Becky Holton is a journalist and a blogger at BestEssays. She is interested in education technologies, best term papers and is always ready to support informative speaking at Brill Assignment. Follow her on Twitter.

Today, we are experiencing unexpected and surprising rise in artificial intelligence. At this point, AI and automation are slowly taking over every industry we have, shaking all our departments, and automating almost everything.

Machines have replaced humans in so many tasks, but simultaneously created various new job opportunities.

The changes happen so fast, it’s really hard to keep track of them. However, by following the progress of AI and using it to our advantage, we can do masterful things with its help, even in the HR department.

Artificial intelligence today

Just think of how far we’ve progressed in this area by now. Automation has taken over the lengthiest administrative assignments that took HR managers hours of every day. AI helps us manage and recruit people, and the myriad of modern automation resources grows by the minute.

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The following is a guest post by Monique Danao, a writer for CandyBar and ReferralCandy.

How do you stand out in a crowded industry?

Do you create lots of sponsored content and team up with big influencers? Or, would you spend $100,000 on ad placement?

While these techniques can help your business gain exposure, will it lead to conversions?

There’s tons of marketing advice and posts on the Internet, but have you tried word-of-mouth marketing? It’s currently one of the most effective marketing tactics.

Why is word of mouth marketing powerful?

How often do you ask for recommendations in everyday conversations? How often do you discuss brands with friends and family? I bet you do a lot.

Before we make a purchase from a new brand, we ask about the experiences of people we know. We want to get their feedback because they’re the ones we trust the most.

This makes referrals super effective. Consumers are up to 50x more likely to buy a product if it’s recommended by close friends or family. In addition, 90 percent of customers trust word-of-mouth.

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Employees are the vital force driving any organization, and as such making sure that employee information is properly stored and managed is of utmost importance.

Despite the importance of employee data, many HR departments are still filing away paper forms and documents. This is not only inefficient and cumbersome, it is also not the most secure option available.

Organizations must turn to software solutions for managing the efficiency of their internal HR procedures, while being sure to maintain the integrity of dealing with sensitive employee data.

In HR departments, poorly established and implemented policies and procedures directly impact the quality of life of employees within the organization. By tracking HR performance in a reliable way, businesses can improve efficiency and effectiveness of their business practices.

In this article, I’ll take a look at the reasoning for implementing a human resources information system, or HRIS, in your business, and break down:

• What is a HRIS?
• HRIS or HRMS?
• Benefits and solutions offered by a HRIS
• Key things to consider when looking for a HRIS
• HRIS features
• Best HRIS software
• More tools to streamline your HR department

What is a HRIS?

HRIS stands for human resource information system. This is a wordy way of saying that it’s a tool to help keep employee data in order.

Think of it as using a combination of information technology and HR software to improve processes to achieve more goals and objectives in a HR department.

“The key goal for Human Resources is to lead the rest of the organization in creating an open, honest and high performing workplace” – HRM Handbook

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This is our third template pack composed of checklists that are designed to be worked through in conjunction with a specific property management tool.

We did a pack for Appfolio, Propertyware, and now here are 5 checklist templates for property managers out there who use Buildium to help them run their business.

Buildium is a powerful tool that addresses all aspects of property management.

The platform has built a stellar reputation largely due to its ability to facilitate the tenant-rental owner relationship by offering customizable rental applications, tenant screening, lease tracking, automated rent collection, and other handy features including a full general ledger for accounting.

It’s truly an end-to-end solution for property management firms of all sizes.

The software is entirely cloud-based, so requires no additional hardware or software installations and can be accessed from anywhere.

The platform is currently used by over 12,000 property managers and 175,000 property owners; numbers that will surely continue to rise as they gain popularity and look to bring in more enterprise-level customers.

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Accounting processes and workflows are at the core of any business. Sadly, 82% of businesses fail due to bad or negative cash flow.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

At Process Street we recognize the pivotal role small business accounting has for survival, profitability, and growth. We have therefore utilized our checklist approach to organize key accounting processes into a series of dynamic, efficient, and clear process templates.

All of these are free to use, ready to go, and can be edited to your needs, so there’s no reason to leave the failure of your business’ accounting up to chance.

This post will provide you with the following templates:

• Environmental Accounting Internal Audit Checklist
• Cash management process
• Small Business Budget Process
• Financial Plan Template
• Financial Planning Process
• Financial Audit Checklist
• Tax Preparation Checklist

This template pack can be used in conjunction with our other accounting processes template pack.

Let’s dive right in and organize your small business accounting.
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This is a guest post by Nicole Cowart, an online marketing executive. She works at a cloud-based company that offers smart business solutions. She is currently studying for her Master’s degree in Web Development.

Digital marketing is the future of marketing and doing business. Most successful companies currently have their online websites and stores that generate more traffic.

Nevertheless, online marketing is also the right place for beginners who are taking their first steps in the business realm.

Even if you’re not a professional marketer, you can still design and execute a successful content strategy that helps you establish your status in the online world. All you need is a good process for it.

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A buggy Netflix account. A defective iPhone. Faulty B2B software.

There’s nothing more frustrating than when products and services encounter issues, or when they simply don’t work at all.

Consumers expect the products and services they buy to perform properly. After all, they’ve handed over their hard-earned money to the vendor in exchange for goods.

Who do consumers turn to for assistance? Customer support.

However, a customer-facing employee can only carry out excellent service if they’re onboarded correctly, fully trained, taught how to interact with customers, and given regular feedback on their performance.

If consumers aren’t impressed with their experience, they can churn immediately and leave negative reviews in their wake. Should the churn rate increase and harmful reviews accumulate, it could be the death knell of an entire business.

At Process Street, we know about – and strongly believe in – effective customer support. In fact, we operate a policy where each new employee must undergo a period of customer support experience, which amounts to a few weeks in total.

That’s why we created these 17 free templates for other teams.

The process templates featured in this free template pack will help strengthen any customer-facing team’s ability to perform successfully. From new employee training checklists to performance reviews, churn reduction checklists to a guide on responding to negative reviews, we’ve got your workflows covered.

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At Process Street, we’re all about processes: creating, implementing, analyzing, mapping, improving, and automating.

There are a lot of layers to processes and it’s easy to get caught up in the complexities.

But really, it’s quite simple.

You need to document your workflow and then follow it, making improvements where necessary over time; continuous improvement.

All of this can be summed up by the concept of process optimization.

In this Process Street article, we’ll give you a quick actionable overview of how to optimize your processes with some tips and tricks of what to look for and how to do it.

We’ll cover:

• Process optimization basics: What you need to get started
• The business process optimization workflow
• How to work out the goals of your process optimization
• How to optimize processes with automation
• Process optimization resources to get started now

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Implementing an EMS, or any of the ISO 14000 standards used to be a confusing and intimidating process.

What’s more, in the past, companies that wanted to conform to and implement standards for environmental and quality management systems would be faced with the task of building out huge, complex manuals, with lengthy processes for changing how each task and procedure in the business was approached.

The result of this kind of EMS implementation would often be a huge, labyrinthine system of paper forms; slow to implement, difficult to navigate, and a nightmare update in tandem with real, changing business needs.

However, things changed with the recent ISO 2015 updates.

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This is a guest post from Jessica Thiefels. Jessica specializes in link building, social media strategy and content strategy. You can find her at Jessica Thiefels Consulting or @JThiefels.

While the term “business agility” can sound like just another buzzword, the idea behind this phrase can be key to the success and growth of your small business.

“[Business agility] refers to distinct qualities that allow organizations to respond rapidly to changes in the internal and external environment without losing momentum or vision” – HR Zone, What is Business Agility?

In other words, business agility is the effectiveness with which you make improvements and adaptations in your current methods or processes. This allows you to grow and stay ahead of your competition.

However, it also requires efficiency in nearly every area of your business, from talent acquisition, retention and operations, to infrastructure, leadership and customer relations.

To help overcome these trials, I’ve gathered four highly actionable steps to let you increase business agility and scale your small business.

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