Jessy Ye, Author at 9cv9 Career Blog

Career Change: How to Successfully Change Your Job

Jessy Ye — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 02:43:48 +0000

People change their job for different reasons depending on many factors, i.e., what they were thinking months or days before the sending of the resignation letter, their family and friends’ opinions and feedbacks, income, benefits, and their circumstances.

Do you know some of the top reasons people choose to quit their old job or do a career change?

In a research conducted by LinkedIn, some of the main reasons are:

Lack of opportunities: the previous company that the employees were working for didn’t provide a clear and strong room for more opportunities.
Dissatisfaction with the manager: the previous company lacked proper HR management and employees ended up feeling dissatisfied.
The monotony of work: the employees felt that they needed more challenging works.
Work culture: unhealthy and bad work culture can affect many employees’ minds about switching companies. If you want to read on how to improve your work culture, you can read some great resources here and here.
Compensation and benefits: Lack of proper compensation and benefits can make employees feel that they aren’t paid enough for their work.
Lack of recognition: employees who don’t get recognition may feel that their work is not good enough.

If you’re an employee who’s looking to change your career, you might’ve already felt these reasons personally.

Of course, there are also people who don’t actually have a choice in their career change. One such scenario would be if they are retrenched during the pandemic.

Losing your job means that you need to find another job.

This leads to a career change whether you’ll be working in the same industry, specialisation, occupation or not.

Steps to a successful career change

For the reasons above, people have decided to find a new job or a career change.

However, a career change is actually more complex and difficult than you think.

It needs preparation and you can certainly go a long way to find a suitable career for yourself.

You might be lost on how to start even though you’ve left your old job.

But you can be assured because we’ve provided some steps you can follow when you’re confused about what to do next when doing a career change:

Assess your skillset
List jobs that you’re aiming for
Consult someone that has the job in the industry
Learn additional skills
Make a plan and set a goal
Trust yourself

Assess your skillset

After you decide that you want to do a career change, evaluate yourself.

Consider your capabilities and skills in as many fields as possible and write them in a list.

You can also take self-assessment tests that are easy to find online.

With self-assessment tests, you can get more detailed accurate results and you can do them at home in this pandemic situation.

Self-assessment is important for you to know the extent of your abilities and improve. That means you can keep in mind great skills that you’re great at but also see the skills that are lacking.

Reflecting on the lack of skills means that you have a chance to develop these skills.

When you do a self-assessment, you are preparing yourself for your next job so that you can become a more adept employee in your future company.

List jobs that you’re aiming for

Often times when people want to change careers, they’re confused on what job they want to do next.

This is true especially when you want to do a career change in a different industry.

In an industry you’re unfamiliar with, there will be a myriad of bewildering job descriptions, requirements, roles, and many things you won’t know right away.

That’s why it’s important to plan for a clear, detailed career path.

Try to list out several jobs that you’re passionate about and might choose for your career change. They can be as many as you want and whatever that comes to your mind.

If you’ve researched these jobs and done the self-assessment, you can start to eliminate the jobs that might not be suitable for you.

Even if you’re passionate about a certain job, you might have a low chance of success at it.

After you’ve narrowed down your list, you can start thinking about the probability of opportunities these jobs offer.

Which one has more opportunities for you?

If there’s one that seems to offer bigger opportunities, aim for that one specifically.

Consult someone that has the job in the industry

When you want to enter a career in a different industry, you’ll still have questions regarding the job no matter how much you research.

It’s because no matter how much there is information on the internet, it doesn’t reflect the real person who has the job.

This is why you need to find a network related to the industry you’re aiming for.

When you come to know people who work in that industry, you can interview and ask them for advice.

They can help guide you on what you should do before applying for the job.

This is so you can be more prepared for the interview and you have the right attitude for the job.

You can also ask them about their experiences in working or what their job entails.

When you know what you should do in that job, it takes little time to adapt to it.

Of course, you can also ask about some realistic expectations such as salary and benefits they get in their company. With this, you can have a higher at a successful career change.

Learn additional skills

After doing self-assessment, you’ll know your capabilities and the places where you should develop.

And when you’ve researched about the career you’re aiming for, you know what to prepare for.

So what’s the next step?

You need to prepare yourself even more.

That means to train yourself to pick up additional skills. Of course, it’s not just any skill.

You need to pick up relevant skills with the career path you’re aiming for.

With degree or certification, online courses, and internships readily available online, you can acquire them in no time.

You can learn new languages, pick up marketing skills, or opt to learn creative work like video editing.

You can put these kills that are relevant and are versatile with your future job to your CV, making you a more prospective to the future employer.

Make a plan and set a goal

A career change can be a long and vague experience, and you might lose your way and motivation on the way there.

That’s why it’s essential for you to keep track of your efforts.

Make a daily planner that specifies your tasks in reaching a successful career change.

By planning these tasks for the long term and when you’ve finished them, you can look back on them.

You’ll feel more accomplished when you can see the results, and this makes you more mentally prepared for your next job.

Try to also set a goal if you’re doing a career change.

Try to set a range of time you should be able to apply for certain interviews, finish your certifications, update your CV, make a resume letter, and so on.

Setting a reasonable goal little by little can help you feel that you went through the process much faster.

Trust yourself

Last but not least, you should trust yourself.

Trust that this is the best choice you’re making for your life.

Remember, there’s no perfect path in a career.

No matter if you’re staying in your old job or looking for a new job, you will still face obstacles.

When you face these obstacles in the process of a career change, you can’t waver.

After all, you must’ve done a considerable amount of thinking.

With a lot of thorough thinking, this is the best decision that you’ve decided.

So believe in yourself, even if you might not face the best situation currently.

In the end, you might find yourself in a job most suitable for you and become more successful than ever.

Takeaways

So essentially what you need to do if you’re determined to do a career change is: assess yourself, research the right career, prepare yourself for the job, and don’t waver in your choice.

While straying off from a traditional stable career makes you walk a more difficult path, don’t forget that you’re pursuing your best and your happiness in your career life.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

A new career can also give you benefits like a new network, better financial condition, and more learning experiences.

Career change is difficult but it’s not always negative.

If you want to pursue your passion with another job, walk through it until you can see the goal.

When you’re able to see the end, then doesn’t that mean you’re already successful at a career change?

If you want to do a career change and are looking for a career platform to find a job, you can check out our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

4 Tips to Build Effective Company Culture During the Pandemic

Effective Company Culture: 4 Tips on How to Build It

Things You Can Do If You Are Retrenched

Review of Maternity Benefits and Leave in the Asia Pacific

The post Career Change: How to Successfully Change Your Job appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

How to Prevent Workplace Sexual Harassment: 6 Actionable Tips

Jessy Ye — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 07:27:58 +0000

What is workplace sexual harassment?

The definition of sexual harassment is harassment that uses explicit or implicit sexual suggestions.

However, what does sexual harassment means?

What is the extent of sexual harassment?

Most times people will immediately think of the act of sexual harassment as a sexual assault or providing forceful sexual favors.

But there is more to sexual harassment than you think.

It doesn’t just include sexual assaults, but also other sexually suggestive actions.

Sometimes people don’t know what are those actions.

Here are some examples and ranges of sexual harassment:

Provocative or insulting remarks about one’s attire
Unwelcoming sexual jokes about one’s body
Unwanted flirting and verbal sexual advances
Sending pictures or any kind of media with sexual undertones without consent
Touching against consent especially in rarely touched parts or private parts

Sexual harassment can happen anywhere from public places, transportation, and even workplaces.

It can also happen to any gender, though the common stereotype is that sexual harassment only applies from a man to a woman.

The numbers of sexual harassment are increasingly worrying on women.

In fact, one survey reveals that more than half of women in workplaces have experienced sexual harassment at their workplaces.

Why is this important?

A recent spate of sexual harassment episodes in top companies brought the spotlight on this issue.

Zhou, a female employee working for Alibaba alleged that an Alibaba executive raped her but the company took no action.

What happened next created a massive uproar in the Chinese’s social sphere, with the accused Alibaba manager fired, two senior executives resigning and even CEO Daniel Zhang said the handling of the incident has been a “humiliation” to the company.

In another case, Dave McClure, previous partner and co-founder at 500 Startups, was accused of sexual misconduct by several women in the tech industry. He then apologised and resigned from his role at 500 Startups.

Resignation, loss of talent and reputation loss are some of the costs incurred for the organisation. That’s why it’s important to prevent and to deter episodes of workplace sexual harassment.

Although sexual harassment is illegal by law, it still happens all throughout ages, even till today.

When people—specifically women—are harassed at work, it creates a negative energy in the workplace that can lead to power harassment issues and employees’ discord.

This can lead to a decrease in the overall work productivity and output.

Moreover, people can feel as if the workplace is harming them.

This could lead to unwanted problems for the organization, like getting a case filed against it or a decrease of employees.

That’s why we should prevent workplace sexual harassment before it happens.

If you’re confused about what you should do, we’ve compiled a list of tips so you can take action immediately.

Read on below to find out.

Setting the policies straight
Conduct training sessions for employees
Conduct training sessions for superiors
Make your workplace transparent
Monitor and supervise the workplace
Act swift before the issues escalates

1. Setting the policies straight

There’s one thing that can cause workplace sexual harassment.

That’s what the workplace doesn’t have most of the time: a clear rule that prioritizes sexual harassment to not take place in the first place.

We know that sexual harassment is illegal.

But when there is no policy or written rule that outright says “no”, people can get away with it quickly because the workplace “doesn’t forbid it.”

What you want to do is set clear policies dedicated to everything about sexual harassment.

Have the company’s manager put a written rule on a handbook or the company guide.

See this for an example of a policy guide on Sexual Harassment

The second thing about not having clear policies that forbid workplace sexual harassment is that people aren’t getting punished for it.

Well, there are no rules to bind them and punish them for it, right?

That’s why most of the time, the perpetrators can wash their hands and not suffer from any consequences.

This isn’t the thing we want to strive for in humanity and in our workplace.

So what you want to do is to place immediate consequences and punishment on the sexual harassment policies in your organization.

In fact, if it extends to sexual assault, you can hand the perpetrators to the police or fire them.

2. Conduct training sessions for employees

People that conduct sexual harassment are unaware that what they’re doing is sexual harassment in the first place.

That’s why you need to raise their awareness when they’re working in your company.

Have the company conduct training sessions that teach employees about setting the boundaries.

This includes what to do and what not to do in a workplace.

When they know that their actions are categorized are sexual harassment, they’ll prevent doing that in the future. After all, they now know that it’s bad to do.

These training sessions can coach them into behaving more positively too and decrease workplace discrimination.

For best practice, you can conduct the training sessions once per month.

3. Conduct training sessions for superiors

Sometimes, sexual harassment perpetrators aren’t just the lower level employees.

Clients, managers, and higher-ups are more likely to be the perpetrators.

This is more likely to happen due to the inherent power imbalance.

One survey shows 44% of women employees in the restaurant industry experienced sexual harassment from their manager or owner.

When the superiors are the culprits, they can exert undue authority over the subordinates.

This can lead to sexual harassment or any kind of harassment in the workplace.

That’s why it is important to start from the top, to teach managers about the implications of sexual harassment.

Because they’re in different positions than the employees, they should have different training sessions tailored to them.

Teach them to set personal boundaries and not spend personal time alone with one specific employee.

You can also emphasize that if they were to do sexual harassment, they can also face the same consequences as normal employees.

This can close the distance that was created by the power imbalance and prevent sexual harassment from happening.

4. Make your workplace transparent

Sexual harassment in the workplace often becomes unreported and stays in the dark because employees aren’t brave enough to come out.

That’s one of the impacts of being a victim of sexual harassment.

In fact, statistics show that 63% of women didn’t file a complaint, and 79% of men kept it to themselves as sexual harassment victims.

Because sexual harassment victims do not report their cases, there are still many undisclosed sexual harassments that the company management won’t know till today.

What you can do to prevent any more sexual harassment from happening is by encouraging people to come out about it.

Also, make your workplace positive and comfortable enough for people to not be afraid to report anything that happens to them.

You can put up a secret box or a suggestion box for employees to say their opinions or report something without anyone knowing.

That way, they’ll be able to report any sexual harassment without feeling scared and embarrassed.

You can also include a clear procedure to report sexual harassment.

One example of the procedure is to include a form or a slip that the employees can fill out. This form is a formal procedure that every employee has to fill out if they want to report a case of sexual harassment.

When there’s a formal report, the perpetrators of the sexual harassment are more likely to be handled more seriously.

Set a anonymous whistleblowing channel for anyone in the company to lodge a report about sexual harassment.

For example, the Singapore Press Holdings company has stipulated a whistleblowing policy regarding sexual harassment in its corporate governance structure.

5. Monitor and supervise the workplace

Sexual harassment happens in places no one can see.

And most of the time you can’t see its signs too.

That’s why you need to have someone to monitor your workplace.

Hire or appoint a specialized supervisor who is responsible for monitoring the employees.

Have them keep an eye out for any potential sexual harassment that is happening during work or break time.

Sometimes, people secretly do inappropriate conduct.

But when they’re watched, they won’t try to do anything.

If needed, the supervisor is able to interview the employees that they suspect to be giving warning signs of sexual harassment.

6. Act swift before the issue escalates

Although you’ve put up some prevention steps as mentioned above, sometimes the issues of sexual harassment will still happen in your organization.

Of course, that is because nothing is perfect and prevention steps don’t always work 100%.

So when you’ve done all the above steps and workplace sexual harassment still happens in your company, what can you do?

To combat any sexual harassment case from becoming more serious, you have to take measures immediately and act fast.

When you have heard a report, don’t ignore it.

Immediately investigate and call upon the alleged culprits and victims to give the appropriate treatment.

By ruling out the issues immediately, victims and employees will be able to feel safe in your organization.

This also hopefully serves as a warning for sexual harassment to not happen again.

Conclusion

And these are 6 actionable tips you can do to prevent workplace sexual harassment in your organization.

Remember that the human resource team is not the only one responsible for sexual harassment in the company.

Instead, everyone who is in the company should be responsible for it.

That’s why we all need to gather together and raise awareness for it to not happen. Don’t forget to always help, report, and support victims of sexual harassment.

We are all in this together in supporting victims of sexual harassment.

Furthermore, men or women both don’t deserve to receive sexual harassment in any place, especially not in their workplace where they spend most of their time.

They should be able to feel safe and comfortable while working.

If you manage to create a company free of workplace sexual harassment, you’ll be able to build trust among employees and managers. This will lead to higher productivity, a happier workforce and higher work output.

If you want to recruit excellent individuals for your company that are compatible with your policies and your positive workplace, you can try to head over to our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

Effective Communication on Zoom: 4 How-to Tips

Review of Maternity Benefits and Leave in the Asia Pacific

Top 11 HRIS Apps or HR Software in 2021

The post How to Prevent Workplace Sexual Harassment: 6 Actionable Tips appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

Top 7 Marketing Certifications You Should Get in 2021

Jessy Ye — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 05:46:20 +0000

The need for marketing certifications for your career

The marketing field is a wide market.

It offers many jobs to people.

But it can also be a bit vague as to what the job does.

Well, other than promoting and marketing a certain brand obviously.

Although there are many opportunities, there are also competitors within the marketing field.

In fact, during this pandemic, the need for a digital marketing candidate rises up even further. One survey in 2019 shows that companies want to hire more remote marketing candidates compared to 2017.

But, let’s admit it, marketing is not a job for everyone.

With the marketing role, it requires a lot of creative thinking involved in making decisions and content. In one statistic, the two most demanded skills in marketing are a digital advertising and content creation and curation.

Therefore, not everyone is suited for that kind of marketing drive and requirements in the industry.

For example, some people don’t feel capable when they need to make marketing decisions.

This is true especially if you don’t come from a related background like a marketing major or not a marketing specialist.

As a result, marketing can feel very ambiguous at times.

In other words, it boils down to not knowing what to do and not feeling knowledgeable enough.

Marketing certifications you should get

So, what should you do if you want to feel qualified for the job now in the marketing industry?

The answer is to learn.

And what better way to validate all that learning than to go through a test at the end of the learning period and obtaining a certification.

A certification is like a signal to yourself and to future employers that you have been through the baptism of fire and undergo the training necessary for certain skillsets.

In the case of marketing, whereby the domain can be seen as pretty broad, there are several skillsets and certifications that one can attain to signal to future employers.

With the rise of the need for good marketers in the industry, there is also a corresponding increase in the demand for good marketing certifications.

In short, there are so many great marketing certifications out there that are both free and paid.

Therefore, you might be confused about what certifications you should get.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the best marketing certifications you should get.

These certifications can help you in your career in the long run in marketing.

Google Ads Search Certification
Google Analytics Individual Qualification
Hubspot Inbound Certification
Hubspot Email Marketing Certification
Facebook Blueprint
SEMrush SEO Toolkit Course
Hootsuite Academy Marketing Certification

1. Google Ads Search Certification

Price: Free

Length: 3.7 hours

Google Ads Search Certification is a professional certification from Google. It can raise your proficiency in basic and advanced Google Ads search.

As Google mentioned on its website, Google Ads Certification allows you to demonstrate your mastery in online advertising.

To get started on this certification, you need to create a Skillshop account.

Google Ads Certifications are available in 22 languages. They include Chinese, English, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and many more.

Before taking the certification, ensure that you’re familiar with some form of marketing and search practices on Google.

This is because Google wants you to have some kind of job experience using Google Ads.

You can take the test for the certification after you’ve finished the materials.

And when you’ve passed the test, you’ll have the ability to use Smart Bidding and Audience Solutions. They can be used to greatly increase your marketing campaigns.

2. Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ)

Price: Free

Length: 4-6 hours

Google Analytics IQ is an accreditation system that covers both basic and advanced Google Analytics.

Quoted on the certification page, it includes:

Planning and principles
Implementation and data collection
Configuration and administration
Conversion and attribution
Reports, metrics, and dimensions

The materials from basic Google analytics pretty much guides you on how to view and navigate analytics reports and data.

Meanwhile, the advanced materials let you organize the data more thoroughly and use custom configurations.

Just as mentioned previously, you need to access the certification through Skillshop using your Skillshop account.

This course is available in English, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, and other languages.

You can also access this course through mobile and take them anytime you want.

So you can pause it if you have other matters.

And then you can continue later when you’re ready to review the materials again.

3. Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification

Price: Free

Length: 4 hours

Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification is designed for inbound professionals and marketers.

Its courses walk you through inbound marketing techniques.

Moreover, you’ll be able to advance your skills as a marketer.

With Hubspot, you’ll be able to understand the core tactics of inbound marketing that every marketing specialists use.

As the certification page states, their curriculum includes:

Fundamentals of inbound marketing
Creating topic clusters and pillar pages
Understanding social media promotion
Developing a conversational growth strategy
Understanding conversion strategy, understanding lead nurturing
Aligning your marketing with sales
Applying a customer marketing approach

Similarly, with other certifications on this post, it provides reading materials and videos. You are also given quizzes to test out your understanding of each curriculum.

Moreover, it’s also available in languages other than English (Japanese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish).

4. Hubspot Email Marketing Certification

Price: Free

Length: 3-4 hours

Hubspot Email Marketing Certification offers you lessons in building a great email marketing strategy.

By taking this certification, you’ll be able to create a more friendly approach to email marketing for customers.

You can learn the fundamentals of email marketing and apply them in real practice using the Hubspot email marketing tool.

On the certification page, you’ll be taking 9 lessons:

Email marketing fundamentals
Learning contact management and segmentation strategy
How to send the right email, creating a high-performing email
Understanding email deliverability
Outlining the design of your marketing emails
Analyzing your marketing emails
Testing your marketing emails
Developing relationships with lead nurturing.

Hubspot Email Marketing Certification is available in English, German, Spanish, and French, plus it’s perfectly free.

So what are you waiting for?

You should definitely take this certification to boost your performance on email marketing campaigns.

5. Facebook Blueprint

Price: Free

Length: Depending on the course, ranging around 10 minutes – an hour

Facebook Blueprint is a learning platform provided by Facebook that offers many courses for you to take and learn related to marketing.

If you’re looking to upgrade your marketing skills in advertising, Facebook Blueprint is sure to help you.

No matter at what level you are as a marketer, Facebook Blueprint provides you with anything ranging from basic to advanced courses.

You can learn Facebook features and policies to engage more and improve your targeted advertising.

You can also learn things like Ad Auction, Ads Manager, creating Facebook ads, Facebook Pixel, aligning KPIs, measure ad performance, and even learn about marketing on Instagram.

If you want Facebook Certification, Facebook Blueprint offers:

Certified Digital Marketing Associate Facebook
Facebook Certified Marketing Science Professional
Facebook Certified Marketing Developer
and other certification for professionals

6. SEMrush SEO Toolkit Certification

Price: Free

Length: 3-4 hours

SEMrush SEO Toolkit Courses walk you through everything you need to know about SEO. You’ll also learn how to optimize your SEO using SEMrush tools.

SEO is definitely important in marketing.

Therefore, by becoming an SEO specialist with SEMrush courses, you can work your way through your career to land a perfect job.

With SEMrush courses, you’ll learn:

Technical SEO
Keyword Research
Link Building
Rank Tracking
Mobile, International, and Local SEO
as well as how to manage and report your projects.

After you’ve taken lessons on SEMrush courses, you’ll be able to take SEMrush SEO Toolkit Exam that can provide you with certification.

What’s great about the SEMrush certification exam is that you can take it as many times as you want. And you can also share them across platforms like LinkedIn to enrich your job profile.

7. Hootsuite Academy Marketing Certification

Price:

Hootsuite Platform Certification Course: $99 USD
Social Marketing Certification Course: $199 USD
Advanced Social Advertising Certification Course: $249 USD

Length: Depends on the course

Hootsuite is a social media marketing and management dashboard.

It provides you with great tools for your marketing campaigns.

On their website, you can just log in to take lessons at Hootsuite Academy. There are several different academy certification courses in Hootsuite Academy that you can take depending on what you need.

You might want to know how to navigate and use Hootsuite like a professional.

Then, you can take the Hootsuite Platform Certification.

In addition, you might also need to know the strategy to develop great social marketing. In that case, you can take the Social Marketing Certification.

And furthermore, you might also want to get in-depth with the social marketing.

You want to be more advanced and master every best tactic and procedure for ads and social media campaigns.

Hootsuite offers you a different certification which is the Advanced Social Advertising Certification.

Conclusion

That’s 7 marketing certifications you should consider to attempt and obtain beforehand.

When you’ve taken these certifications, you’ll feel more confident in your abilities.

Moreover, these certifications are crafted by professionals in the marketing industry.

That’s why you’ll be able to learn a lot from them and catch up a little on their experience.

Remember that people don’t become good at marketing from the start.

People learn through trial and error. And even if you’re a marketing specialist, it’s normal to make mistakes here and there at times. So don’t think that you’re still not qualified to work in marketing.

In addition, the marketing skill is also not innately there, but it is cultivated slowly as you learn more of the marketing tips.

So if you start learning from now, there’s more chance for you to gain the marketing skills faster.

That way, you’ll be able to land a job in no time.

If you’re looking to find jobs related to marketing after you’ve taken the marketing certifications above, feel free to check out our top career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

10 Best Language Learning Apps for 2021

10 Ways to Get Your Dream Job or Internship

How to reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn?

The post Top 7 Marketing Certifications You Should Get in 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

9 Best Employee Recognition Tools for 2021

Jessy Ye — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 05:01:01 +0000

What is employee recognition software?

Employee recognition software is a tool that helps you manage employees’ satisfaction and by giving them recognition like praises and rewards with the purpose of increasing the employees’ working efficiency.

Employee recognition software is great for you to use as a medium, because you’ll be able to track employees’ achievements and thereafter, benefit from it greatly.

But you might ask, “How is employee recognition really beneficial?”

Well, in fact, it is beneficial for a company to give employee recognition.

Need more evidence to back this claim?

Statistics have confirmed that the benefits of giving recognition to employees are:

Basically, employee recognition can greatly benefit a company.

That’s why it is beneficial for the company to employ (no pun intended) the necessary employee recognition tool.

But do you know the right tool for you and your company?

Don’t worry because we’ve managed to research and gather the 9 best employee recognition tools for you to choose from and use.

Bonusly
Assembly
Nectar
Blueboard
Guusto
Motivosity
Bucketlist
Vantage Circle
HeyTaco

1. Bonusly

Free/paid

Bonusly is not a free employee recognition software.

However, they offer a free trial and a demo for you to try out.

Pricing Plan

Bonusly has 3 pricing plans each designed for different company sizes and for unlocking additional features.

The Core plan costs $2.70 per user per month (not including the cost of rewards) which includes the basic features of an engaging employee recognition tool.

Pro, their most popular plan, costs $4.50 per user per month for a more comprehensive recognition and additional features besides the ones in the Core plan.

And the last one is the “Custom” plan that has a varied range of prices according to your customisation that fits the need of your organization.

Users

Bonusly can accommodate around 50 users in the Core plan and more than 100 users in their Custom plan.

Features

Available on mobile (Android/iOS)
Integrated chat tool
Analytics and detailed report
Automated rewards for work anniversaries and birthdays
Extensive rewards in gift cash or donations/charities
HRIS integrations
Customer support

Score: 4.5/5

2. Assembly

Free/paid

Assembly has a free plan intended for a small team with a limited number of 20 members.

But if you have a bigger team, Assembly can offer you a paid plan to accommodate your organization members.

Pricing Plan

For the pricing, Assembly offers 3 plans:

Lite with a limited 50 members maximum and costs $2.50 per user per month
Standard that has an unlimited number of members and costs $3.50 per user per month
Custom for large organisations who need customisation with a price negotiated by the sales.

Users

As the pricing plan states, Assembly can fit from 20 users to an unlimited number of users whether it is 100 or 1,000.

Features

Feedback management
Peer-to-peer recognition
Manager-to-peer recognition
Performance management
Analytics and engagement tracking
Rewards points and management
Employee reward programs with extensive rewards catalog

Score: 4.4/5

3. Nectar

Free/paid

Yes, Nectar is free to use and has no limits. If you want additional features, you can also have the paid plans.

Pricing Plan

Other than the free plan, Nectar offers 2 pricing plans.

One is the Standard plan that costs $2.50 per user per month with additional features like create-your-own rewards and intranet integration.

Another plan is the Plus plan that costs $3.75 per user per month which includes every feature in the Standard and a free plan with more additional features like custom branding and a dedicated account manager.

Users

Nectar can accommodate any amount of employees ranging from small companies of 10 to more than 1,000.

Features

Unlimited users
100+ gift card options
Leaderboard
Peer-to-peer recognitions
Corporate discounts
Available on mobile apps
Analytics
Slack or Teams integration
HRIS integrations

Score: 4.7/5

4. Blueboard

Free/paid

Blueboard is not free but if you want to get started, you can request a demo from their team.

Pricing Plan

Blueboard doesn’t specify a certain price or plans on its website because it focuses on custom pricing that already adds your reward costs.

If you want to get started, all you need to do is request a demo.

Users

Blueboard can accommodate any amount of users but it is best intended for a large organization with more than 200 members.

Features

Automated reward delivery with Anniversary Engine
Slack and Teams integrations
Real-time reports and analytics
Automated surveys to get employees’ feedback
Rewards for any occasion: Anniversary awards, President’s club, wellbeing gifts, sales incentives, employee referral incentives, and spot recognition.

Score: 4.1/5

5. Guusto

Free/paid

Guusto has a free version for you to use freely.

But if you want more unlimited features, you can try the free trial of the non-free version.

Pricing Plan

Aside from the free Basic plan, Guusto offers 2 pricing plans for you.

The Premium plan costs $1.50 per user per month and the Custom plan’s price depends on your organization’s needs.

Users

Guusto can accommodate any number of employees in your organization from freelancers, small businesses, mid-size companies, to large companies.

Features

Goal management
Manager-to-peer recognition
Peer-to-peer recognition
Mention management
Rewards catalog
Social recognition
Performance management
Recognition tracking
eCards
Gift card management

Score: 4.2/5

6. Motivosity

Free/paid

Motivosity isn’t a free employee recognition tool, but it has a reasonable price in its pricing plan that you can check out below.

Pricing Plan

Motivosity has a wide range of four pricing plans that you can choose from.

First is the basic plan, Connect, which costs $1 per user per month.

The second one is the Listen plan costs $2 per user per month that focuses more on understanding team sentiment.

The third one is the Recognize plan that costs $3 per user per month that has more comprehensive and complete reward programs.

Lastly, there’s the Lead plan that costs $6.50 per user per month that includes performance coaching and 1 on 1s.

All the three pricing plans above Connect also include features on Connect.

Users

Motivosity can accommodate any number of people you have in your organization as it’s unlimited and charges based on users’ numbers.

Features

Nominations
eCards
Goal recognition
On-going performance tracking
Manager-to-peer recognition
Peer-to-peer recognition
Analytics
Organizational charting
Skills assessment
Rewards points and rewards catalog, and many others.

Score: 4.3/5

7. Bucketlist

Free/paid

Bucketlist is not a free employee recognition tool.

You can request a demo to test out the free trial version for 14 days from their website.

Pricing Plan

Depending on your needs and customization as well as your company size, Bucketlist will offer the best price for you.

Bucketlist also offers a 90-day refund if you’re not satisfied with using the tool.

Users

Bucketlist can accommodate any number of employees in your organization.

But it is most suited to smaller and mid-sized company that ranges from 50 to 5,000 employees.

Features

eCards
Goal management
Performance management
Rewards catalog and rewards points
Nominations
Peer-to-peer recognition
Manager-to-peer recognition
Recognition tracking
Third-party integrations (Office, Teams, Gmail, and Slack)

Score: 4.1/5

8. Vantage Circle

Free/paid

Vantage Circle is a non-free employee recognition tool, but you can get the free trial from their website to try out.

Pricing Plan

Their website doesn’t publicly disclose the pricing, but they do have a form to fill on their website.

By filling the form about your company’s details and business size, you can get a custom quote from Vantage Circle.

Users

Vantage Circle can accommodate any number of employees but it is best suited for small companies that have 3 to 50 employees.

Features

Real-time analytics
Employee segmenting
Peer recognition
Third-party integrations
Corporate discounts
Employee engagements
Rewards available in many countries

Score: 4/5

9. HeyTaco

Free/paid

HeyTaco doesn’t offer a free plan for now.

But if you want to try it out, you can use the free trial version for 30 days.

And if you need a trial extension, you can contact them over to their website.

Pricing Plan

HeyTaco offers only one pricing plan because they claim that they don’t want to make any complicated tier-based plans.

It costs $3.00 per user per month, and you can customize the people who can use HeyTaco in your team.

Users

HeyTaco can accommodate as many people as you want in your Slack team.

Because HeyTaco is integrated into Slack, you just need to add HeyTaco to your team.

Features

Leaderboard
Different rewards for different achievements
Peer-to-peer recognition by giving tacos, emoji, and supporting messages

Score: 4/5

And that’s the 9 best employee recognition tools that you can use to improve your employee’s satisfaction and engagement in your organization.

Remember that employees’ position is not below the company and they don’t simply work for the company.

But they’re equal to the company because they bring you customers and keep the company going.

So they need to be given recognition and rewards too.

If you’re not giving them recognition, then who will?

Also if you’re an employee who’s looking for companies that offer employees recognition, you can check out our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

Top 11 HRIS Apps or HR Software in 2021

10 Best Language Learning Apps for 2021

7 Best Programming Languages for Blockchain Projects in 2021

The post 9 Best Employee Recognition Tools for 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

How to Promote Your Webinars Successfully in 2021

Jessy Ye — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 06:28:00 +0000

Webinars: What are they and why do people host them?

What does having a successful webinar means? Is it just by having great content and speaker?

Success is relative and it can range broadly from person to person. Great content and a great speaker are important to make good webinars.

But they’re not necessarily the parts that would make a webinar successful.

What makes a webinar successful, we believe, is when you gain a meaningful audience and tons of opportunities and discussions from hosting a webinar.

If you don’t know what a webinar is, a broad definition of a webinar is an online seminar hosted on the internet (mostly on video conferences software).

Since the pandemic, webinars are rising beyond the traditional seminars due to how practical they are for us.

We don’t have to go all the way to attend something, we can abide by the safety protocols, and we get to watch entertaining content at our house.

Webinars are simply convenient and cost-effective.

With the rise of video conferences, webinars will definitely become even more popular than now.

Statistics also show that always-on webinars’ popularity increases by 36% in 2021.

Provided that you’re an organization, one way to promote your company is by utilizing webinars.

Through a webinar, you can engage more with your customers and potential customers, have a bigger audience and can increase your brand value.

In fact, one webinar can earn you more than 500 leads.

Now, if you haven’t been using webinars much for your organization, it’s high time to start. But a webinar is going to be futile if you don’t promote it successfully.

So if you want to know more about how to promote your webinar successfully, read on to find some tips from us:

Schedule your webinar in ‘golden hour’
Promote on social media
Remind the participants with email
Encourage your participants to invite more people
Promote your next webinar in your webinar
Archive your webinar

1. Schedule your webinars in the ‘Golden Hour’

One thing that you do when you’re planning to hold a webinar is deciding the date and time for your webinar.

You might think that just deciding any time is good.

But this isn’t true because your webinar’s attendance rate is going to be different based on different dates and times.

So what day is the best for you to host your webinar?

Well, one survey finds that the days you should choose are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

This is because apparently, there is an increase in the average number of people who register. With an increased number of registrants, there’s also an increase in the attendance rate for it.

As for the time, time zones affect webinars greatly.

With the chance of attracting people globally, there’s also the chance of not having people around the world watch your webinars because of the different time zones.

So what time then works the best for everyone?

Well, it might not be best, but you can certainly reach the best result and attendance generally if you hold it in the middle of the day.

One survey reveals that 11 AM is the best time for you to host your webinar.

Otherwise, pick several times to do a trial and error testing on the best times that work for your content and your audience.

Again, timings that work best for others might not work well for your style, content and audience.

In that case, pick a random time at the start and optimise thereafter.

2. Promote your webinars on social media

Yes, the simplest way to promote your webinars is through social media.

There’s always a huge opportunity to reach a wide audience if you’re sharing your webinars over all platforms.

First, you can promote webinars using your organization’s account.

It’s free and easy.

You can try sharing it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms where you reach a different range of viewers, and retain your audience.

You can also ask your employees to share your company’s webinars on their personal accounts, capitalising on their personal network and reaching even more people.

Another way is to do a paid advertisement on social media.

Check this resource on getting started with Facebook Ads.

You can pay the social media platform to promote for you so your webinars can be seen as ads on people’s feeds.

Or you can also try to reach out to big names or social media influencers that align with your company.

Resource for learning about Influencer Marketing: Influencer Marketing Guide: How to Work With Social Media Influencers

You can have them promote your webinars or even ask them to attend as special guests.

With big names and bigger exposure, your webinars can catch more attention and gain more success.

3. Remind the participants with email

Admit it, when people sign up for a webinar, there’s a 50% chance or more that they won’t attend it.

It can be because they’re busy, they’re late, or they just don’t seem interested enough that they forget.

It can be disheartening for you especially if you’ve planned a wonderful webinar.

One way to promote it beforehand (as in before they register and after they register) is through email marketing.

You can send them an email promotion for your webinar when they’ve visited your page.

After they’ve registered, you might as well send another email promotion and reminder for them to attend the webinar they signed up for.

But that’s not all because they can forget your webinar again especially if your webinar is going to be held in another few weeks’ time.

So what you can do is to remind them again maybe a week and a day before the event, as well as give them the invite link.

Email marketing is a sure effective way to promote your webinars.

Good news for you, our team has done a comprehensive research on the top 10 email marketing software to use in 2021.

4. Encourage your participants to invite more people

Another way to promote your webinars is through your own audience.

Of course, they won’t simply share your webinar unless they’re really interested in it.

One trick that can boost their motivation in sharing your webinars is by giving them gifts.

For example, you can make it a game or a simple invite-and-win when you’re hosting a webinar.

People are more likely to be interested to invite their families and friends when they can gain something.

By giving them gifts, you can also make them feel special and glad to be a part of your webinar’s audience.

So you can also increase engagement with them while also bringing in more people.

5. Promote your next webinars in your webinar

By turning webinars into a regular thing or a routine within your organization, a webinar promotion can be easier.

If you’ve held a webinar before and have done it successfully, it’ll be easier for you to reach out to the same audience again.

At the end of every webinar you’re hosting, try to include a schedule or an announcement for the next webinar that you’ll hold.

This can go in a cycle and you’ll have people keep signing up for your webinar because there’s already an involvement.

You can also give the people the registration link or form immediately in that webinar easily by sharing your screen or by sending them over to the chat features on the software.

This way, you can continue hosting successful webinars and people can be more invested in your brand at the same time.

Remember at the end of the day, you need to be consistent to increase the stickiness of your audience to your webinars.

6. Archive your webinar

A webinar promotion doesn’t just end with email marketing, social media shares, and hosting the webinar itself.

It also includes what happens after.

When you’re finished with your webinars, you can try to archive the recorded versions on YouTube.

The audience doesn’t just come from the people that are watching your webinars live, but also from the people who watch your webinar’s archive.

Moreover, YouTube is a place for engagement.

If people click on your webinar videos, they can engage more in many ways.

They can watch your next webinar series. Or they can share the videos within their circle.

You can also archive your webinars with blog posts.

In the blog posts, you can explain the details of the webinar’s content and provide the resources.

By doing so, you can enrich your brand’s content and generates leads even more.

Conclusion

And that’s 6 tips for you to promote your webinars successfully.

Promoting your webinars can be done through social media, email, and others.

But don’t forget that you also need webinars with relevant and in-demand topics to make people come back to your organization.

Great webinar marketing is just one beginning step to spreading your organization’s name and brand out there.

The rest of them lie to you on how you can take it from there and make your organization expand more.

Don’t forget that webinars are a great way to gain exposure and customers, and you should utilize them more from now on. They might not be easy to handle sometimes, but there are certain advantages in holding one over not holding any webinar at all.

Hopefully, with these tips, you can promote your webinars properly and successfully to your audience.

Last but not least, webinars need the right people for them.

If you’re looking for great employees or interns to host your next webinars, you can try to head over to our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

How to Start a New Business in 2021

How to Maintain Healthy Work-life Balance at Home

4 Tips to Build Effective Company Culture During the Pandemic

Effective Communication on Zoom: 4 How-to Tips

The post How to Promote Your Webinars Successfully in 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

Top 10 Free Email Marketing Services for Your Business in 2021

Jessy Ye — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 06:26:06 +0000

The Need for Free Email Marketing Services

Companies need constant marketing to be able to grow their presence socially. They use many channels and forms to market their brand and products.

One of the staples of content marketing that companies still use from back then until now is email marketing.

It’s safe to say that every company wants to put out the best-looking email to send to the customers. But it’s not always easy.

When you’re writing from scratch, it can be difficult to compose a nice marketing email.

There are also the problems of sending it without making any mistakes or breaking customer’s data. And you don’t want to sound like spam mail.

You’d think, is there any other alternative that I can use?

Of course, there are many email marketing services out there that are great. But one factor that comes to your mind is your budget.

You’re not up to empty your wallet with just one service. In that case, there are many free email marketing services that are available. You can effortlessly create content marketing emails for your business.

We’ve got your back because here is our compiled list of top 10 free email marketing services:

Sendinblue
Sender
Omnisend
Benchmark
Mailchimp
Hubspot Marketing Hub
MailerLite
SendPulse
EmailOctopus
Mailjet

1. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a free email marketing service that has many features and is easy to use.

To create an email marketing campaign, all you need to do is drag and drop the design elements that you want to the email composer in Sendinblue. This function’s practical and straightforward that anyone can use it.

If you don’t want to use the drag and drop editor, there is also the option of editing your email through the rich text editor or HTML editor.

Sendinblue also offers ready-to-use templates that you can customize all you want, so you don’t have to create a visually attractive email from the scratch.

More importantly, the email automation features can let you send an email to visitors on your website or your subscribers automatically with just simple triggers.

Sendinblue has many other features like contact management and social media marketing as well and is sure to help you in creating great marketing emails.

Over at G2, the users seem to agree that Sendinblue is a simple and great bulk email sending software for marketing. However, the downside is that it doesn’t offer many interesting templates and is very limited on the free version.

Score: 4.5/5

2. Sender

Sender is an easy email marketing service that promises you to use its tool 100% free. With Sender, you can create email newsletters and edit your marketing email easily all in one place.

Sender’s email editor has a drag-and-drop interface that easily lets you add and edit any element or content that you want into your email.

You can also customize and personalize the subject’s line and body so that you can send out a newsletter by addressing each subscriber individually.

To help you manage your potential customers easier, Sender provides contact management that can list and group your customers based on their data according to your needs.

It also has email marketing automation in its free plan that lets you send an automated email on special occasions like welcoming new customers, transactions, birthdays, follow-up, or even just a regular newsletter.

With up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails per month, you can utilize Sender as a great free email marketing tool.

People reviewing the product on G2 mostly said that Sender is a great email marketing service, just that it can be slow and buggy to maneuver at times.

Score: 4/5

3. Omnisend

Omnisend is an email marketing service that offers both free and premium plans.

With its free plan, you can send up to 15,000 per month with an unlimited subscribers limit.

Omnisend is easy to use and easy to personalize with its clean drag and drop interface that makes editing very easy. It also supports all email types like newsletters, autoresponders, A/B testing, and advanced automation.

If you’re using Omnisend, you can choose from 18 available templates even in the free plan. With the available templates, you can build it as your base and customize it even more to suit your company.

Other features that are available for you to use include email automation, list management, newsletter creation, spam-and-design testing, and many more.

With a 24/7 Live rep and email support, Omnisend is a friendly email marketing service that can be customized for your marketing needs.

Reviewers have mostly found no problems in using Omnisend, but there is a small number of people who wished they could have more advanced options and technicalities.

Score: 4.6/5

4. Benchmark

Benchmark is a free email marketing service that offers you 250 emails per month and unlimited subscribers.

With its simple and fresh interface, you’ll be able to create great emails without any costs.

With a drag and drop builder, you can customize the layouts, elements, and even styles for your email. You can even edit your photo on Benchmark without any need to go to Photoshop or opening other image editing apps.

It also has an automated email service that lets you customize the trigger, the list of subscribers, and even the time for the follow-up email that can grow your customers.

Not just that, Benchmark offers other features such as analytics and tracking your growth or customizing your list with the fun website, polls, and surveys.

With this powerful email marketing tool, your company will shine and grow even more.

Benchmark is a great email marketing service, but the downsides are that it doesn’t have a user-friendly interface for mobile apps and has limited templates to choose from.

Score: 4.1/5

5. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the oldest free email marketing services that can send up to 10,000 emails per month with a limit of 2,000 subscribers.

It is a great marketing tool because it integrates many applications that company or non-profit organization owners use such as WordPress or Zapier.

They also offer a built-in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that is available on the free version. This lets you easily manage potential and current customers easily in one platform.

In its free plan, you can create marketing campaigns through multiple channels, use the available templates, built-in CRM, use surveys and websites, and even customize your domains.

With its detailed report to manage your customers and a simple but great editor, you can easily create exceptional-looking emails with Mailchimp.

Mailchimp is a basic free email marketing service, but the downside is that its features can be limited. Its templates can also be confusing to use.

Score: 4.3/5

6. Hubspot Marketing Hub

Hubspot Marketing Hub is a free email marketing service that can send up to 2,000 emails per month and can manage up to 1 million subscribers.

Without needing the knowledge for IT, you can design beautifully crafted email campaigns with its drag and drop interface that lets you add and edit easily.

They also provide many templates to choose from for you to customize, change, and convert.

Hubspot also lets you personalize emails and tailor them to your subscribers.

It can also personalize other things like list membership or subscriber’s information so you can schedule your email campaign as easily as one click.

With its generous free plan, Hubspot offers features such as email marketing, forms, landing pages, contact management, social media ads, live chat, and traffic and conversion analytics.

All in all, Hubspot Marketing Hub is a great email marketing service. Some downsides are that its features can be more upgraded for complete SEO optimization.

Score: 4.4/5

7. MailerLite

MailerLite is a free email marketing service that lets you send up to 12,000 emails per month and can manage up to 2,000 subscribers.

It can create emails with the option to edit from the drag and drop editor, custom HTML, or a rich-text editor.

MailerLite also offers you free pre-designed templates that you can freely use for your company’s needs. It also has other features that let you grow your audience. You can use its website builder, landing pages, pop-ups, subscriber management, email automation service, and personalization.

You can also track your marketing results easily with MailerLite. To view your results, all you need to do in MailerLite is to view the campaign reports and surveys provided.

You can even group the reports by geographic location. With MailerLite’s intuitive features, you can certainly assemble great email campaigns for your potential customers.

You have to wait for 2-4 days unfortunately to activate your account to use MailerLite, but aside from that, there’s not to complain about.

Score: 4.6/5

8. SendPulse

SendPulse is an all-in-one marketing tool that can manage your email marketing. The free plan lets you send 15,000 emails per month for 500 subscribers.

With its fresh interface, you can edit and adapt your emails with its drag and drop feature. It also offers a wide variety of 130+ free templates. With this, you can design your email for any occasion without taking too much time.

As such, it also offers an automated email service that lets you customize its triggers easily.

Its system, Automation 360, lets you set trigger flows through emails, use web push notifications, and send SMS.

More importantly, SendPulse prides itself as an international service. It can send text messages to over 1,000 mobile operators in more than 200 countries, enabling your campaign to spread wider.

One downside to SendPulse is that its customer service can be slow sometimes.

Score: 4.4/5

9. EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus is a free and simple email marketing service that lets you manage up to 2,500 subscribers.

You can start crafting your email with a pre-designed template. Or you can customize it using the drag and drop email editor without starting from zero.

It also can optimize your email design for any device whether on desktop or on mobile.

EmailOctopus also has the autopilot service that can engage with your new subscribers automatically with drip campaigns for your products.

It also has the feature of tracking your results, letting you monitor your campaign in real-time and view a detailed report with graphs and charts. At no cost, you can use EmailOctopus and create email campaigns free of hassle for your business.

One downside to EmailOctopus is there’s a lack of detail and transparency in the analytics.

Score: 4.4/5

10. Mailjet

Mailjet is a free email marketing service with a free plan that lets you send 6,000 emails per month for unlimited subscribers.

You can edit and add email campaigns easily with its drag and drop editor.

Moreover, Mailjet lets you collaborate with your team members so you can create marketing emails together at the same time.

Another feature that it offers is the personalized email that lets you add dynamic emails for individual subscribers to gain more clicks.

Mailjet provides an intuitive interface and even supports 5 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian)

Aside from that, there are other attractive marketing features such as contact management, analytics, email API, SMTP relay, and many optimizations that you can personalize according to your business needs.

One thing lacking from Mailjet is the email segmentation in its software.

Score: 4/5

In short, that’s all the 10 free email marketing services that you can try and use for your company. They have all the features that you need and more importantly, don’t cost anything.

Start using them from today and grow your company’s audience with great newsletters and content marketing emails.

You might also want to read:

15 Top Online Learning and Skills Upgrading Courses in 2021

Top 10 HRIS Apps or HR Software in 2021

10 Best Language Learning Apps for 2021

The post Top 10 Free Email Marketing Services for Your Business in 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

6 best tools for team building for a remote team in 2021

Jessy Ye — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 06:14:04 +0000

On remote team building and why it’s necessary

Working at an office with your coworkers and meeting them during your work hours means spending a lot of time with them.

You have the time and the support of the environment to build rapport with any of your colleagues.

This allows employees to get along with each other easier and better.

In short, communication and collaboration are easy to do seamlessly in real life.

But how about now?

With Covid-19 and lockdowns imposed on everyone, employees eventually have to work at home. This means that you and your work colleagues can only see each other virtually through digital platforms.

We’ve talked about the effect of the pandemic on a company before and how can you change the company culture during the pandemic. Companies have to adjust to the current situation.

And one of the ways is to utilize the tools that are available for remote team building.

While the examples we’ve given are not much before, there are actually many options of tools online that you can choose from for team building during work from home with your remote team.

Quizbreaker
Slack
Trello
Bambee
Officevibe
Google Drive

Quizbreaker

Quizbreaker is virtual team-building software that uses quizzes to make team members closer.

This app is also device-friendly: it can be played on the browser on your desktop and your phone.

You can invite your team to play on Quizbreaker with an invite link and then you can start playing Quizbreaker immediately.

It also provides a 21-day trial, so that’s plenty of time to use it.

If you also want to use it for a long-term plan, it provides you with a monthly and annual plan.

Quizbreaker provides you with sets of personal questions that you can answer based on yourself and your preferences. After you’ve answered the questions, the real game begins.

Your team can guess whose answers are who’s in a round of multiple choices games.

It doesn’t matter if you got it correct or wrong, because with this you can create a bond by sharing your personal experiences in a fun game.

You can even converse in threads so you can build connections by talking about the related topic to the quizzes.

Whether you’re with close colleagues or with some new employees, you can get along and find out more about your team with Quizbreaker.

Ranging from 3 people or 1,000+ players, Quizbreaker is perfect for any company size and for anyone. This is a tool perfect for icebreakers among employees that’s quick and easy for your team building.

Slack

Slack is a messaging app that can create a channel for your team easily.

While the main features are for messaging, it also has bots and other features that can help with team building.

Simple Poll

A poll is one great way to hear team members’ opinions in a simple way without the need to answer directly with words.

With just a simple command of slash and “poll” (/poll), you can create a poll in no time at all.

Your colleagues can answer the poll and you can see the result in real-time.

What’s great about polls is that they’re so versatile in usage.

You can use it for fun and games or you can use it for team projects and management.

Donut

Donut is an integrated bot in Slack that focuses on matching team members to do small talks.

Virtually, it’s difficult to hold casual conversations like when you’re hanging out in a café during lunchtime.

But with Donut, you can interact with your team members without needing to reach out individually.

You can become buddies quickly with Donut and it’s perfect for team building.

Niles

Your team is stuck on something you don’t know?

Niles is a great automated bot that can answer all your questions.

This bot can save you from miscommunication and potential internal conflict between team members from dividing answers.

Trivia

Trivia offers an engaging trivia quiz for your team for straightforward team bonding.

If your team needs a little break, you can use the Trivia app integrated on Slack to unwind.

Greetbot

Greetbot as its name suggests is a greeting bot.

It’s perfect to use when you’re welcoming new members to your team in Slack.

It can greet new team members by providing her resources and contact information, so they can adapt easier to your team.

Trello

Trello is an online collaboration tool that’s intuitive in its usage.

With a remote team, you can find it harder to collaborate with your colleagues. But Trello provides you with a solution.

With an interface that’s visually interesting and easy-on-the-eyes, Trello’s workspace can make lists to divide stages of your team projects.

In those lists, you can add as many cards (cards can be small tasks or one whole big project) as you want into the list. You can also assign team members who’ll be working on the cards.

When you’re done at one stage, you can just drag and drop the cards onto the next list.

This makes your project management so much easier.

With just notes or communication, it can be hard to keep track of your tasks and there’s the problem of communication.

That can make your team building not so smooth on the way. But with Trello, you don’t have to worry about making mistakes and miscommunication. It’s a perfect tool for your project management to build your remote team.

Bambee

Bambee is a platform that can work with you and consult you with a dedicated HR manager. The HR manager then can support you to revise and build great internal HR policies.

When you’re confused about how to guide new employees and don’t have the hands, you can use Bambee for that. It offers employer coaching and guidance available through phone, email, and chat.

You can also consult on how to onboard, terminate, and the financial needs your employees need.

With a reasonable price plan, employees in the team and your company can voice their opinion if they’re dissatisfied.

This way, you’ll avoid conflict between team members and evokes transparency between coworkers.

Virtual team building has many problems of communication difficulties, so to build your team, you’d want the solution for HR first.

Officevibe

Officevibe is a platform for your team members to engage and build connections.

Every week, Officevibe sends pulse surveys to the employees to fill out.

The survey results are divided into 10 key metrics for the employers and managers to see easily.

What’s great about Officevibe is that employees can be anonymous while sending their feedback.

This allows them to be more honest about their opinion without any reservations.

You can also use simple polls and feedback messaging.

Polls can rate your employees’ performance without any personal feelings and can give necessary constructive criticism.

Feedback messaging is a one-on-one messaging feature in Officevibe for employees to consult and talk directly to the manager with the option of staying anonymous as well.

Although anonymous, the results of the survey can be shared with the employees.

This makes a room for further discussion and engagement among employees while at the same time, building their trust in each other.

Google Drive

Data storage is important for every company because people will access it whenever they need something from it. A great solution to share and store data for your company is Google Drive.

It is a cloud-based storage system that has both a free plan and a premium plan based on the storage size that your company needs. What’s great about Google Drive aside from its great security is that it offers more than just one storage system.

You can quickly organize, add, and view documents (outside and inside your personal drive) in just one click or just one drag-and-drop.

Google Drive supports any file and you can easily share your folders/files with a link or by entering an email address.

You can even allow the folders to only be viewed, or commented and edited by the people you share with if you need different stages of access for different people.

Google Drive also has great compatibility with many apps that you can use: Microsoft Office, Pixlr Editor, WeVideo, and others.

If you want a complete storage system that has a straightforward interface with no hassle for your team building, Google Drive is the solution for you.

Conclusion

And those are 6 tools that you can use for team building during working from home.

Note that there are actually other great tools out there for team bonding and increasing your team’s efficiency. These are just some that we want to introduce to you.

With engagement through games and interactive platforms, you can easily socialize with your team members. By engaging, your teamwork is sure to increase, making your team bond stronger and your performance quality top-notch.

Hopefully, with this, you can use these tools effectively when you’re with new members or new employees in your company.

And if you’d like to recruit new employees to your company, you can do so at our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

Effective Company Culture: 4 Tips on How to Build It

4 Tips to Build Effective Company Culture During the Pandemic

10 Best Language Learning Apps for 2021

Top 11 HRIS Apps or HR Software in 2021

The post 6 best tools for team building for a remote team in 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

10 Best Expense Tracker Apps for 2021

Jessy Ye — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 05:38:52 +0000

Expense tracker app is changing budgeting, why is that?

People have been doing budgeting from way back then.

You might’ve seen or even write accounting books that lists out all your expense and income. In there, you wrote your finance manually one by one.

But when calculating the expense one by one, some troubles would eventually come up. For example, there’d be at least one mistake that results in off number of totals.

Tracking down the wrong numbers can take you a pretty long time and you need to calculate again from the start.

There’s also the issue of forgetting the details of your expense if you don’t remember carefully since you can’t bring your accounting book everywhere.

Now that we are in a modern era, budgeting has never been so easy. You don’t have to write and calculate everything manually.

This is because as demands come, there are many budgeting apps that can track your expense easily. Expense tracker app is now available on mobile device and can be installed simply with one click from the app store.

Of course, there are many options that you can find in the store, but what suits your needs? Which one’s the best for you?

Read more below to find out 10 best expense tracker apps:

Mint
Expensify
You Need a Budget (YNAB)
QuickBooks Online
Personal Capital
Goodbudget
Mvelopes
Simplifi
Zeta
Honeydue

1. Mint

Mint is a free finance app available on both Android and iOS.

It offers to join all your bank accounts into one platform so you can manage all your income and expense in one place.

You can also categorize your bills and subscriptions (complete with the date reminder of when it’s due).

This way, you can track how much you spend on your subscriptions and remember when to pay your bills. You can also categorize and customize your spending in different categories so you’ll know the limit of your spending.

Another great thing about Mint is that it can actually shapes your spending habits to be better.

This expense tracker app can help you focus on saving and improving your credit score with the goal tracker. With a secure network, Mint guarantees to be a safe but powerful expense tracker app.

2. Expensify

Expense is a free expense tracker app available on both Android and iOS, and can even be opened on web.

It offers many accounting features all in one app like tracking expense, paying bills, creating invoices, collecting payments, trip budget planner, and credit card management.

For both business and personal use, Expensify offers features such as importing your credit card, scanning receipts, customizing regulation for expense, tracking your taxes, audit your budget reports, and many more.

You can even create Expensify credit card called Expensify Card which makes the app usage easier. With Expensify Card, you can save up to 50% on your bills, easily book trips-related services, and easily set your credit card limit for you or your employees.

3. You Need a Budget (YNAB)

YNAB is a paid app that you can use the web that is available on iOS, Android, and can even be opened on Alexa.

With a monthly plan that costs $11.99, you can learn the method of budgeting with the Four Rules in YNAB.

You can also use it for your personal use with your partner. When your partner or you spends on something, you can see it on real-time. This way, you and your partner can oversee each other to not make a not-so-great purchase.

YNAB also helps you with its goal tracking feature. With this, you can set your goal easily for your future plan.

Not just as an expense tracker app, YNAB acts as an expense report app too. So on every week or month or year, you’ll be able to see detailed charts and graphs to visualize your progress better.

4. QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is an online subscription-based app that works on web, Android, and iPhone/iPad.

Starting at $8 per month, QuickBooks is an accounting app that does it all for you. If you have an experience with accounting before, you can manage multiple finances without opening many spreadsheets.

The basic plan comes with features such as: tracking income and expenses, invoice and accept payment, tracking tax, expense reports, organize receipts, and many more.

Quickbooks Online offers you a wide variety of 40 tag groups that you can use to categorize your expense.

It can also act as an expense tracker app by importing your transactions from your bank, credit cards, Paypal, and other payment outlets.

This app is great for business use because you can even customize professional invoices optimized on every device.

5. Personal Capital

Personal Capital is an expense tracker app available on App Store and Google Play that also functions as an investment app.

As an expense tracker, it can manage all your accounts in one platform so you can view all your transactions in one place.

There are also other features such as customizing your categories tag, detailing your spending, budget limiting, and many more.

Personal Capital can also help planning your future not just with a goal tracker. It offers financial tools such as net worth graph so you can manage your investment and/or debt better.

It also has a similar goal tracker but more focused on investment, which is its savings planner. With a simple graph, you can immediately how much you need to save for your retirement plan.

6. Goodbudget

Goodbudget is an expense tracker app available on iPhone and Android that is a great virtual budget tracker.

It offers a free plan and a subscription plan that starts at $7 per month.

With its envelope method, Goodbudget categorize your spending in envelopes so it feels like you’re really spending money from your pockets.

You can also save money using Goodbudget’s envelopes. If you want to do budgeting with your significant other, you can do that on Goodbudget. It details all you and your partner’s spending and immediately deduct your money from the envelopes in real-time.

You can also save money for a long-term plan like planning a trip or paying off debt with Goodbudget’s nifty features.

7. Mvelopes

Mvelops is a classic expense tracker app that is available on both iOS and Android. It can receive all your transactions and balances in its app, making it easier for you to plan your budget.

As its name suggests, Mvelops uses the envelope method that dates way back before the Great Depression.

With it, you can set aside money according to your spending categories. So you’ll spend less and won’t have to worry about paying essential bills like utilities and groceries.

After putting your transactions via inbox, you can assign your transactions to the categories in its platform.

If you also want to shape your spending habits even more, Mvelops also offers saving tips, ebooks, and videos at its learning center in the app.

8. Simplifi

Simplifi is a subscription-based expense tracker app that costs $2,99 per month, available on Android and iOS.

It has a simple aim: to keep a track of your spending and your goals. It has a simple interface that lets you quickly see your banking accounts, credit card, loans, and investments all in one place.

You can even see upcoming bills that you should pay so you can calculate how much you’ll spend later.

Simplifi is also a great expense management because it can monitor every spending, setting up custom watchlists, and categorizing your spending from payment method or tags.

Simplifi, like its name, strives to simplify your budgeting experience by effortlessly setting up your spending and savings goals.

9. Zeta

Zeta (or Zeta Money Manager) is a free expense tracker app available on Google Play and App Store.

It promotes itself as an expense management app for couples so you and your partner can share your income and expenses together.

Zeta offers Zeta Joint Cards that you can easily set up with no account fees so you can simplify the experience of having a shared bank account.

You can use Zeta as an expense tracker app for couples with features such as bills reminder, goal tracker, and an in-app communication so you’ll strive in finance without any miscommunication with your partner.

10. Honeydue

Honeydue is another free expense tracker app that can be downloaded on Android and iOS. It’s also intended as a finance tracker for couples.

What makes it easy for couples to use Honeydue is that you can collaborate with your couples about big or small occasions that need a budget plan.

It’s easy to use Honeydue for one individual or for a joint expense tracker app.

Honeydue offers a joint bank account so you and your partner can save and spend responsibly in one account.

Other features that it offers are bill reminders, chat message, accounts tracking from bank accounts to loans and investment. Honeydue can even be used globally as it supports 20,000 financial institutions in 5 countries.

And that’s 10 best expense tracker apps that are available for you to use. They’re all great and can be for personal use, usage with partner, or for your business.

With these apps, you’ll surely be able to manage a better finance without all the worries and complications. You can even have fun while tracking your expense and achieving accomplishments for yourself.

And besides managing your expenses, you might also want to find a higher salaried job to increase your lifetime income.

If yes, you can hop over to 9cv9 Jobs Platform to find better career opportunities and higher paid jobs.

You might also want to read:

15 Top Online Learning and Skills Upgrading Courses in 2021

Top 10 HRIS Apps or HR Software in 2021

10 Best Language Learning Apps for 2021

The post 10 Best Expense Tracker Apps for 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

How to Start a New Business in 2021

Jessy Ye — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 07:34:04 +0000

Can you start your new business?

Some people choose to work under a company.

Some people choose to start a business by themselves, and we know that they’re called entrepreneurs.

There are many reasons people want to be entrepreneurs.

Statistics list out that the reasons people start their business are: to be their own boss, to pursue their passion, for the self-presented opportunity, dissatisfaction with organizations in their country, being outsourced, and others.

This leads to a big number of entrepreneurs.

In fact, the numbers of existing entrepreneurs in this world are 582 million people.

But schools don’t teach people how to start a new business even though people are more eager to do so.

So if you’re an entrepreneur ready to start a business, do you know the basics steps to do it?

Are you ready with your plan? Do you think you have what it takes to build a company from scratch?

If you think you still want to know more about the basic steps of starting a business, we’ve provided you a list of steps below.

Here are some tips on how to start a new business:

Clarify your business idea
Conduct a market research
Compose a business plan
Get to know finance
Choose the right tools
Set your business in motion

1. Clarify your business idea

Start with the why

Define your purpose in choosing a certain business idea.

Do you have a personal reason to open a new business?

You need to start with the why first, as Simon Sinek, an author/motivational speaker said.

Your reason can be anything as long as it is significant and relevant to the business idea.

For example, you want to start a for-profit organization that sells books out of recycled paper because you want to be more eco-friendly.

Or you want to sell shoes for children because you see that shoes on the market don’t prioritize comfort.

If you have a clear reason for why you’re starting your new business, you can see your business further and can appeal to the public.

Follow the trend that lasts longer

If you’ve browsed Tiktok or other social media before, you’ll notice that as time passes, a trend becomes out-of-date so quickly.

This is because there’s the rise of micro-trends or fad that appears in many sides of social media.

What happens is that oversaturation of the product in social media creates a dislike for the product.

This causes the product to be thrown out quickly and becomes the “old rag” within weeks or even days.

That’s why you need to observe what trend do people stick to. It needs to be a general trend that people are always looking for and lasts for a long period of time.

Target customers

In marketing, you need to specify your target customers.

Is your business idea more suited to people with older age?

Is it for Gen Z or millennials? What is your location range for selling your product (is it just your city or do you want to expand further?)

By considering your target customers, you can refine your business idea and product more easily.

Moreover, you can save money by marketing it to the correct, specific demographics instead of aiming for everyone.

2. Conduct a market research

When you’ve decided on the shape of your business idea, you can start conducting research.

Market research is important and it can determine your chance of succeeding in your new business.

When doing market research, you can consider doing these three things:

Look for potential competitors

If you’ve specified your business idea and target customers, you can see that there are probably people who are working on the same product as you are.

If they’ve been doing it for longer, they’re more experienced and already have customers who will come back to them.

What you need to do is research and list out your competitors.

By knowing your competitors, you can learn how they run their business and best them at a more improved version of the same product.

Think from a customer’s perspective

Research shows that one main reason businesses fail is that because there’s no market need for the product they serve.

You need to place yourself in the customers’ shoes and think “would I buy this product?” or “what do I look for when I want to buy this product?”

By placing yourself as a customer, you can gain additional information on how you can improve your product.

Often times when you’re selling a product, you become too biased on it and cannot see what it’s lacking.

That’s why you need to be the customer first before selling your product to the actual customers.

Conduct surveys to potential customers

If you think that thinking like a customer isn’t enough, you can ask directly to your potential customers of what they think.

You can set the surveys to be done by people on your target customers so you can get specific results.

You can also give them samples of your product to test out and see their opinion on it.

Collecting opinions and reviews and filtering them out can bring your business a clearer starting point.

3. Compose a business plan

A business plan is basically a written plan that consists of what does your company does, your company’s objectives, and plans to achieve your goals.

When starting a new business, it’s important to solidify your ground with a business plan.

In your business plan, you’d want components such as an executive summary, products and services, marketing strategy and analysis, financial planning, and a budget. (Investopedia)

If you’re confused about how to write a business plan, there are free business plan templates that are simple and easy to use for you.

With a business plan, your business idea can be more organized and clear.

4. Get to know finance

When you want to start a new business, you have to have to think of the startup costs and learn how to manage your money. Research shows that 82% of the time business fails because of the cash flow problems.

Startup costs

Try to calculate your startup costs. Most of the small businesses start with less than $25,000.

Starting a business costs more than you think, and people don’t feel that they have enough money for it.

When you need funds for your business, you can consider taking out a business loan or grants to expand your business.

There’s also the option of crowdfunding, which works as a way to gain customers and to cover the fund needed for starting your business.

On managing your money

People often don’t know how much is too much for business expenses.

After all, you need to have marketing, design, inventory, and so on for your business. That’s why people tend to overspend and don’t gain profit in their business.

In fact, 30% of companies in America keep losing money.

If you can’t calculate your expenses, try hiring an accountant for your company and use the accounting tools that are available online.

5. Choose the right tools

If you already have the product and the plan, what you need next is the right tools for your business.

You can consider the tools for these categories:

Online-store: You can use websites that focus on selling products online. Sites such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Shopee are popular to use as an extension of stores. If you’d like to make your own website, you can also develop one yourself easily with a setup tool like Square or Squarespace.
Accounting tools: Accounting tools should have all the features needed for your business such as basic accounting, payroll, time tracking, expense and income tracking, creating invoices, and tax tracking. There are many options like Gusto or Expensify to do the job for you.
Tasks management: Projects for business can go out of hand very quickly. That’s why you need tasks management tools for it. Tools like Trello or Proofhub are great for project management.

6. Set your business in motion

No matter how much you plan to start a new business, it won’t start until you sell your product.

Thus you need to start selling to generate profits and see if your business plan works or not.

When starting a new business, you can try to do these things:

Pre-orders and discounts

To attract customers, you can offer a special limited discount for customers who come early to buy your product.

That way, they’ll feel special and are more likely to come back.

You can also try to set up pre-orders for your product to gauge how many people are willing to buy your product.

This way, you’ll be able to minimize your losses too.

Promotion outside the marketing campaign

Sometimes, promotion from ads and your marketing campaign isn’t enough to get the word out there. Another effective way to spread your business is through promotion on social media by your friends and family.

Ask them to promote on their platform, especially if their platform has many target customers. It won’t hurt to get more exposure after all.

And that’s the basic steps to start a new business.

Of course, there are times when your business will not go as smoothly as your plan no matter how much you’ve researched for it.

But as long as you have the basics, you can always modify and enhance your new business with each failure that comes.

By starting a new business, you’re changing the world around you by providing more jobs to people and reviving the stagnant economy during the pandemic.

If you’d like to start a new business and employ the right people for it, you can go to our career platform: 9cv9.

You might also want to read:

The Ultimate Guide to Hiring an Intern

Overcoming Fear on Starting a New Business

Building Customer Loyalty for Your Business

The post How to Start a New Business in 2021 appeared first on 9cv9 Career Blog.

Jessy Ye, Author at 9cv9 Career Blog

Career Change: How to Successfully Change Your Job

Assess your skillset

List jobs that you’re aiming for

Consult someone that has the job in the industry

Learn additional skills

Make a plan and set a goal

Trust yourself

Takeaways

Top 4 Video Conferencing Software You Need to Have in 2021

1. Zoom

2. Google Meet

3. Microsoft Teams

4. Bluejeans

Conclusion

How to Prevent Workplace Sexual Harassment: 6 Actionable Tips

1. Setting the policies straight

2. Conduct training sessions for employees

3. Conduct training sessions for superiors

4. Make your workplace transparent

5. Monitor and supervise the workplace

6. Act swift before the issue escalates

Conclusion

Top 7 Marketing Certifications You Should Get in 2021

Marketing certifications you should get

1. Google Ads Search Certification

2. Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ)

3. Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification

4. Hubspot Email Marketing Certification

5. Facebook Blueprint

6. SEMrush SEO Toolkit Certification

7. Hootsuite Academy Marketing Certification

Conclusion

You might also want to read:

9 Best Employee Recognition Tools for 2021

What is employee recognition software?

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Free/paid

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2. Assembly

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3. Nectar

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4. Blueboard

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5. Guusto

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6. Motivosity

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7. Bucketlist

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9. HeyTaco

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