Fast growing alternate currency Ethereum (ETH) created a lot of buzz last year.  

Ethereum was launched in 2015 and is the second largest cryptocurrency in the world. When you look at ETH to BTC chart, analysts predict that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum will have a hold of 25% each of the total market of cryptocurrency and will reach a total market capitalisation of $4.5 trillion in 2020. How did this massive surge happen?

In 2018, the promising cryptocurrency Ethereum recorded an all-time high of $1349 in January. Compared to Bitcoin and Ripple. Though Ethereum had a slow start, in the beginning, it soon joined the big league of performers last year. If you are looking at investing in Ethereum this year, below are the top trends to watch out for in 2019

High Possibility of Hitting Double Digits

Currently, Ethereum is trading at about $103.  Due to the highly volatile market, the token has dropped nearly 90% of its original value leaving investors sceptical on how to proceed. Since Ethereum had a rough year in 2018, there is an indication that the digital asset could drop to double digits. Competition with other currencies has also not helped it either as per some of the most trusted cryptocurrency exchange. However, the future looks hopeful as Ethereum blockchain is one of the most useful in the market and by Q4, analysts have predicted that it will pick up and reach triple digits of approximately $500, leading to big wins for potential investors.

Regulations are Here to Stay

Many international governments are laying down the rules and laws to ensure a dip in insider trading and fraud. Due to the digital nature of the transactions, there was initial risk involved; however, with laws cracking down on markets, cryptocurrencies are here to stay. This has also given rise for fintech to create some of the best Ethereum wallets which carry out transactions in a secure way with real-life applications.

Bitcoin Vs Ethereum

While Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency, in the world of digital currencies, Ethereum has more applications to it. Ethereum is an open platform which is written in turing-complete code language. Because of this, a computer can run any script on top of the program making it extremely versatile. Furthermore, Ethereum records things more quickly than Bitcoin which means that the possibilities are endless. Therefore, more companies are willing to back Ethereum infrastructures. A lot of fortune 500 companies want to work on Ethereum including Intel, JP Morgan and Thomas Reuter to name a few.

Conclusion

Due to the advent of technology and emerging trends in blockchain, AI and machine learning banking and financial organisations are looking at massive investments in digital coin. Ethereum is vastly different compared to other tokens and makes for a good long term bet for investors. Some of the top reasons why Ethereum is preferred is because it provides both a decentralised processing power as well as bandwidth which means that more organisations are likely to adopt the coin.

So if you are looking at investing in cryptocurrency, you can look at Ethereum as an excellent option for 2019 through secure exchange platforms like Coin Switch.

Are you satisfied with where you are now in your career? Do you want to improve your skills? Would you like to gain more knowledge in your field?

Then it is time for you to look into training courses that will elevate your career in the human resources (HR) and recruitment arena.

Keeping the Jar Full

You cannot pour from an empty cup. When you want to be able to train your sights on the best candidates and recruit the best people for the right jobs, you yourself must be equipped with excellent skills and know-how.

To keep you updated with the latest trends and the most up-to-date knowledge in recruitment and HR, seek out relevant HR training courses in Dubai.

Continuous education is a crucial tool for you to advance in your chosen career. Professional development programs aimed to equip you with the necessary information about HR and recruitment practices will help you to always be head and shoulders above, among the best in the world.

Here are some training courses that you can consider getting so you can keep on rolling with the world’s cream of the crop:

1. Master’s Certificate in Human Resource Management

If you want to earn practical skills in and update insights in all of the key areas of HR, have strong belief in practical, competency-based, and real-world learning experiences, and prefer a shorter and less complex way of verifying your knowledge, then this course is for you.

This intermediate course focuses on strategic workforce planning and HR development. It will help you understand HR’s role in the organisation especially in outlining a comprehensive and detailed approach to designing and implementing, and maintaining an effective strategic workforce plan as well as an efficient HRD strategy that is aligned with career and leadership management.

HR professionals who lack formal academic qualifications, those considering transferring to an HR role, or seeking qualification from SHRM can also benefit from this module.

2. Best Practice Recruitment

To avoid costly recruitment mistakes as well as attract and create high performance people to be part of in achieving a company’s goals, you will need to learn the rules of attraction.

Gaining insights from among the world’s most experienced recruitment and training experts, you will also be able to comprehend the critical recruitment steps to ensure a uniform and professional process.

You will also utilize a 360-degree approach to efficient recruitment, save time and money by learning from the best practices employed by global experts, and have a simulated exercise on interviewing and assessing properly. There are many agencies out there, but the best usually offer virtual human resources approaches.

3. Talent Management: The Key to Organisational Success

Finding the key to organisational success lies in finding the right talent.

Gain valuable insight into the world of talent management by building a business case, developing a succession planning model, and investing in performance management courses to nurture high performing team members, among other topics rich in creating, executing, and maintaining HR strategies.

HR specialists up to senior HR executives can considerably enhance their set of skills in not only transactional HR but also, more importantly, in well-planned and tactical approaches in the field.

4. Certificate in Resource Management, Recruitment and Talent Planning

If you are involved in the recruitment, selection, and sourcing of talent in your organisation, then you must enrol in this course.

Understand the factors that affect organisational processes like resourcing, recruitment, and talent management as well as the importance of effective inductions and transition to onboarding. Learn how to use social media and other strategies to attract top talent.

After taking the course, you will then be able to identify proper resourcing and recruitment methods as well as be able to efficiently carry out interviews that will lead you to the right people for specific roles.

If you are involved in the recruitment, selection, and sourcing of talent in your organisation, then you must enroll in this course. One easy way to qualify is to get an HR certification online if you don’t wish to go through the traditional schooling scheme.

 

5. Certificate in HR Administration

Would you like to deliver top-notch services to your HR team and the whole organisation, create and execute effective HR procedures and administrative systems, and provide administrative support with regard to employee matters? How about gaining a comprehensive understanding of human resources management and its different functions, activities, and processes?

If so, enrolling in this certificate course will allow you to effectively learn about all employment processes including recruitment, selection, training, and other related areas. It will also improve your interpersonal communication skills that are crucial in successfully navigating difficult situations.

The Path to Success

With years of experience in training recruitment consultants in the UAE and other HR practitioners in the region, companies that offer these training courses have already amassed skills and know-how that you can take advantage of.

You will also benefit from specialist insights on topics that cover compensation and benefits, employee engagement, HR policies, labour law, succession planning, talent management to interviewing and performance appraisal.

These quality courses conducted by industry experts arm you with practical HR and recruitment skills. Leading training providers who partner with professional organisations such as the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Association for Talent Development (ATD) can significantly increase your chances in charting a path to success in the fields of HR and recruitment. 

AUTHOR BIO

With over 20 years of experience in B2B marketing, Annick Nuyens first worked in the hospitality service industry and then moved to the knowledge industry. She currently works for Informa in the Dubai office, where she oversees marketing for public and in-house training courses, conferences, exhibitions and managed events across the Middle East and Africa.

Did you launch a brand new website in the past few days? Is this your first time operating a website with the intent to draw in traffic? Of course, every website needs to pull in visitors in order to turn a profit or remain relevant. You want your website to pull in high traffic numbers, but getting to that point can prove challenging. Brand new websites rarely take off the day they’re launched and pull in a million unique visitors. Fortunately, a few tactics and strategies can boost your website’s traffic with relative ease.

Build A Website That Looks and Performs Well

First and foremost, your website needs to be attractive and professional looking. Nobody wants to visit an ugly or poorly optimized website with any frequency. First-time visitors should come to your website and feel like they want to return multiple times afterwards. A properly designed website should also perform well with no error pages and no dead links. For the best results, you should take the time to optimize your website in both user experience and user interface.

Make Sure The Site Is Populated With Quality Content

gui 2457113 1280

The actual content found within your website matters more than you might realize. Without a doubt, quality content is necessary to rank in search engines and keep visitors interested. They should come to your website and be able to find exactly what they want to know. This holds true whether your website sells a product or service, or provides information and guidance. Content is king on the Internet, and your website needs to be filled with useful, high-quality content whenever possible.

Advertise and Market Your Website (When It Makes Sense)

If your website sells products or services, then advertising might be a smart path to grow traffic. Marketing your website on various social platforms or through traditional ads can lead to excellent results. Nobody will visit your site for products or services if they don’t know it exists after all. Then again, advertising requires a lot of money, so you might not feel comfortable with this option. Creating and displaying ads on other sites can pay off, but you’ll need to be strategic about this particular solution.

Never Count Out Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is still as important today as it was 10 years ago. The strategies and concepts behind SEO have changed in that time, but its effectiveness has not. Undoubtedly, you’ll want to invest in the time and effort to optimize your website for search engines. When a search engine grades your website as quality and above the competition, then your site will rank higher in searches. Everyone knows the websites on the first page of Google results see more visitors than those on the second page.

For better SEO results, you’ll want to analyze what your competitors are doing related to SEO. Some of their strategies might work incredibly well for your niche or industry. A tool like the one found at https://seojet.net/blog/seo-competitor-analysis-tool can help you discover what the competition is doing. From there, such information can inspire your own SEO results, and more knowledge on the competitions’ strategies is never a bad thing to hold.

In the end, your website doesn’t have to spend months struggling to attract visitors. You can see a fairly quick boost in traffic by implementing these strategies and others. A high quality website that serves a given niche properly will see its traffic numbers creep upward over time. With the inclusion of SEO, you’ll see even better results over time as well. Never assume that your website won’t see traffic growth because solutions are available to boost your site into the stratosphere.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are critically important to a business. Even managers unfamiliar with the term will understand the idea: KPIs are simply the body of data about a business that can be used to gain insight into its efficiency and profitability. Ideally, KPIs will be easy to gather and query from existing accounting or HR records and will provide data that can be used to make meaningful management decisions.

Many facets of business are relatively easy for a manager to observe: sales figures, operating expenses, safety records, and employees’ schedules should be plain as day. However, since IT typically plays a “behind the scenes” role, it can be difficult to assess just how productive the department is, especially if managers don’t have a background in that line of work themselves.

Measuring Everyday Operations

As with any department, the most important thing to observe with your IT workers is their daily productivity and cost-effectiveness. Some KPIs commonly used to determine day-to-day efficiency include average ticket response times, the percentage of orders resolved, and customer satisfaction rates.

Measuring Crisis Response

As anyone who has worked in IT knows, sometimes there are fires to put out. A team that works efficiently on most days might still not be well equipped to troubleshoot a serious unexpected issue. Measure your IT department’s resiliency in crises by looking at system downtime, the average time it takes the department to return to their usual tasks, and the profit lost during service outages.

Subjective Data

While the goal of KPIs is to provide an entirely objective analysis of an organization, it can also be useful to gather subjective reviews of your IT department from your customers, team members, and the IT department themselves. Subjective reports can, of course, be time-consuming to gather, and may be prone to personal biases, but they can go a long way to help shed light on the humans behind the numbers.

Planning for the Future

The most successful managers will use KPIs to strategically adjust their personnel for the future, always striving for both greater day-to-day efficiency and resilience when faced with tougher problems. Weak organizations merely improvise their responses to issues, and middling ones will have codified plans but limited experience implementing them. Strong organizations, on the other hand, have a robust plan for almost every situation, seasoned employees, and a strategy to continue growing stronger in the future based on the weaknesses identified by KPIs.
Knowing how to interpret and respond to KPIs is just as important as collecting them.

Disappointing KPIs may indicate it’s time for hirings or firings, reassigning tasks, or an equipment upgrade, and encouraging KPIs may mean that the business has room to expand. In an IT department, replacing old gear, outsourcing tasks to outside consultants, and focusing on employee development will typically yield the greatest results.

Does Your Business Need an IT Upgrade?

If your KPIs are revealing it’s time for an equipment upgrade or outsourced IT services, contact a reputable IT company as soon as you can. They should have the best ideas on how to tackle an issue and get it resolved quickly.

Negotiating a pay raise can be an important step in your career. With a raise now, you improve your future earning potential, and you could save nearly $400,000 over the next 30 years if you invest your $5,000 raise in an account that earns a six percent return. Successfully negotiate and land your next raise when you take eight easy steps.

  1. Showcase your Performance

You may think you deserve more money, but you must prove your worth and value to the company before your boss will give you a raise. Provide data and details as you showcase your performance.

Start with a list of your measurable achievements. Have you landed a lucrative client or tackled a complicated video production project? Maybe you’ve mastered a new skill or earned an advanced degree that will benefit your company. Outline these achievements as you prove that you’re worthy of a raise.

Next, record significant contributions you’ve made to the team and the company. Have you maintained a good attitude during challenges, diffused a stressful situation, built relationships, or stepped into a leadership position without being asked? List any specific contributions like these to illustrate examples of when you went above and beyond the call of duty.

Now analyze your job responsibilities. If you’ve taken on extra duties or your job description has changed, ask for extra money to compensate for the extra time and effort you put in each day.

You’ll also want to share any praise you’ve received from your boss, coworkers or clients. Print emails or share details about the specific instances when you received verbal accolades for your performance, attitude or actions, proof that you add value to the company.

  1. Know the Numbers

Do your research to discover what your position is worth and calculate the exact raise you want before you meet with your boss. Talk with job recruiters, check out salary sites like Glassdoor or Payscale or talk with other employees in your industry to verify the going rate for your position.

  1. Focus on the Company

While you may want more money because your rent increased or you’re expecting twins, focus on how your raise will help the company rather than on your personal financial situation. Ensure your boss understands that your raise will equip you to continue to improve the company’s bottom line.

  1. Negotiate Perks

An increase in your pay rate is nice, but remember that you can also negotiate perks, especially if your boss feels reluctant to give you more money. Consider asking for extra vacation days, flexible time off, telecommute opportunities, tuition reimbursement, specialized training, or stock options. These perks could improve your morale, help you achieve work-life balance or open doors of opportunity.

  1. Prep your Boss

Talk to your boss in advance about your desire for a raise. With advance warning, your boss can review your performance and current salary and begin thinking about the ways you benefit the company.

  1. Schedule the Meeting

Avoid discussing a raise during a busy or slow season, after a financial slump, or before or after your boss’s vacation. Instead, choose a time when your boss is likely to feel relaxed or after you’ve created a stellar ad presentation or made a significant contribution to the company.

  1. Prepare for a No

Despite your best negotiations, your boss may refuse to give you more money. The way you handle this news can determine your future success, so be prepared to negotiate for perks or request to revisit the raise issue in six months. Additionally, ask your boss to identify performance achievements, move you to a different position with more responsibility or provide additional training that will qualify you for the raise you want. As a last resort, consider finding a different job where you can receive fair compensation or grow in both your career and paycheck.

  1. Remain Professional

Because negotiations can be challenging, do your best to remain calm, humble and relaxed. Stand firm in your accomplishments, but don’t be cocky, greedy or entitled. Also, don’t threaten to quit because empty threats could affect your job.

You can successfully negotiate a raise with these eight easy steps. They prepare you to ask for more money and receive the pay you deserve.