Small Business Owners Community- Members Take the Reins

The morning session of the Small Business Owners Community meeting, at the CompTIA Annual Members Meeting in Chicago, concluded with two members stepping forward to highlight the development of the programs they are leading. Each of the initiatives the group is working on was listed as a priority in previous meetings, and significant advances are coming from the collaborative efforts of each project team.

Norbert Doeberlein, President and CEO of Netzbahn is leading the discussion on the MicroVAR, IT service providers with 1-3 employees. Many of these companies choose to remain small (as far as employees) and outsource many business services such as accounting and marketing, and client facing services, such as 24/7 support and ancillary implementations. This keeps costs low and allows the providers to build a network of other providers to ensure their customers receive top quality support.  The Small Business Owners Community hopes to create a network of like-minded individuals to collaborate, as well as provide additional training and tools to support the business model.

Barbara Dove, President of Dove Help Desk, is leading the Human Resources initiative to develop education and skills training for small IT businesses. Tools and guides that owners can adapt for their own use are being assembled and assessed, including an HR manual.

The HR work group will be tackling a lot of topics, including

1. Finding and onboarding skilled employees (and legal concerns)

2. Best practices in hiring and firing employees\

3. Onboarding new employees

4. Local and federal labor laws and posters

5. Performance reviews

Expect to hear a lot from this group, as they quickly develop and launch the tools for IT providers to use.  These are just a couple of the key initiatives that were adopted by the Small Business Owners Community, and they are actively recruiting for additional members. There is power in best practice sharing, and the group hopes to capture that energy and aid members in accomplishing their goals.