Corporate Alt Girl

There’s nothing better than fully stocking up the office, except fully stocking up your office while simultaneously saving money. It seems like everyone has been talking about needing to save money because everything is just so expensive. That’s why I created your personal guide to Sam’s club office shopping. As a friendly reminder, some of my links are affiliates that pay me a small portion at no additional cost to you. Let’s get into, here’s your personal guide for savings.

G2 Pens

We’re kicking things off with a classic. High quality pens! It seems that many office girlies share the love of curating the perfect pen collection and I am definitely one of those girlies. High quality pens are important for a couple reasons. One, having a durable and reliable pen for meetings, interviews, and notes is crucial. Second, something about a nice pen speaks volumes on your professionalism and commitment to details.

Note Pads

Okay, this one is a little silly, but one thing I’ve noticed: Gen Z doesn’t take notes during training. Look, I’m a millennial manager and the common age range I manage is 18 to 24 year olds — it is rare to see any of them ever take notes during onboarding and meetings. So what was the solution? I got notepads and pens and explained to them why note taking is important, but that’s a story for another day. Another reason note pads are great for the office is for collaboration. When you’re talking to other managers, in meetings, brainstorming — keep everything in your note pad, develop the ideas, create your roadmap, and then implement and monitor. Pen to paper is still superior over notes on your phone. Again, it increases your commitment to professionalism and detail.

Post It Notes

Post it notes are so versatile. The number one thing for post it notes is organization. You can have them stick out like tabs on training manuals, you can color code sections of projects, or you can draft workflows. Another great thing about post it’s is communication. Got a coworker that doesn’t check their emails? Stick a post it on their computer. These are simple and so handy in the office.

Binders

Binders are amazing for creating comprehensive manuals for your team. You can put their benefits brochure, pay structure, important resources, and their training manuals. From there, they can continue to build on it with anything else that they’d like to have handy. It can also serve as an organization system for you. For example, I handled the research portion of legal cases and would organize them all into a binder so everything would be filed together and easy to sort through when handing everything over to our lawyers. Moreover, if you’re a small business or working for a small business, you may not have all the bells and whistles of software to handle employees electronically; so you can also have print outs ready for time off, disciplinary action forms, or other onboarding checklists.

Tumblers

Hydration is so important for work! Studies have shown that staying well hydrated increases your cognitive function. In other words, you’ll do better at: retaining information, planning, solving problems, and staying focused. This is pivotal especially during end-of-month and end-of-quarter when everyone is pushing to get those numbers up. But these tumblers are also cute and much better than plastic water bottles.

Snacks

Snacks are just for fun. They’re a great way to show your office that you value them; which, in turn, contributes to a positive work environment. It also helps for those days that you just need a quick bite to refocus.

Conclusion

Buying in bulk is the best way to save money on stocking up your office. And if you’ve made it this far, here’s a pro tip to save even more money: use Ibotta to redeem cash back on your Sam’s Club purchases. Now the offers are always changing, but there’s always something and it adds up over time. You can sign up here if you don’t have an account. I hope this post was helpful to you. I’d love to hear your best tips on how you save money when stocking up the office in the comments below. Happy savings!

We are in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) where technology is transforming our world in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. It’s driving autonomous vehicles, aiding doctors in making more precise diagnoses, personalizing our entertainment, and streamlining our work with impressive efficiency. If you’re not already using AI, let me change your mind.

AI can be an amazing tool for small businesses, providing capabilities and efficiency often available only to larger corporations in the past. Here are several ways in which you can use AI for your business:

1. Customer Service: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can handle common customer queries 24/7, allowing for faster response times. They can be programmed to answer FAQs, guide users through your website, process orders, and even provide personalized recommendations based on the customer’s behavior and preferences.

2. Sales and Marketing: AI can analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends and patterns that can inform your marketing strategy. For example, predictive analytics can help you identify which customers are most likely to make a purchase or which products are likely to be popular. Personalized marketing, using AI, can increase customer engagement and conversion rates.

3. Operations and Supply Chain Management: AI can be used to optimize operations and supply chain processes, reducing waste and increasing efficiency. For instance, machine learning algorithms can forecast demand more accurately, helping you manage inventory better and reduce storage costs.

4. Financial Management: AI can automate repetitive tasks such as invoicing, payroll, and expense tracking. Machine learning algorithms can also help with risk assessment and fraud detection, providing added security for your financial transactions.

5. Product Development: AI can analyze customer feedback and online reviews to provide insights into what customers like or dislike about your products or services. This can guide you in refining your offerings to better meet customer needs and preferences.

6. Business Analytics: Machine learning algorithms can mine your business data to extract valuable insights about your business performance, customer behavior, market trends, and more. These insights can inform strategic decision-making.

7. Hiring and Human Resources: AI can streamline the hiring process by scanning resumes for keywords and ranking candidates based on predefined criteria. It can also assist in employee performance evaluations and training.

AI tools are not just the future; they’re today and you can start using them to drive growth, efficiency, and innovation in your business. From automating tedious tasks to making data-driven decisions, from enhancing customer service to optimizing supply chains, AI has the potential to improve your operations.

The entry of Millennials and Gen Z into the workforce has brought about significant shifts in the expectations and preferences of employees. Consequently, it has brought on a lack of evolution in leadership & management across generations. This generational change has also created some resistance to evolving leadership and management practices in the workplace. Today, we will cover contributing factors to resistance and what we can do to work harmoniously across generations.

1. Traditional Leadership Styles: Many organizations still adhere to traditional hierarchical leadership styles that may not resonate with younger generations. Command-and-control approaches, top-down decision-making, and rigid hierarchies are outdated and stifling to creativity and autonomy. What we can do to combat this is provide education and awareness to leaders and managers. This can include topics such as: values, characteristics, and preferences of Millennials and Gen Z. While management can argue that they are not here to cater to employees, at the end of the day, the employees are carrying out the work to achieve their departmental goals and it would make for a more pleasant workplace for all if older generations showed some interest in the wellbeing of the people who go to work for them every day.
2. Resistance to Change: Resistance to change is a common phenomenon in any organization. Senior leaders and managers who have been accustomed to traditional practices may be hesitant to adopt new leadership approaches. Fear of the unknown, uncertainty about the effectiveness of new methods, and a preference for maintaining the status quo can hinder the evolution of leadership styles. Instead of resisting, we should encourage collaboration and participation in some decision making. It’s easy as a seasoned manager to assume that younger employees don’t have the knowledge to succeed, but we quickly forget that sometimes new eyes see missed opportunities within daily operations. Additionally, younger employees are usually our frontline, they know our customers better than anyone else and receive feedback daily that can be valuable for management to improve on. And by allowing our younger employees to be involved, they are preparing to take over as older generations began to prepare to exiting the workforce.
3. Generation Gap: There can be a disconnect between older leaders and younger employees due to differing values, communication styles, and work expectations. This gap can make it challenging for established leaders to understand and adapt to the needs and preferences of millennials and Gen Z, impeding the evolution of leadership practices. For example, a preference of Millennials and Gen Z is to have a good worklife balance. They would rather have time off or flexibility over their schedules than a “title” in the workplace. By shifting the business focus to being result-oriented over strict hours, we see a higher retention rate of Millennials and Gen Z.
4. Perception of Entitlement: Some older generations perceive millennials and Gen Z as entitled or unwilling to put in the same level of effort or commitment as previous generations. This perception may lead to resistance in providing younger employees with more autonomy, flexibility, and participatory decision-making roles. But, there is a great, not easy, but definitely great fix: mentorship & reverse mentoring. This is when an an experienced leader mentors younger employees and where younger employees mentor leaders. It facilitates knowledge transfers such as company processes for younger employees to learn, or skills to navigate and leverage technology for older employees. Either way, there is always some thing that we can learn from each other.
5. Lack of Understanding: There may be a lack of understanding or awareness among leaders about the characteristics, strengths, and aspirations of Millennials and Gen Z. Without this understanding, it becomes difficult to implement leadership and management practices that align with the expectations of these younger generations. To ease these pains, leadership must prioritize purpose and social impact in the workplace. Younger generations have held businesses accountable in Corporate Social Responsibility and by aligning expectations, we can see greater success.

By addressing these factors and adapting leadership and management practices to better suit the preferences and expectations of millennials and Gen Z, organizations can overcome resistance and create an environment that fosters the growth and development of the younger workforce. Afterall, it’s proven that employee retention brings higher performance and greater customer satisfaction.