Today’s post is by Dave Wenig is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing Inc

Let’s get right to the point. What incentive do you have to reduce the costs that are within your control? Would you get a bonus? Would you get a bigger boat? Maybe a vacation home? Maybe it’s just one of many KPIs that gets tracked and rolled up into your performance review. What is it that would change the way you’re living?

The answer to that is going to be different for everyone, of course. But that’s also the answer to the question posed in the title of this blog. So what?

SafeSourcing is constantly proving that we can deliver an average 24.8% savings. But if that doesn’t matter to you, then why bother. If you are not responsible for managing expenses, then who is, and would it matter to them?

The reality is that payroll expenses are on the rise even while headcount is low. Vendors are pushing their price increases again with incredible frequency and at awfully high levels. In fact, we’re hearing stories about being understaffed by about 20% while those same companies are seeing seven figure salary expense increases to maintain their operations through overtime and other pay increases.

What’s your “so what?” If you don’t have one, I promise you that someone in the organization does and they would be very happy if you helped them reach their goals.

For more information, please contact SafeSourcing.

Today’s post is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing Inc.

It is often said that happy employees are productive employees and productive employees are happy employees. So, how do the two affect each other and why? We will look at what kinds of things promote better morale and what can boost productivity.

Morale – First, morale is enthusiasm, ability, and confidence of a group. This means if your organization’s team is able, confident, and hopeful then their morale is high. If morale is high, your team is likely pretty happy with what they are doing. However, is morale is low, you may find your employees lacking motivation and drive. So, how can you boost morale? Below are a just a few ways to help morale when it seems low:

• Talk to your employees – this may seem simple, but it gives everyone a chance to say whatever is on their mind and also opens up a line of communication that might otherwise be unused.
• Give positive feedback – this one is essential to keeping happy employees. Giving positive feedback shows someone what they have done well and what they should do more. Small wins in the workplace are still wins and can encourage more positive behavior in the long run.
• Be a teacher – when something doesn’t go the way expected or desired, being a teacher and giving positive advice on how to handle it and what methods could help. This is a morale boosting way of addressing a problem without placing blame or outright accusing one of erring.

While we may all want our employees to be happy simply because we value each person’s happiness, there are more reasons to help boost morale. The two are, in fact, correlated. While low morale can cause job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, and affect turnover, high morale can do the opposite. A happy employee is more likely to stay longer with a company, is more dedicated, and is more productive. On top of all of this, they can help boost the morale of other employees, helping to boost morale of an organization as a whole, increasing retention and productivity.

Another great way of boosting morale in a company is when the company itself is doing well and one particularly great way to help a company is by implementing a procurement partner. Every company has things they need to buy and source and a procurement partner can help your employee’s morale by providing assistance, expertise, resources, and results that can help everyone involved

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your procurement efforts, or on our Risk

Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

Today’s repost blog is by Gayl Southard, Vice President of Administrative at SafeSourcing.

At one time, buying milk was simple. Your local dairy used to deliver it right to your doorstep.

Today, however, we have nonfat, low-fat or whole milk. There are also soy milk, almond milk, hemp, or oat milk. Do you want cow milk or goat milk? With or without lactose? Raw or pasteurized? Plain or flavored? There is controversy as to which drinks can even be called milk.

 Christopher Gardner, Ph.D., a Stanford Nutritionist Scientist, is working hard to clear up some of these myths.   Most of us grew up believing milk was good for us. It built strong bones! It was considered a source of calcium, a factor for good bone health. However, there are countries such as Japan and India where the country is predominately lactose intolerant and milk consumption is low and so is the rate of hip fractures. Many of these cultures also do more weight-bearing activities than Americans. Gardner advises that people are better off on relying on physical activity to build strong bones than consuming milk to strengthen bones. Gardner further advised milk can improve bone density, but whether it prevents bone fractures remains debatable.

Milk can be a healthier alternative to soda. The popular vanilla and chocolate plant-based milks are often laden with sugar. It is important to check the nutrition labeling. Gardner stated, “The nutrition label also allows you to compare the amount of fats, protein, carbs and vitamins in each type of milk. For example, the plant-based milks generally don’t have saturated fat like cow’s milk so they don’t raise LDL-cholesterol as much as dairy milk, but they do have about the same amount as calcium,’ he said. And soy milk has the same amount of protein as dairy milk, but almond milk has much less protein.”1

Another milk misconception is that 2 percent milk means 2 percent of calories are from fat, but it’s 2 percent of the weight (which is mainly water) and 35 percent of the calories. Whole milk has nearly 50 percent of calories from fat, and 1 percent milk has about 20 percent. The old belief was whole milk made you fat and skim milk helped you lose weight was refuted by Harvard in a study that followed over 100,000 nurses over 30 years including their dietary changes. The study revealed switching from whole milk and skim milk did not make any weight change.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your procurement efforts, or on our Risk

Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

Citations:

1 Jennifer Huber, Stanford Medicine Scooe, 8/14/2918