer your business. Outsourcing day-to-day administrative tasks to a managed service provider gives your business the support it needs to grow.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment. Our managed service provider agreement includes IT support and management for businesses of all sizes.

Managed IT Support Can Reduce the Risk of Cyber Theft from Miami Businesses

Managed IT Support Can Reduce the Risk of Cyber Theft from Miami Businesses

Network security breaches have been in the news lately.

Hackers have targeted such large organizations as the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management and the Bank of Bangladesh. While security breaches at large institutions make the news, cyber theft from small businesses quietly takes place in the background.

Many of Miami’s small businesses handle more money through their computers and networks than through their cash registers. Credit card credentials, ACH transactions and emailed wire transfer instructions can all be targets for thieves.

Over the past two years, cyber thieves have stolen nearly $800 million dollars from over 8000 small businesses. Regulation E, the federal rule that requires banks to reimburse consumers for unauthorized transactions, does not apply to small business accounts; individual businesses have lost over a million dollars to cyber theft and not been reimbursed.

Managed IT support for Miami businesses can help to reduce your risk of cyber theft. Instead of reacting to an incident after it occurs, your managed IT support vendor can examine and secure your network to reduce the risk of a breach. They can conduct a survey of your network to identify systems that need to be patched, and can look for systems with default passwords that a hacker might be able to guess.

Developing a patch management plan and eliminating systems with default passwords can reduce the risk of a network breach.

Cyber theft is a serious issue for Miami businesses. Companies that import or export goods are especially vulnerable as they often send wire transfers. A fraudulent wire transfer is very difficult to cancel or recall.

For more information about computer and network security, please contact us.

5 Reasons Budget-Minded Business Owners Love Managed Services

5 Reasons Budget-Minded Business Owners Love Managed Services

Business owners understand that they need secure, well-maintained IT systems to succeed in a competitive and highly connected world.

At the same time, many businesses are operating within a relatively small budget for IT services, which range from performing hardware upgrades to responding to new cyber security threats.

Fortunately, there’s a way to enjoy high-quality IT services within budgetary constraints. Budget-minded business owners often opt for managed services, for the following reasons:

  1. Managed services providers will actively look for ways to save you money. They’ll help you avoid unnecessary purchases, and they’ll make IT decisions that align with your business goals, so that you aren’t wasting resources on projects and services that contribute nothing to your company.
  2. Managed services are flexible. The services you rely on can be tailored to your business and its demands and objectives. You can choose among services (or bundles of services), and many of them can also be scalable, so that you can adjust your use of data storage space and other resources based on your current needs.
  3. You receive proactive support. A strong managed services provider will give you round-the-clock support and actively work to detect problems before they become full-blown, costly emergencies. For example, your managed services provider can continuously monitor your network for unauthorized activities or signs of equipment failure. The emphasis is on prevention and detection, not simply on reacting to existing problems.
  4. Managed services providers get to know your business. When you hire a managed services provider, they come to understand your business, give you personal attention, and offer you solutions that fit with what you need. They save you time and money by handling various responsibilities that would otherwise consume your attention and distract you from other business operations.
  5. You don’t need to hire in-house personnel. Although a managed services provider can work with any in-house personnel you’ve hired and share some of the responsibilities of managing your IT systems, you don’t need to hire in-house personnel at all if your budget can’t accommodate such a decision. Your managed services provider give you an option of IT management and support at a more manageable cost.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for additional information about our managed services. Working with a managed services provider can prove to be a cost-effective decision for your company.