There has been a lot of news lately on how companies are really not hiring right now. A recent report talks about how a companies are hiring temp workers, but they are not hiring them to stay. In the past, a common practice was to test drive a worker then offer them a position. Hiring them as full-time employees is not happening right now.

So, who is getting the work done?

When I joined ATA Airlines back in 1997, George Michelsons brought in Bain and Company to basically prepare the company for sale. The process was to get rid of a lot of people and put more jobs onto fewer people. While this strategy worked around the country for Bain, it usually preceded an upgrade in office automation to ensure the work could still get done.

The office automation phase did not occur at ATA Airlines.

The result was a lot of stressed out people carrying around their imaginary trays trying to figure out how they were going to fit one more item onto an already heavy load. No longer were people interested in teamwork, they were more interested in self-preservation. It created a lot of ill-tempered people in the process.

As some of my clients reveal their corporate cultures, I am finding similarities to what I experienced at ATA Airlines. No one has time to commit to anything above and beyond what their core responsibilities are. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is not projected to get much better – CEO’s are reluctant to hire.

What are the solutions?

The easiest is what is being done by some today. Hire temp workers to get things done. They may cost a little more in the short-term, but allow you to avoid the headaches of hiring employees and their costs over the long-term. There are a lot of companies providing these services.

Sometimes, just hiring a grunt worker is not enough. Sometimes you need a professional person to do the work, you don’t have time to do. There are companies being set up that can act as your Marketing Department, your Accounting Department, or your HR Department. They can do it at a cost that is far cheaper than hiring full-time employees, but are focused solely on getting work done for you.

So, look around and ask yourself, are you and your colleagues a bunch of stressed out grumpy people not really accomplishing much because there is too much to do? There is help out there that can help your company meet its strategic goals for the year.

We actually put together a white paper on the ROI of outsourcing blogging and social media. You can download it here, if you want to take a look.

Paul Lorinczi

Paul Lorinczi is the President of Professional Blog Service. The goal of the company is the help clients use Blogging and Social Media to expand their business online through planning, execution, and measurement.

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Recently, I read a book called “Be Unreasonable” which made a point that resonated with me. The author, Paul Lemberg, decries the age old reliance on “best practices” and convinced me, as the title of this post states, that best practices… aren’t.

How’s that?

Think about it… “Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc.” (from Wiktionary)

Best practices for any given business are assumed to work in other similar businesses. While this may be true (or not) the danger is, once best practices are adopted, innovation stops, testing takes a back seat, and “ant mentality” begins.

As we all know, ants like to follow each other. We always assume that the ant at the front of the line knows where he is going. However, as I was catching a dose of NPR the other day I heard scientists had stumbled upon an entire colony of ants who were following each other in one giant circle. In a matter of days the entire ant colony starves to death.

It occurred to me that relying on so called best practices can lead a company in a similar situation.

Not only can you get caught erroneously following another company’s lead, but relying on a set of best practices might “trick” you into permanently following your old semi-successful (or unsuccessful) self… all the while thinking you are on your way to the top.

Instead of Best Practices

No, I am not about to give you a set of best practices for avoiding best practices. Rather, I’ll tell you what works for us.

We test new ideas, track returns and keep the operating manual light.

For example, the world of social marketing is full of well intentioned purists who think a Facebook profile set up solely for the purpose of marketing is an outrageous social faux pas, or at the very least… NOT Best Practice. Personally, I think we will begin to see more and more successful “engineered” Facebook marketing campaigns that are entertaining or compelling enough to be acceptable to the general audience. If we relied on conventional best practices, we would not test our intuition, and, miss out on a great innovative success story for a client.

Bottom line is… If you have joined the bandwagon that is social marketing, don’t let ANYONE strap you down to a set of guidelines or a list of tasks. There are no rules that are hard and fast correct for every person. Learn from what’s worked for others but create your own path.

Mike Seidle

Mike Seidle is currently the CTO of Virtual Payment Systems, Inc, and is a one of the founders of Professional Blog Service. Mike currently serves on Professional Blog Service’s board of directors.

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There are about a million items a business blog could have, but the essentials make up a short list. Some essentials relate to blog structure, others relate to the message you provide on key pages. Get the following 12 essentials right and your business blogging will get serious results.

Also, be sure to check out the bonus 3 at the bottom of the list.

Business Blog Essentials

1. The purpose of every blog post/page is clear to visitors.

2. A homepage that clearly conveys the blog’s offerings & purpose.

3. Easy to find breadcrumb navigation.

4. Obvious links. (Underlined Links are what we have been using for years. Don’t reinvent the web.)

5. Copy (content) written for the general public. (3rd-5th grade level)

6. All options and next steps are obvious.

7. Free of any wording or imagery that is unnecessary, confusing or distracting.

8. Consistent with icons, buttons, menus and links. (Make sure they look and work the same no matter what.)

9. A site wide search feature which logs search queries.

10. A short sales funnel which tells people what they are getting, what it costs and how to buy it.

11. A “printer friendly” link for content or a style sheet for print media so pages look good on screen and off the printer.

12. Quality assurance system to fix broken links, spelling errors and other items.

Bonus: Three Deadly Mistakes

Not putting descriptive titles and alt tags on pictures and links.
Failing to do so means search engines and people with visual impairments may not be able to use your site.

Reinventing the web.
Make your website look like a website and not like a high end print brochure.

Forgetting that some people have slow connections.
There are a lot of users in offices where the shared T1 is slow or who have an old-fashioned modem at home.

Mike Seidle

Mike Seidle is currently the CTO of Virtual Payment Systems, Inc, and is a one of the founders of Professional Blog Service. Mike currently serves on Professional Blog Service’s board of directors.

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