Hire A Helper - A Movers Blog

Renting a Moving Truck

nicoleives — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:31:29 +0000

Some helpful tips to know while looking for rental trucks:

Check to see if the truck rental company does round trip and/or one way rentals- If you are moving long distance, make sure you can pick up and drop off your truck at different locations. Penske and U-Haul offer one-way and round trip rentals. Whereas, Ryder and Hertz Truck Rentals only offer round trip rentals, so the truck must be picked up and dropped off at the same location.

For driving the truck, most places require you to be 18 years of age or old and have 2 forms of identification including a driver’s license. Check with the company you select to see if they have any other requirements as well.

Select a type of insurance- All rental truck companies have types of insurance and you can usually select which insurance best suites your needs. Your automobile insurance may not cover your rental truck.

Looking for loading and unloading help- Check out HireAHelper.com!

You can rent equipment with your truck such as dollies, hitches, plastic wrap, and boxes.

Text Messaging Banned by Department of Transportation

nicoleives — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:57:15 +0000

26 percent of people admit to text messaging while driving. And that is only the percent of people who admit to it.

We all know the dangers of talking on the phone while driving. And recently texting has become a problem too. This is a dangerous act to perform while driving, and some people don’t fully realize the effect it can cause. The Department of Transportation has banned text messaging while driving for commercial trucks and bus drivers. This new rule took affect on January 27, 2010, and a severe fee has been set for those who violate this. Cell phones are used a lot for business related work such as communicating with truck drivers who are on the road and delivery companies.

Warn your drivers and employees of this new law. I know a lot of people use their phone for emailing and texting for work, but while you are driving it needs to be avoided.

I think this is a good choice by the Department of Transportation. Big Riggs should not be distracted by cell phones. Those large vehicles can cause major damage if a crash was to occur. This is for the safety of the drivers and everyone else on the road.

Work Environment Affect Employees Productivity

nicoleives — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:43:15 +0000

People spend almost as much time in the office as they do at home, sometimes even more. The average American spends about 8.7 hours a day working and doing work related activities. That is more time than they spend doing anything else on an average day. A work environment affects the productivity that takes place during these long hours.

Places affect a person’s mood and feelings in different ways. Walking into a pitch black room is going to make you feel differently, as opposed to walking into a bright lite room with numerous windows. The environment in which an employee is surrounded by can affect their productivity. There are some things an employee can do to spice up their office life. For example, would you rather come into every day to a empty desk or walk into a section of the office that is personalized just for you? Put pictures on your desk and a name plate. Make it a place you want to come into everyday, whether it is an office or a cubicle.Take breaks so that you come back refreshed and ready to start work again.

For the employer, ask your employees for ideas that may help improve the office environment. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, just a little gesture like bringing in food. Food is always a good thing to make people happy and productive. Once a week or once a month, the whole office could go to lunch. We do that here at HireAHelper. It provides an opportunity for co-workers to bond outside the office and take a nice break. As an employer, you wants your employees to feel comfortable at work. This will help increase creative thinking and productivity. Celebrate holidays and birthdays in the office by bring in a cake and a couple decorations. It’s the little things that take away the monotony of the every day office life.

This is a place you spend a majority of your time, so it should be a place you feel comfortable.

Check out ways on how to design your office space.

Using Facebook or Twitter as Social Networking for Your Business

nicoleives — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:36:59 +0000

There is an ongoing discussion in our office about whether or not using Twitter as social media will help to increase our business by a substantial amount. Or if it is worth taking the time to upkeep it.

Let’s begin with a few stats:

Facebook has over 350 millions active users. More than 700,000 local businesses have active pages on Facebook.

The average number of tweets per day is about 1.9 million.

People are using Facebook and Twitter as social networking to help spread the word about their company. This could be a good thing, but how much does it help the company? It creates a relationship market. For example, HireAHelper has a Facebook set up where you can become a fan, allowing us to create a relationship with our movers. It’s free, and it couldn’t hurt. Especially, with the popularity that Facebook and Twitter have right now. This is not to say your business will make a profit by doing this, but it will get your company name out there and possibly help you build clientele.

You can create a target audience, promote special offers or events via Facebook, and keep people updated about your business by creating a fan page.

Pros-

It’s free

Easy to update

Easily accessible through smart phones

Cons-

It may be easy to update, but the down side of that is it has to be constantly updated which could be hassle for some people

Doesn’t guarantee an increase in profit

A couple months ago, our credit card processor company went down temporarily, ceasing our ability to allow orders to go through. While this was being fixed, the company were updating their twitter constantly letting their clientele know about the progress being made to solve the problem. This helped to eliminate large amounts of phone calls they would have received about the matter. This is a good example of how Twitter and Facebook is helpful for getting important information out quickly and efficiently.

Creating a Task Sheet

nicoleives — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:11:51 +0000

One way to do this is create a spreadsheet in your Google account, and then share it with everyone involved. That way people can collaborate together and edit it.

Create a column for each person with their list of tasks. Then have a “status column” so each person can keep track of their progress.

Make it a shared document, allowing for your boss and co-workers to view as well. That way, when two people are both working on the same assignment, they have an easy way to collaborate with each other.

We have found, at HireAHelper, that this is the best way to keep things organized and the most efficient way to make sure tasks are getting done.