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.

Welcome to Monday’s “What’s New” blog postings. We will try and keep you up to date with the new products, sales and announcements of interest.

This week, Santa Barbara announced the expansion of their purse hangers. These wildly popular items are currently backordered. They expect to resume shipments in mid April. We have learned Santa Barbara is adding a new series of colors called Dazzlers to complement the current birthday stones. They have also re-introduced four patterns in the Lolita Line including the “Let me count the ways” wine glass, the mug in both “Leopard” and “Who needs a man”. Plus, the fast moving “Lipstick” Shooter is back in stock and is available for immediate delivery.

We have learned of the closing of Aldik Floral. This means they won’t be shipping any of the fall or holiday items. If you have ordered products from them you might want to check with your Aldik rep for a confirmation of this news. If you need to find new items both tag and Creative Coop have a variety of floral products that your customers might be interested in -  your more turns rep would be happy to show you some beautiful options!

Today we are launching a blog to connect shop owners with manufacturers. It is tough sourcing new products for your shelves and we are here to help you find new products, new manufacturers and tricks for keeping your store profitable. We hope you will join the conversation as we grow the conversation. Our posts will be written by a variety of experts and will be posted on a regular schedule. It is our goal to discuss new products and specials on Mondays, and share display ideas on Wednesdays. Then on Fridays we will share the space with some specialists to help with operational issues. Staffing and human resource issues will be addressed by Liandra Krebs who has 35 years of business experience helping store owners with hiring and employee issues. Shandra Rose is an accountant who knows the ropes and maintains a busy practice working as an outsourced CFO for small stores. She will be sharing her knowledge with you once a month. In addition we will discuss web issues and marketing ideas on the other two Friday’s each month. Please let us know what you think,

The team at more turns.