The warm weather has arrived and so have Santa Barbara’s hip new sundae glasses.  These can be used as individual glasses or to hold the nuts, fruit, and whipping cream that make any sundae a delicious treat.  In this photo the sundae glasses which are available in sets of two are teamed with The Gift Wrap Company’s birthday celebration for a display that will bring smiles to everyone’s face.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Santa Barbara Design has just announced its limited pink ribbon campaign.  In addition to the Martini and Wine glass there is also a Champagne flute to help celebrate life and women.  Delivery for these glasses will be late August and they expect to sell out before then.  There is also a donation being made to the Susan G Komen Fund for each glass sold – so you and your customers can feel great about these glasses that make a statement.  Each glass comes packed in its own pink box decorated with the ribbons. 

The glasses are shown with The Gift Wrap Company’s plates and napkins in the August Blooms pattern –plates PL2171358, napkins NK4851358 and a Root Glad Tidings Candle in a hand-blown venetian Halo glass.

It is the season for sports and what better way to honor dad than with a glass recognizing his favorite pastime.  This photo features several Lolita glasses. On the right we have The 19^th Hole wine glass (GLS11-5510F), along with two gambling themed glasses –the Poker Shot Glass (GLS15-5580H) and laying down, the Las Vegas Tini (GLS4-5585V).  Tucked between the card related glasses you will find the perfect strike with Bowling (PIL 5550-S).  The other two Pilsner glasses honor dad with golf “The 19^th Hole” (PIL 5550-A) and basketball with Hoops (PIL5580-S).  As a suggested add on to a sale that would  please good ole dad and embellish the celebration we are showing two male themed bottle bags from The Gift Wrap Company.  On the left is Perfectly Pinned Striped in a silk (7850-30) and on the right Distilled Spirits (2733-79).

Seems someone is always celebrating a significant birthday. Last year big birthdays were celebrated with trips and restaurant parties. Today people are saving money by hosting parties at home. A popular theme is toasting the birthday person with wine. Santa Barbara glasses and The Gift Wrap Company bottle bags and boxes offer a great way to help your customers with gifts and décor. And matched with Root candles the party is ready to rock no matter what the age. In this photo Santa Barbara wine glasses announce the celebration. 50 Plus WIN10-8220K, 40 Plus WIN10-8220J, 30 Plus WIN10-8220H, 60 Plus WIN10-8220L and Nifty 50 WIN10-8220N. These glasses are combines with The Gift Wrap Company papers.  The table runner is kraft Chocolate 3374, and we have showcased two wine carriers – the Deco bag SL7620-05 and the Old School Stripe wine box in a recycled brown kraft paper 6379-91. The napkins are from the Wine Country cocktail napkin NK4851288. Root’s Green Tea Queen Bee and Travel Tin candles shown are on sale and will help the birthday celebration.

How about orchestrating a tea party for a child to celebrate the end of the school year and the passing of another grade?  The Gift Wrap Company has some great tools for making a memorable event without a lot of expense or effort.  In this photo the Tea Party candy purses (6343-77) were used for the invitations, while the small gift bags with the crocheted trim (6343-15) were used for place cards and favor bags at the party.  The larger Cupcakes gift bag (6370-26) with the Kiwi Striped curly bow (18283) set at the front door builds excitement for the party inside. The high gloss wrapping paper in Green Apple (7501) was used as a table runner and it coordinated well with the Florapalooza napkins (NK4850778).  If cupcakes were served you might use the Cupcake Boxes as a kid friendly way of serving the treats.  Here we show the Garden Toss Cupcake box (5933-49) sitting on top of Candy Dot Spot (5929-49).  These cute boxes are also a great way to show appreciation for Girl Scout leaders, Sunday school teachers and soccer coaches.  These gift boxes make a simple gift have WOW impact.    

With the holidays passing we officially can now acknowledge  spring has arrived.  This offers you the opportunity to showcase new colors and ideas for celebrating warmer days and a more positive attitude in the air. In this photo you will find a combination of Pepper Pot’s Blue Bird pattern in a photo album (11-5312) and a file folder with bamboo handles (92-5312) for taking to PTA meetings.  These are shown with Root candles in a medium Aqua pillar, a tall Sampaquita pillar, Sampaquita tea lights and Oceana in a glass tumbler. 

Small businesses can be the most vulnerable when it comes to financial fraud because they give a single individual multiple responsibilities with little or no supervision. This is understandable because of the size of their business, but it opens them up to more risk of fraud. To minimize these risks, consider putting in place the following controls:
• Do not give your online banking information to anyone unless you confirm with your bank that it is on a read only basis. Your bookkeeper should not have access to any sort of online bill payer.
• Never have blank signed checks anywhere. This is a common mistake; many business owners leave signed checks with their bookkeeper or staff for the sake of convenience. But it means that checks to unknown payees and in unknown amounts can easily be made out – and the fraud doesn’t even have to forge your signature!
• Never give signing authority on your bank accounts to a bookkeeper. Your bookkeeper can enter transactions and even print the checks, but YOU should always be the signer.
• Be the first person to open and check your bank and credit card statements each month. Look at the payee, signature and endorsement, and question any entry or checks that you don’t recognize. Bookkeepers often go years without being detected simply because they are the only ones who actually watch what goes through the bank accounts.
• Consider having an outside Accountant/Bookkeeper do a random audit or review of your books at least once a year.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is divide up tasks so no individual handles a financial transaction from start to end. Two pairs of eyes on your books can provide a critical set of checks and balances. If you don’t have the volume or resources to do this, consider outsourcing your bookkeeping to a reputable firm that has put these safeguards in place. Check out their references and make sure they carry the appropriate errors and omissions insurance to cover you against any fraud that may occur.
Written by Shandra Rose of Evergreen Bookkeeping, a small professional company that helps store owners.

Spring is a great time to celebrate fresh colors. This beautiful display is from Watsons Greenhouse & Nursery in Puyallup, Washington shows how combining Root and tag can offer your customers a stunning tabletop. Tangy Pear and Aqua in a variety of shapes – play off the white of the tag vases and the green of the flowers – real and preserved. If you have a display idea you would like to share please send a photo to your rep and we will post it giving you credit.

Have you heard? Root is putting many of their candles on sale – almost everything with the exception of pillars and tapers.  Some great pricing while supplies last.  Beautiful colors and almost every glass container is discounted starting this week.  A perfect time to buy for the holidays – and increase your profits.

Christmas is coming.  I know, for much of the country winter hasn’t released its grip – but the manufacturers are coming out with their 2009 holiday products. 

Santa Barbara/ Lolita has shared a sneak peak at the holiday line up with us.  And it is classic Lolita!  With both ornaments and glassware with lots of fun, whimsy and show stopping designs .  There is a special promotion on display racks and pre-packs to consider when planning your holiday shelves.

Last Friday The Gift Wrap Company let us know we’ll have their new catalog by April 10^th.  Want to see what’s new and exciting?  Call your rep and learn about the hot new trends we are seeing with all our brands. 

In this holiday themed photo a medium gift bag in racy red stands behind a small Queen Bee jar and small pillar in Aloe Botantic. A small Rosehip pillar sits next to a Santa Barbara Wine Glass in Sapphire.  At the front you see tea lights in cranberry current, a Lolita Hot Mint Kisses glass and a mini metrolight in bayberry.  On the back right you see a Santa Barbara Martini glass in copper with a white sheer curly adding festivities, a tall timberline pillar in bayberry and a pepper pot Address Book Constructive floral in red. 

For me, being a Human Resource Professional is analogous to being the Stage Manager of a theatre season of Shakespearean plays. All life being a stage, as HR, one is in the role of a fulcrum in supporting the success of the “season”, i.e the business itself. This must be accomplished by pivoting between the needs of the “Directors” (the Owners, CEO, CFO) and the needs of the “Players” (the employees), and supporting both the business as a whole organism and the Human Spirit in each diverse group. Add to that the subtext of the Directors and Players real lives and presto, you definitely have all the makings of human drama. Drama the likes of which Shakespeare would applaud, from the births (the hiring), to the deaths (the quitting or firing) and all the attendant chaos of life in between.

So, supporting each individual to reach maximum potential while, at the same time, supporting the integrity of the whole is a Herculean task, at best, and each of us develops our own “style” in achieving this feat. I have been in the business of supporting human potential in various ways through several decades now. My “style”, like that of Bruce Lees’, was formed by studying many avenues. In addition to my own human experience, I gleaned insight from many prophets. Back in time as far as the “Beatles”, Krishnamurti, and Faith Popcorn, and more currently, the Seattle grunge scene, and experts like Peters, Covey and the spiritual Ken Blanchard, to name just a few. Many, many teachers ranging the spectrum from Business to Psychological to Spiritual have formed my beliefs of today.

I think Howard Behar, in his book, It’s Not About the Coffee, which reveals the ten principles that made Starbucks success, has best synthesized my bias on the role of a Human Resource professional. Behar postulates that if a company treats employees and customers well, everything else will fall into place. If you think of your staff as people (not costs) they will achieve results beyond what is thought possible. And, if you think of your customers as people (not revenue) you’ll make a deep connection with them, and they’ll come back over and over. I personally feel the human resources in any business, while the most difficult to measure, project for or categorize, is the skeletal structure that supports or breaks a company.

Fast forward to today’s “economic downturn”. How do we, as HR professionals accomplish supporting the human spirit in today’s market where people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their savings. We have come to a time in history where we have to explore new options for retaining employees. One of the avenues available in Washington state is the Employment Security Department program “Work Share”. With this program you can temporarily reduce the hours of any F/T employee. The business itself is the one who signs up for the program. While the reduced hours are in effect, the employee still maintains a job at the company, and can collect unemployment to make up the difference between the reduced hours and a normal 40 hour work week. While the employee does not get as much as his/her full regular paycheck, it is a better alternative to both employer and employee in this difficult climate.
While downsizing might have to be an option, and many HR professionals are assisting employees in finding new employment in these cases, the “Work Share” program, if it exists in your state, is one alternative to maintaining current employees while reducing company costs.

As to the business of downsizing, it is the way the downsizing occurs that will either support or break the human being involved. But that is another topic all together.

Written by Liandra Krebs, an independant HR Consultant.