How to pull off an 80 hour work week?

 For a moment, forget the 40 hour week, and consider an 80 hour work week instead. Also referred to as a 9/80 work schedule, it typically consists of two-week periods where the workers commit to eight nine-hour days and one eight-hour day, with an additional one day off. The most common approach is splitting up a week into four 9 hour days and one 8 hour day divided into two four hour intervals.

Advantages of the 80 hour work week

See why an extended work week might work better for certain countries, industries or company culture. Keep in mind that not every employee will be on board with extra working hours, despite the circumstances.

Better time management

Most managers have trouble organizing the time when creating schedules for their employees. Often they fear that employees will not be able to cover all the essential tasks during the extra day off within the 9/80 work schedule. However, the extended hours make this more manageable than it seems at first glance.

For example, one usual strategy is splitting your team into two, and giving each half a different day off. Some are free on Monday, and the others can take the Friday off. Due to the increased hours, tasks can be delegated more efficiently as well. More complicated tasks can be given on Mondays, and they will be already finished by Wednesday, leaving at least a whole day more of work. As the employees get a day off in this scenario it seems like it is a win-win for both sides.

Better work results

As an 80 hour week implies an extra day off for all the workers, the additional rest can be considered an extra incentive for the team. This allows more personal control over their work schedule. Consequently, they will feel more motivated to complete their tasks, knowing they have a reward at the end of the week. Note that most of the time, increased productivity is the result of the flexibility that this kind of work week allows.

The extra day off will give the employees time to recover, reevaluate their work, and come back more energized the next week. Furthermore, it means that better results can be achieved for all involved, which essentially secures the company’s growth.

Work-life balance

Every business owner needs to juggle two things: company growth and employee satisfaction. When the workers are overworked or dissatisfied it reflects poorly on the business. Thus, employers always need to motivate employees to work better. The key here is work-life balance. That means the company needs to provide the key ingredients that give the employees the impression that they are in charge of their own work and in control of their professional lives.

When employees are working for nine hours per week, they have more time to organize their tasks and finish most within the day. Furthermore, employers guarantee two days off per month, allowing employees to use that time for doctor’s appointments, vacations or even rest.

Disadvantages of the 80 hour work week

Although extended schedules are beneficial for some industries and cultures, they can be detrimental to others. Consider the drawbacks of the extended hours when employing an 80 hour work week. Never commit to an 80 hour work week if it costs you more money or the satisfaction of your employees.

Overworked employees

The 80 hour work week allows for two additional days off during the month, however, it also implies longer working hours during the week. Most likely, dependent on the company culture, the extra working hours can be stressful and eventually overwork the employees. In a typical week, workers finish their job around 4 or 5 o’clock and are done with their tasks almost an hour before their shift ends. In an extended work week, employees will be incentivized to start a new task that will be postponed to the next day or week.

As many countries and work cultures are moving towards reduced working hours, it begs the question of whether it is a smart idea to add additional working hours for your employees. If your projects require additional time and effort, then committing to a 9/80 schedule for a limited period of time might be a smart idea. If your employees are striving for a better work-life balance, then consider lowering the hours.

Small businesses cannot keep up

The modern economy is filled with startups and small companies that are often struggling with funding or have a limited number of employees. The 9/80 work schedule might not be the smartest strategy to employ for small businesses. In these circumstances, small businesses are at a disadvantage, and are better off with a classic 40 hour work week. If, however, a small business owner wishes to experiment with an extended work week, they should consider hiring more employees, or creating smaller teams of efficient workers. As long as the workers aren’t overworked or underpaid, the extended working hours should pose a problem.

Decreased productivity

There are at least two ways your productivity at work can be decreased. Firstly, the companies and customers your business is usually collaborating with might not be working during the extended hours. You will not only lose revenue and general productivity but your employees will be overworked for nothing.

Secondly, it is important to understand the style of work for each employee. Some prefer longer working days and the extra day off, and others prefer shorter and more compact working days. Some work in the mornings and others prefer the evenings. Adding an extra hour or two to their schedules might lead to decreased productivity as most of them will be demotivated or stuck at work without much to do.

Conclusion

Consider the good and bad sides of launching a 9/80 schedule. It can be a cool alternative to the typical 9-5 workday and it can lead to better results. However, for all its advantages, an extended work week might not work for all industries or people. If you are working on large scale projects in academia, consultancy, finance and similar fields maybe your employees can benefit from some added hours. If you are however working in education, healthcare or customer service, longer hours might overburden your employees.

8 leading business management automation tools

After thorough research, here is our rundown of the best, smartest, and simplest solutions for managing and automating businesses.

Zluri – for automated SaaS management

Zluri is a tool for managing your SaaS stack. A management platform for businesses concerned about cost-effectiveness, visibility, and efficiency.

Features

A SaaS management platform like Zluri offers a plethora of functionalities. However, we have decided to focus on its select features for now.

• Automate employee onboarding and offboarding with purpose-built workflows and an easy-to-use, intuitive UI.
• Get data-rich reports and insights through real-time notifications to improve budgeting.
• Use renewal tracking to build approval processes for software application contracts and renewals.
• Minimize application costs via shadow IT while keeping track of application spending.
• Smoothly manage vendors with access to vendor contracts and metadata.
• Utilize usage monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of your application and learn how to reduce license costs.

Benefits

• Streamline reporting and documentation while cutting costs, increasing ROI (return on investment), and gathering data.
• Keep track of renewals with a smart calendar.
• Make decisions based on growing trends.
• Receive in-depth analysis to reduce or maximize application expenses.
• Find hidden cross-platform expenditures.
• Make wise choices by staying informed about app ecosystem changes.

Pricing

Zluri offers four plans – Basic, Pro, Business, and Business Plus. You can contact their sales team for the pricing details.

Booknetic – for appointment scheduling

Booknetic primarily functions as an appointment scheduling plugin and assists numerous organizations in automating their booking procedures.

The software’s adaptability to different business kinds across all industries makes it suitable for law companies, consulting businesses, academic facilities, training instructors, and other corporate types.

Features

• All generated activities are immediately preserved in both customers’ and workers’ calendars thanks to calendar syncing. 
• Provides automated alerts and reminder tools to help raise appointment attending rates and lower cancellation costs. 
• Uses native interaction with PayPal, WooCommerce, and Stripe interfaces as digital payment portals – for simplified transitions and sale of e-commerce items.
• Integrates with Zoom, which enables consulting businesses to expedite online meetings through the plugin.

Benefits

• Gives managers authority over employee workflow and their agendas are modified accordingly.
• You can either compose your reminders or utilize the platform’s readymade shortcode. You can Instantly write email, Text, and WhatsApp notifications. 
• Manage invoices and tax payments within the site, thanks to streamlined billing.
• Get details on the volume of events that are planned for each site, service, and staff on the dashboard. Depending on the outcomes, you can analyze them and make smarter business decisions.

Pricing

For all the aforementioned features and benefits, which include new versions, Booknetic charges $79/month.

ActiveCampaign – for customer relationship management

ActiveCampaign is a CRM aka customer relationship management system that integrates B2B, B2C, and e-commerce firms.

It incorporates various other automation categories like email campaigns, sales, and services and support into its system to deliver a distinctive customer experience.

Features

• Drive leads through your marketing cycle without any hiccups through well-planned client involvement.
• Inform users about which options to pursue and when and how to connect via automation categorization and lead scoring. 
• Boost sales interaction via automated messages and consumer information.
• Access more than 200 templates for things like welcoming emails, abandoned card features, feedback gathering, contact tagging, etc.

Benefits

• Create a comprehensive marketing campaign, enter customer data gathered both offline and online, and schedule follow-up emails.
• Achieve strong customer service with tutorials and 1:1 onboarding sessions.
• Migrate your content for free from your existing CRM software if you decide to switch.

Pricing

It’s an affordable option, which allows you to add 1000 contacts, starting at $19/month for all organizational types. But before making a purchase, you may need a demonstration depending on how intricate your needs are.

Slack – for automated communication

Even while email continues to be the primary method for communicating with customers, you can limit its use among personnel. 

Slack advertised its unique value proposition as fewer emails among groups when it first went into operation. Today, it manages a huge number of tasks for agile projects, marketing teams, startups, and big companies.

Features

• Synchronize operations for both remote and in-house teams. 
• Assign tasks to accountable groups through designated areas, called channels.
• Utilize built-in video and voice calls as well as screen-sharing for one-on-one interaction.
• Connect Slack to more than 2000 utilities from the application directory.
• Build a customized app and link it to other tools using the Slack API.
• Get multiple functionalities: 1:1 phone and video conversations, 10,000 message archives, and 10 integration channels – all in the free version.

Benefits

• Share files, comments, and cross-platform communication conveniently. 
• Use task managers and bots to automate processes for quick and efficient delivery.
• Initiate or join video conferencing right away from the application by integrating virtual meeting capabilities. 
• Simply link and integrate Slack with other digital workspace tools.

Pricing

Slack offers multiple premium and free plans for groups of any capacity in its free version. Whereas the Pro memberships, which include unlimited message histories, plugins, and group calls lasting up to 15 minutes, are priced at $7/month.

Omnisend – for automating business relationships

Another of the best advertising solutions for automating company relationships is Omnisend. For e-commerce, the multichannel platform was created expressly to support their many market segments and eventually increase sales. 

Features

• Track your consumer data on Shopify, WooCommerce, or other e-commerce solutions, thanks to its comprehensive integration with them. 
• Begin a series of communications for all relevant visitors by determining mail subject lines and workflows.
• Make easy alterations with a drag-and-drop tool.
• Improve your incentive schemes and make data-driven choices via automation splitting and A/B tests.

Benefits

• Select customers to deliver smart customer campaigns, thanks to the numerous transactional actions and consumer characteristics. 
• Get reports having information on the viewer’s email engagement and build campaigns that result in the most sales.
• Use a central location to manage all KPIs (key performance indicators).
• Get useful ad experiences by syncing client details automatically into Google and Facebook.

Pricing

For new companies, Omnisend provides a free account that allows them to send 500 emails, construct sign-up forms, and conduct A/B tests. You can compose emails, send an infinite number of web pushes, and hire a client service manager for $16/month.

Asana – for automating project management

One of the best solutions for automating your company’s project management processes is Asana. It helps with task organization and business process details. 

Features

• Quickly construct boards that promote engagement with a drag-and-drop graphical builder.
• Focus on tasks and keep projects on schedule with the help of team calendar tools. 
• Integrate seamlessly with GSuite, Azure, Dropbox, Slack, Tableau, Salesforce, Jira, and other software development company applications.

Benefits

• Receive automatic notifications and updates regarding the progress of events.
• Easily handle different projects in many workplaces. All members of the team can f
• Get current information about the team’s performance according to priorities, assignees, and projects via the Reports tab
• Make charts and graphs that you can export or distribute with the team.

Pricing

The free version allows individuals and small teams to interact with 15 other people on an endless variety of projects. For $11/month, teams of greater size can purchase a Premium membership that includes infinite dashboards, assignment templates, administration interfaces, and portfolio management tools.

Sprout Social – for social media automation

One of the best social media management platforms with social listening tools is Sprout Social. 

It includes a number of marketing optimization tools that you can use to automate your company’s presence and hit KPIs.

Features

• Manage both organic and paid campaigns.
• Gain useful information from conversations via social listening software.
• Get information about company web pages and accounts with advanced analytics.
• Receive insights via PPC ads and competitor analysis for more smart social marketing decisions. 
• Sprout Social has improved capabilities that enable agencies, small businesses, and enterprise-level enterprises to grow their marketing efforts.

Benefits

• Plan and produce social material across channels as part of team engagement, assign individuals to each assignment, and track performance. 
• Increase sales and produce a profitable return on investment with integrated catalogs.
• Gain valuable insights through customer data collection in essential areas including competition analysis, sentiment analysis, influencer identification, and others.

Pricing

With three distinct pricing tiers, Sprout Social offers various account and report options. The cheapest subscription, which includes five accounts, social CRM, and post-level reporting features, is $89/month.

Sprout Social – for social media automation

Through Zapier, businesspersons can connect over 3000 web apps to save time and increase productivity.

Features

• Link your apps to automatically transfer information and concentrate on the most crucial ones.
• Get alerts when new tasks, customer reviews, and newly opened panels are added via connected channels.
• Customize or modify an autonomous workflow through built-in themes.
• Instantly add consumers’ contacts to mailing lists and use CRM to enhance marketing efforts when they engage with your information or merchandise.

Benefits

• Gain visibility into activities including task history, linked applications, zap creation and account setup, and Google Document import on a configurable dashboard.
• Use the reformatter to instantly transform data into the format you desire. 
• Integrate Zapier without any technical expertise.

Pricing

The free account allows for the addition of 100 projects and five zaps each month. Premium packages come with webhooks, limitless integrations apps, and zaps beginning at $20.

Conclusion

Managing a team is difficult. Even more difficult is leading a group of knowledgeable individuals. Since each expert has a different strategy for achieving their goals, they all have goals in that direction. 

You can, fortunately, remain at the forefront of your workflows and significantly increase the effectiveness of your management with the help of a variety of business automation solutions

Challenges for startup owners

It can be an overwhelming experience, trying to lead a group of fresh-faced employees at the very beginning of a company’s life cycle. There are so many things to think about: the product, the team, the clients, the investors. Not to mention, you’re also trying to stay afloat in an industry that’s constantly changing and growing. 

It’s difficult to keep track of everything, and even more difficult to make sure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal. Some of the biggest challenges managers can face are:

• Defining long-term goals and objectives
• Creating a product roadmap
• Managing team performance
• Monitoring progress

If any of these sound familiar, then learning to leverage a software solution might be just what you need to help get your startup on track.

Benefits of goal-management software

One of the best things about using a software solution like Goals by KeepSolid is that it can be helpful to any kind of business, of any size, at any point in its development. 

If you have three remote workers that are in different time zones–software can help. If you have 100 employees crammed into one floor of an office building–software can help. 

Some of the key benefits that your workers will experience are:

• Increased clarity and transparency around objectives
• A better understanding of how their work contributes to the company’s success
• The ability to track their progress and performance
• A way to give and receive feedback in a constructive manner

And for you, as the manager, you’ll get:

• More visibility into what everyone is working on
• Easier progress tracking towards long-term goals
• The ability to quickly adapt as the market changes

Ultimately, using software to manage your team will help increase efficiency and clarity, while giving you the peace of mind that comes with knowing everyone is working towards the same goal.

Goals by KeepSolid can help

How will you know that everyone is working toward those goals? That’s where we come in. KeepSolid Goals has a long list of features, including:

• Budget Control
• Mind Maps
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Milestones
• Kanban boards

But the most important one for new startup owners is the one that gets the most press: the product roadmap.

What is a product roadmap?

An essential piece of any project management process, a product roadmap is a high-level overview of the development cycle for a product or service. It includes important milestones, features, and delivery dates, and is meant to be a flexible document that can be updated as the market changes. 

And while it’s possible to create a product roadmap without software, using a tool like KeepSolid Goals can help you manage and update your roadmap as the market changes, while also giving you real-time visibility into what everyone is working on.

How to create a product roadmap in Goals

It’s incredibly easy to get started. Not only is it free to try, but the intuitive interface will have you throwing up objectives in minutes, and assigning team members the same day. 

Here is a step-by-step guide to creating your first product roadmap (once you’ve signed up, of course):

1. Create your first objective – this could be something like ‘Increase website traffic by 10%’ or ‘Launch a new product line’ 
2. Create tasks under this objective that need to be completed in order to achieve it 
3. Assign these tasks to members of your team 
4. Make sure you’ve included Key Success Factors (KSF) in order to know exactly what is required for the task to be completed. 
5. Set Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to make sure everyone is moving in the right direction, and that things will be completed on time. 
6. Create deadlines for each task, and reminders for your team members when something is approaching it. 
7. Watch your team smoothly speed toward your goal (while monitoring the process to determine if any changes are necessary).

That’s it! Just by creating a product roadmap, you’re already well on your way to leveraging the power of software to help your startup get to the next level.

How does MQTT work?

MQTT has a simple architecture that utilizes the available bandwidth for transmission. This simple architecture is called the ‘Publish and Subscribe’ model. The model involves clients (a sender and recipient), but communication isn’t direct because a third party is engaged, called an MQTT broker. 

When the publisher wants to send a message, it publishes the topic and sends it to the broker. The broker finds all the subscribers of the subject and distributes information. It entirely means that a publisher and subscriber have no direct link to each other. The process is reversible because the publisher can be the subscriber, and the subscriber can be the publisher.

The broker is an intermediary whenever the connection is cut from the publisher or subscriber. When the subscriber is offline, the broker will hold information sent by the publisher until the subscriber is back online. On the other hand, the broker will relay particular instruction messages (cached messages) to subscribers whenever there is a communication breakdown from the broker.

MQTT messages

An MQTT message is categorized into four phases: connection, verification, communication, and endpoint. A client begins by making a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) association with the specialist by utilizing either a standard or custom port characterized by the intermediary’s administrators. While communicating, it’s vital to perceive that the server could proceed with an old meeting assuming it is given a reused client personality.

There are two standard ports of communication in MQTT: encrypted (8883) and nonencrypted (1883) communication – utilizing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS). During the SSL/TLS handshake, the client approves the server testament and confirms the server. The client may likewise give a testament to the representative during the handshake. The agent can utilize this to validate the client. While not explicitly part of the MQTT determination, it has become standard for agents to help client validation with SSL/TLS client-side testaments. 

MQTT is a lightweight code protocol since every message has a little code. Each message comprises a decent header of 2 bytes, a discretionary variable header, a message payload restricted to 256 megabytes (MB) of data, and the nature of administration (quality of service). 

At the point when a distributor or endorser needs to end an MQTT meeting, it sends a ‘Disconnect’ message to the merchant and afterwards shuts the association. It is an effortless closure since it enables the client to effectively reconnect by giving its client character and continuing the latest relevant point of interest.

Should the termination happen unexpectedly without time for a distributor to send a ‘Disconnect’ message, the representative might send endorsers a statement from the distributor that the intermediary has recently reserved. The message, known as a last will and confirmation, furnishes endorsers with directions for what to do if the distributor suddenly disappears.

MQTT in IoT projects

Here are some of the benefits why a company would collaborate with an IoT company to implement the MQTT messaging protocol: 

• Lightweight Code Protocol: MQTT clients are tiny and require insignificant assets to be utilized on little microcontrollers. MQTT message headers are little to advance organization data transmission.

• Work Under Unreliable Network: Numerous IoT gadgets are associated with inconsistent cell organizations. MQTT’s help for tireless meetings diminishes the chance to reconnect the client with the dealer.

• Two Way Communication: MQTT takes into consideration informing between gadget to cloud to device unendingly. It makes for simple telecom messages to gatherings of things.

• Solid Message Delivery: The dependability of message conveyance is significant for some IoT use cases. Therefore, MQTT has three characterized nature of administration levels: 0 – at most once, 1-no less than once, 2 – precisely once

• Secure: MQTT makes it simple to scramble messages utilizing TLS and validate clients using present-day confirmation conventions, like OAuth.

• Fast Communication: MQTT works continuously, without any postpones beyond the quality of service.

• Comprehensive Support for Programming Languages: MQTT has comprehensive support for programming languages, making it simple for designers to use while developing. 

Drawbacks of MQTT

1. MQTT has more slow communication cycles than Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP).
   
2. MQTT’s asset disclosure deals with adaptable point membership, though CoAP utilizes a steady asset revelation framework.
3. Being a lightweight protocol, it has minimal authentication features.
4. MQTT is decoded. It utilizes TLS/SSL (Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer) for security encryption.
5. It’s challenging to make an internationally versatile MQTT organization.

Applications Of MQTT in the IoT industry

• Car Industry: MQTT IoT projects in the car industry reduce vehicle robbery avoidance, vehicle observing, and far-off support of vehicles.
• Transport Operations: One of the best MQTT conventions in the IoT model is in the strategies area. MQTT IoT centre points, for example, Airtel IoT, assist with following cargo vehicles and give continuous cautions to cargo wellbeing and development.
• Home Computerization: IoT dashboards use MQTT to oversee home gadgets immediately with your cell phones.
• Agriculture: The emergence of smart farming has enabled farmers to monitor soil pH, temperature, and humidity – essential for effective yielding and overall farming techniques. 
• Energy Industry: IoT MQTT boards in the energy area help to construct a more brilliant energy network and upgrade power utilization by purchasers.

Conclusion

MQTT assumes a significant part in making IoT projects more ‘low-lift’ regarding specialized determinations while accomplishing the ideal associations among gadgets, servers, and applications. The publish and subscribe model in MQTT makes it simple to be adopted in IoT. Additionally, choosing the correct cloud service will enhance a high-quality service for your project with the help of MQTT brokers.