Bread. Beer. Bacon. *Homer Simpson voice* Mmm, bacon…

No matter what tasty food product your business is creating (or helping to create), a robust food safety management system is essential.

Why?

Because without one, you could be exposing your food to risks and hazards that are both life-threatening for your consumers (420,000 people die each year due to contaminated foods), and business-destroying for you. Plus, by not having a food safety management system in place, you’ll lose pivotal trade opportunities with others in the food industry.

To ensure you have a food safety management system in place – and that it’s up to scratch – there’s FSSC 22000.

In this post, you’ll discover what FSSC 22000 actually is, why it’s so important, how a GFSI recognized certification will benefit you, and how Process Street can help with it all.

Make your way through the following sections to get clued up:

• What is FSSC 22000?
• What’s the difference?: FSSC 22000 vs ISO 22000
• What a GFSI recognized certification means for you
• The additional positives of FSSC 22000 certification
• Achieve FSSC 22000 certification with Process Street!

Now, it’s time to taco about FSSC 22000 and food safety!

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This is a guest post written by Jeff Oxford. Jeff is a tech enthusiast who follows new trends in technology and digital marketing. He had been a speaker at the 2013, 2017, and 2018 IRCE and has written contributions to Forbes.com, InternetRetailer.com, and Infusionsoft.

Staying on top of tasks amid distractions is not a problem exclusive to the 21st century, although today’s folks have to deal with social media. It is the rabbit hole where anyone can willingly spend at least 144 minutes every day.

You can expect this statistic to rise when the expected three billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population in 2021, will join the social networking sites.

With that and other things in mind, it’s no wonder that productivity and efficiency are the main targets of a tireless quest to achieve a productive work life.

According to Google Trends, the interest in productivity peaked in September 2018. While it has sustained some lows, the idea continues to gain attention as we speak.

Efficiency, like productivity, also enjoys high volume searches in the US.

Turning a blind eye on the impact of social media and relevant efficiency killers is counterproductive. Surely, limiting access to Facebook, Twitter, and other sites that compel browsing during office hours can help. Plus, smartphones have to go or be kept out of reach to avoid looking at it every 20 minutes.

It makes even more sense to face the battle head-on, combat technology with technology. Companies can focus their energies on speeding up, streamlining, sorting processes so that people have less time to wonder and wander about in the office.

That’s not to say that you’ll always be able to tell why your productivity plummets.

Every workplace is different, and so are the people that populate it. However, office culture and personal quirks aside, this article will count exemplary technologies and tools that harness, not hinder, workplace productivity.

If you’d like to skip ahead then feel free to use the links below:

• 1. A reliable, fast connection goes a long way
• 2. A project management tool tracks everything
• 3. A time tracking tool gives control
• 4. A chat app provides quick, real-time updates
• 5. Teleconference Equipment Links Teams
• Working with technology is the new productivity
• Boost your productivity today with Process Street!

Let’s dive in!
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LA Creative Technologies uses Process Street to streamline operations, with particular focus on (but not limited to) client onboarding, offboarding, and project management procedures.

With process automation and cloud process documentation solutions, Process Street has allowed LA Creative Technologies to productively, effectively and efficiently manage their remote team, and complex procedures.

We spoke with LA Creative’s Founder and CIO Josh Weiss to find out how they are using Process Street for client onboarding, offboarding and project management. We then opened the floor, accepting questions brought forth by our webinar listeners. Here’s what we found out.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to find out all Process Street and LA Creative Technologies have to say.

• The LA Creative Technologies story: LA Creative Technologies as a management service provider
• The challenge: Client onboarding and offboarding
• The challenge: Project management
• The results: Client onboarding and offboarding
• The results: Project management
• Question time with LA Creative Technologies

Let’s get started.
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This is a guest post written by Alexis Humphrey. Agency owner turned business coach, Alexis Humphrey is on a mission to help freelancers and agency owners maximize their potential by showing them how they can earn more and work less so they can create a life they love. Connect with her on Linkedin or join her private Facebook group.

Steve Jobs built his empire around one clear principle – simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

In his own words:

“Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs, Apple’s Steve Jobs

And Warren Buffet agrees…

What does Buffet look for when he invests in a business?

The answer: Something that is simple and reproducible, like Coca Cola, McDonalds or Gillette. These businesses work like machines – the production process is repeatable, and the output is always the same.

In this Process Street article, you will learn how to fine-tune your service-based business into simple and reproducible processes, building a remote agency machine.

This transformation requires consistency and the consistency of processes. With Process Street, this consistency becomes easily attainable. Learn how to set up Process Street processes and establish a solid ground to build your remote agency machine. A remote agency that works on automation, documented processes and requires very little of your time. A remote agency that brings in money, whilst you lay back sipping pina colada’s on a Brazilian beach.

Sound appealing?

Of course it does.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to read all we have to say.

• Building a remote agency: Maintaining consistency and documenting recurring tasks
• Building a remote agency: Treating your service as a product
• Building a remote agency: Customized chaos
• Building a remote agency: Repeatable systems
• Building a remote agency: Customized chaos vs repeatable systems
• Building a remote agency: Business processes
• Building a remote agency: Why do business processes matter?
• Building a remote agency: How to get started
• Building a remote agency: Embedding processes in your business
• Building a remote agency: The secret sauce

Let’s get started!
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The global economic cost of anxiety and depression is $1 trillion per year.

That is a substantial cost to an issue that is predominantly ignored.

1 in 5 adults in the U.S. will experience a mental health issue each year, with 1 in 6.8 people experiencing mental health problems in the workplace on a weekly timescale.

Work anxiety is one such mental health condition which evokes a sizable economic cost from lowered employee wellbeing and sick leave.

In this Process Street article we explain what work anxiety is – and in that sense, anxiety in general. We then provide information on how you can take action on anxiety from a personal level and at a company-wide level.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down and read all we have to say.

• Work anxiety: Mental Health Risk Assessment
• Work Anxiety: Anxious meaning
• Anxiety explained: Understanding anxiety and the biological causes
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as an individual
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as a company
• Work anxiety: Take action with Process Street

Capes at the ready, let’s conquer workplace anxiety!
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Consumer Reports publishes an annual reliability survey, which includes data on over 470,000 cars.

In this report, owners of Tesla’s Model 3 experienced a number of problems, including chassis hardware, paint and trim related faults, indicative of a build quality that fell far shorter than expected standards set across the automotive industry. The Model 3 represents Tesla’s first real attempt at a mass-market electric vehicle, and the issues surrounding its launch created much frustration and controversy among electric vehicle enthusiasts.

This lack of quality assurance has lost at least one major $5 million order of Model 3 vehicles from a rental company, in relation to problems with the service and performance of previously purchased vehicles.

In an email, NextMove wrote:

“Tesla Model 3 vehicles, which NextMove was supposed to take over after payment and only a short examination, sometimes had serious defects: defective tires, paint and body damages, defective charge controllers, wrong wiring harnesses or missing emergency call buttons. Such quality defects would have endangered the safety of the customers and the profitability of NextMove.”

Stefan Moeller, Managing Director of NextMove, went on to say:

“We had to insist on compliance with general quality standards and processes in order to protect our renters and our business model.”

Why did Tesla have so many problems? Crucially, Tesla made the decision to deliver the product to market and sort out the issues later.

Basically, they didn’t have a strong enough system for managing quality.

We call these Quality Management Systems (QMS) – and they work.

The rest of the auto-industry follows a specific quality management system structure. It’s called ISO/TS 16949:2009 and it’s a variant of ISO 9001.

People follow quality management systems for various reasons; they improve quality first and foremost. But they also have a positive impact on the bottom line.

The return on investment (ROI) of a quality management system is typically impressive:

As a guide, a recent study undertaken through the American Society for Quality (ASQ) showed that for every $1 spent on your QMS, you could expect to see an additional $6 in revenue, a $16 reduction in costs, and a $3 increase in profits. On average, they saw that quality management reduced costs by 4.8% – ASQ

In this Process Street article, we’ll be looking at how ISO 9001 can be used to assure quality control across all types of organizations, with benefits like improved company performance, higher demand for products, and a competitive advantage towards increasing market share.

What we’ll cover:

• ISO 9001: Free templates!
• What is ISO 9001? A simple introduction
• Anatomy of ISO 9001: 2015 for Quality Management
• Quality management: What is it & why does it matter?
• ISO 9001 for continuous improvement
• Agile ISO
• What does it mean to be ISO 9001 certified?
• ISO 9001 audit
• Implement ISO 9001 with Process Street
• Related ISO standards

For the uninitiated, what is ISO 9001, as simply as possible?
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This is a guest post from Mile Živković, a content writer and work-life balance expert at Chanty – a simple and AI-powered Slack alternative. When Mile isn’t busy writing epic posts on productivity, work-life balance and time management for Chanty blog, he’s probably driving somewhere. His hobbies include cars (huge fan of Alfa Romeo), photography and collecting pocket knives. You can catch him on LinkedIn.

What do you do when there’s work to be done, email communication simply doesn’t cut it anymore and tapping your colleagues on the shoulder is not the ideal solution for communicating in the office?

You use a chat app to collaborate with your team.

With email becoming clunky and outdated and the need for rapid, instant communication at work, the market for team chat apps is ever-growing.

However, with so many options out there, making the right choice can seem impossible. Pricing, the number of users, integrations, searchable history, these are all elements to consider when making a choice for your team.

To make the process a bit easier, we’ve singled out some of the best team chat apps out there with our honest feedback. These are some of the best workplace chat apps out there and we hope we’ll make it easier on you to make a good choice. Let’s dig in!

Team chat apps: The quicklinks!

• Slack
• Chanty
• Typetalk
• Flock
• Fleep
• Microsoft Teams
• Ryver
• Glip
• Process Street

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What’s the difference between a winning grant proposal and a losing one?

Grant writing.

Grant funding today is more difficult to obtain than ever before. A recent National Institute of Health (NIH) report showed that out of 50,000 grant applications, only 10,000 were given funding. That’s only 19%, which has fallen from 33% in the last 15 years.

Why?

A lack of Government funding, fierce competition, and poor grant writing skills.

We can’t do anything about the Government funds. We can do little about fierce competition. We can, however, do a lot about poor grant writing skills.

From completing complex grant applications to writing tip-top proposals, we’ve created the following eight templates to hone your grant writing skills.

If you’re in a hurry, go ahead! Click on the links below to jump straight in!

1. Applying for a Government Grant Checklist
2. Budget Proposal Template
3. Grant Application Process
4. How to Search for Grants Process
5. How to Write a Grant Proposal Checklist
6. How to Write a Research Proposal Checklist
7. Proposal Template Checklist Process
8. Simple Proposal Format Checklist

Curious about what these templates looks like? Check out the Proposal Template embedded below.

Scroll down for more information on each template of our grant writing template pack.

In addition to introducing our grant writing templates, I’ll be taking you behind the grant writing scenes, covering the following topics:

• What is a grant? (Clue: it’s not free money)
• Uncover the truth about what grant writing really is
• How to write grant proposals that win every time
• How to ace your grant proposals with Process Street

Ready? Let’s start with the basics…

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In recent years, the rate of commercial fleet driving accidents in the US has increased by about 20%.

The fleet management industry has responded in turn with a re-emphasis on the importance of vehicle and driver safety, chiefly due to the preventable nature of many of these vehicular accidents.

Fleet management systems have grown more and more complex; far beyond the basic cc tracking system of its past.

Today, more vehicle-dependent businesses are implementing these systems to improve the monitoring of their drivers and vehicles, encourage safer driving habits, and facilitate better company-wide transparency.

If your company is managing a large fleet of hundreds or thousands of vehicles, a fleet management system is key to keeping track of everything related to your employees and assets.

Managing your fleet without a system in place inherently leaves room for potential complications and human error, even if your fleet is smaller in size. For example, if a driver gets into an accident, you may run into problems when filing an insurance claim, or it might be difficult to quickly reach your driver to obtain an ETA for a customer.

Fleet management systems are designed to mitigate these potential issues and help strengthen your daily processes, making them more efficient and organized than ever before.

In this Process Street article, we’ll be covering:

• What is fleet management?
• What is a fleet management system (FMS)?
• Key responsibilities of a fleet manager
• Advantages of fleet management systems
• Fleet management templates
• How to use Process Street for your fleet management system

Let’s start with the basics.
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Workflow approvals are a bottleneck of the worst kind.

Projects get delayed waiting for approval, and those reviewing the work spend more time searching for the piece than they do reviewing it.

“Professionals take 18 minutes on average to locate a document manually––20% to 40% of their time––and spend 50% of their time searching for information.” – Ashish Deshpande, 50+ Key Statistics to Help You Automate Smarter in 2020 and Beyond

That’s where we here at Process Street come in.

We know how important it is to have an effective method for organizing your workflow approvals. Heck, everything our content team does goes through at least two rounds of review before it goes live.

Check out task five in the following free process template for a snapshot of how we handle workflow approvals with Process Street!

That’s why today we’ll be covering:

• What is a workflow approval?
• Workflow approval benefits
• How to create an approval workflow
• How to supercharge your approval process
• 21 free approval templates

Let’s dive right in.
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