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You Don?t Have to Take Our Word that Forcing In-House Work Doesn?t Work: ?But from my experience, if you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you?re doing it wrong.?? Michael Dell, of Dell Technologies That?s right, the CEO and Chairman of Dell Technologies is on our side, too. Where Did All This Come From? A bit of background might help a bit here. A few months ago, accomplished author Malcolm Gladwell?of Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point, and many other works?sat in on a podcast. From there, Gladwell tore into the concept of remote work. A few choice soundbytes include: ?I know it?s a hassle to come to the office. But if you?re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work-life you want to live?? “We want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary and we wanted you to join our team, and if you’re not here it’s really hard to do that.” “If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point? If it’s just a paycheck, then what have you reduced your life to?” ?It could have[sic] a really lovely thing where, if you preferentially select people based on their desire to work in the office, that?s a really wonderful way to build a really nice office culture, right? For the moment, you can just cream-skim all the people who believe in the value of that.? Now, we don?t want to take too much time going over the flaws in Gladwell?s argument (who, by the way, does the majority of his work from his home office or in local eateries, has no dependents he is responsible for caring after, and collected all his observations from his own audiobook and podcast company), so we?ll instead turn back to Michael Dell. Dell directly referenced Gladwell?s ill-received comments in a blog post he shared on LinkedIn?which is where his above quote came from. Dell Cites a Very Different Experience with Remote Work According to Dell, his company started incorporating remote work years ago, to the point where over half of Dell Technologies? team (65%) was working remotely between one to five days a week before the events of 2020 made them necessary. Dell also cites the Dell Technologies Breakthrough study that his company and U.K.-based technology market research company Vanson Bourne produced by surveying 10,500 people around the world. While perhaps not the largest sample size considering the scope of the survey, it still revealed that 80% of respondents foresaw remote work offering significant benefits, including improved financial independence, more time with loved ones, and increased time to spend on personal endeavors. According to Dell, 88% of the team members his company has hired since March of 2020 report their plans to stick around. He does also share some less-promising results?like the fact that 58% of survey respondents still struggled with their work/life balance and 41% still reported burnout amongst their staff?along with his belief that Gladwell was observing these trends in his own workforce. Dell goes on to state something that we perhaps agree with the most: that ?…you have to supply your team with the right tools and processes.? The Right Technology Makes […]
The Cost-Per-Page Metric Is Crucial to Identify Printing costs are typically tied up in ink/toner. That?s not the only cost, but unless you are using premium paper to print out sales and marketing reports or the company newsletter, it is the major one. For color printers, it?s an even larger expense since you typically need multiple toner cartridges to get the desired effect. This is why knowing what your organization is paying per page to print is so crucial. It?s a pretty straightforward equation. How to Calculate the Average Cost-Per-Page To calculate the average cost per printed page all you need to do is divide the price of your ink/toner by the cartridge?s yield rating. This can be found on the packaging. $40 on a cartridge of black ink with a yield of 525 pages, your formula would look like this… 40/525 = 0.076 …giving you a cost of about 8 cents per page. Of course, not all ink cartridges are the same, printers aren?t always efficient. Some printers require more cartridges than others. Calculating the total cost of printing per page when you use multiple printers and multiple types of printers may get difficult. It will basically require finding the cost and yield rating for each cartridge, doing that math, and then adding in the cost to run the printer, the paper costs, and any other time and materials used. After it is all said and done, it can be upwards of $.10 a page. That type of cost isn?t doing your business any favors. Controlling Your Printing Costs Today, there are print management platforms that can dictate who can print materials on which machine, and even give them a maximum number of prints in a given time period. Controlling your printing costs takes diligence and oversight. Today, there are plenty of digital solutions that can help eliminate a lot of the printing costs your organization has to deal with. There are document management platforms that file your digital files as documents, providing a way to basically eliminate printing costs. There are other paperless office initiatives that can deliver cost stabilization and even reduce your company?s carbon footprint. At White Mountain IT Services, we can help your business cut down or eliminate printing costs and present you with a more dynamic way to share and send documents. Call us today at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.
To do that, it is important that we identify what separates these two cable types. What?s the Difference Between USB and HDMI? Granted, one only has to look at the different cables to see what makes them different from one another, but these differences go even deeper. USB-C USB was designed to be the universal cable type, and this is even more the case with USB-C. Universal Serial Bus was quite literally developed in the 1990s as a way to simplify the process of plugging in different hardware. USB-C is just the next iteration of this development. Capable of transferring effectively all signals, these cables can be used to route data, power, audio, and video from one device to another, in either direction. Perhaps most enticing, there is no wrong way to plug in a type-C connection?something that anyone who has ever tried to plug in any type-A connection in the dark knows is a frustrating experience, to say the least. HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface cables were designed with a more particular purpose in mind. Focused more specifically on transmitting uncompressed A/V data between devices, HDMI-outfitted devices became widely available to consumers in the early 2000s. The big draw of HDMI is that it halved the number of connections needed to share audio and visual data, as well as the fact that the uncompressed nature of the data these cables transfer means there is minimal quality loss during transmission. While Both are Effective, USB-C Will Likely Phase Out HDMI at Some Point? ?and something else will phase out USB-C at some point, but we?ll get back to that later. While HDMI has been a reliable option for about three decades, USB-C was designed to continue the pattern of simplification that USB was originally created to forward. In short, the idea behind USB-C is to eventually replace all cables, including the HDMI cable. It also should be noted that USB-C is much more capable than its predecessors, able to transfer more data and more power. Having said all this, it will be some time before your other cables are completely replaced by USB-C?or indeed, whatever comes next to replace it. In the Meantime, We Can Help Make Sure Your Business Has All the Technology It Needs We?re here to make sure that you not only have the devices and peripherals you need to be productive, but we?ll also help you make the optimal use of them, too. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to learn more about our services today!
First, let?s clear up what quiet quitting actually refers to. Quiet Quitting is a Trendy Term for Establishing Boundaries Let?s consider an example of what quiet quitting looks like in practice: Laura arrives at the office on time, logs in, and works on the tasks she has been assigned. She takes her breaks, pauses work to eat her (usually) healthy lunch, and signs out at the end of the workday and leaves. And that?s it. That?s all quiet quitting really is?it’s an employee setting boundaries so that they can maintain a healthy work/life balance and aren?t taken advantage of in the workplace. At times, this also means that a participating employee will politely resist having additional responsibilities or workloads being added to their agendas without commensurate adjustments to their pay. This practice has helped to encourage the term ?act your wage? to also pop up in the social media lexicon. In essence, ?quiet quitting? is nothing more than a rejection of the hustle culture that many workplaces try to instill in their employees, a polite refusal to go ?above and beyond? their job duties as many employers may encourage them to go. Who is Quiet Quitting, and Why? Considering that the terminology was born on social media?specifically, TikTok?many might assume that it’s the younger generations who are leading the charge. However, while this group might be more vocal about the concept, they are far from the only ones subscribing to the practice. Some people who have been in the workforce for longer will follow the same principles where their own work/life balance is concerned?it just took them a little longer to get there. It also needs to be said that the workplace shifts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have likely contributed to this shift in priorities as well. After all, remote work made it much easier for employees to see if and when their jobs were (dare I say) overstepping into their personal lives. The Truth Is, Many Aspects of Quiet Quitting are Mutually Beneficial While most of the evidence is anecdotal, many of those who have participated in this workplace behavior have seen benefits. For instance, many cite their quiet quitting as what has helped to protect them from burnout?and as a result, their workplace performance improves. Again, all quiet quitting really is, is the reinforcement of boundaries between an employee?s work time and their personal time. It?s an employee saying ?no? when asked to do something outside the terms of their employment, electing to reschedule for the next available opportunity during their regular working hours or renegotiating their pay to reflect their increased responsibilities. It?s an employee silencing work notifications once they are no longer on the clock. What You Can Do to Fight Quiet Quitting Here?s the thing: this is the wrong goal to have. An employee who respectfully establishes boundaries and doesn?t hold work above and beyond everything else in life is one you want to have. They?re more likely to be engaged while they are working, less likely to suffer the impacts of burnout, and again, it isn?t as though they are actively quitting. You still have an employee working for you. No, a better goal would be to make sure that you are making the most effective use of your employees? scheduled time. What […]
Three Support Options for Business Technology There are three strategies businesses can use to get the IT support and services they need. They are: Onsite Technicians These are employees of your business whose job it is to manage and maintain its IT infrastructure. An Outsourced Break/Fix Technician Computer repair companies who fix problems after they arise. A Managed Service Provider A company that functions much like onsite technicians, but is an outsourced IT support company. Businesses can actually utilize all three of these strategies to ensure that their technology is working as it should, but it could get pricey. One thing that should be mentioned is that the less proactive a business is at managing its IT, the more expensive IT support is. Sure, you may pay a premium for an onsite technician, but the more downtime your business incurs by waiting until something is fixed, the worse it is for your business. Why Working with a Managed Service Provider Has the Most Value Consider the cost of each of these strategies: As mentioned above, your business may want to keep an IT administrator (or a whole team) onsite, but will have to pay them commensurate with their experience and expertise. That?s a big investment. With break/fix, your business is paying premium prices to a computer repair or break/fix IT service provider to fix problems that already exist and are sapping productivity and profitability away from your business by the minute. With the MSP, you get the constant monitoring and proactive management you would get out of an in-house provider, but you also are paying as-a-service, which means that the technicians employed by the MSP are actually in charge of maintaining your IT infrastructure. Since this is the business model, and since there are several other benefits included in a managed service agreement, you get proactive IT management, comprehensive IT support, and the technology consulting you need to keep your business? technology running and working for you. Take a look around our website and you?ll see just how much White Mountain IT Services can do to protect your business from failing technology. Give us a call today at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.
