A worker shortage might be excellent news for the economy! Maybe, just maybe, firms will awake and see workers’ substantial contribution to their success. Some CEOs take unconscionable sums and destroy their firm’s value, unlike many frontline workers who create value. During the pandemic, CEOs took vast sums as they laid-off workers. Some firms sought bankruptcy protection, but hat didn’t stop their greedy CEOs from snatching hefty bonuses.

We have a worker shortage and firms are scrambling to hire whomever is willing. Some firms, like McDonalds have paid signing bonuses. Canada’s Loblaw and its competitors paid a bonus to frontline workers when the pandemic began. They stopped it after three months in unison with their competitors. When government confronted them about this collusion, they claimed it happened independently. Go figure! It’s like you caught your three-year-old with her hand in the cookie jar and she said, Mom, “Cookie Monster did it!”

Worker Shortage Inevitable With Shoddy Treatment

Loblaw’s behavior disturbs me. During the bonus period, profits soared. Per se, that’s no problem. I favor firms making profits. To be sure, I am against government taxing profits. But paying workers the bonus during the pandemic shouldn’t hinge on profits. It was just right. Meanwhile, my wife and I shopped at a Loblaw store and workers continued their excellent service despite Loblaw’s slight.

Leaders must realize frontline workers are the firm’s foundation and treat them well, not as cogs turning out CEOs bonuses! When employers treat workers like machines, they disengage. Gallup said, over several decades, they and other researchers found a strong link between employees’ workplace engagement and the company’s overall performance. Yet employers refuse to accept this. But there is good news: surveys show some firms break the mold and treat workers with respect: Cisco, Apple, Accenture, IBM, FedEx are a few.

Next Quarter’s Earnings Drives Businesses

Companies see next quarter as the prize, so they exploit workers and fudge next quarter’s numbers. I repeat: I am against government taxing business. However, I favor the Biden Build Back Better provision to tax share buybacks that the House passed, and it is before the Senate, even if it might have only a modest effect on share buybacks. Companies shouldn’t be spending billions buying back shares while exploiting workers.

Firms should present to shareholder meetings options to use buyback funds. Choices might include effects of paying bonuses to frontline workers with buyback funds. Shareholders should hear about potential strategic investments, too. Another option is stopping buy-backs for five years after layoffs. Executives, too, shouldn’t get bonuses within five years of layoffs. We must get rid of worker exploitation that enhances CEO bonuses.

With the passage of time, there has been continuous development in the world of solar energy, nuclear power, smart grid, electric vehicles, rail transportation, aerospace, aviation, and navigation. Therefore, this trend has increased requirements for power equipment performance. These days, the first generation of silicon materials is about to hit the theoretical limit that was originally determined. The third generation features a wider bandwidth, electron saturation, and thermal conductivity. In this article, we are going to talk about a new type of material called silicon carbide ceramics. And we will specifically discuss the applications of silicon carbide ceramics in different industries. Read on to find out more.

As far as potential is concerned, silicon carbide ceramic is the most mature choice. As a matter of fact, many of its indicators are much better than silicon. For example, it has a 300% higher bandwidth. Apart from this, the theoretical operational temperature of this material is 600 Celsius. Now, let’s talk about the different uses of this material.

Electric Vehicles

Since these modules can have a sustainable, intelligent, low carbon, and green development, we can say that the advantages of this material are primarily reflected in the following three aspects.

1. Simplification of the power supply Network and boosting the frequency

2. Increasing the temperature and reducing losses

3. Improving efficiency and reducing the volume

As far as power conversion is concerned, components made of silicon carbide cal can help improve performance. In electric models, the active load-bearing component is the electric motor. These motors have different rotational speeds. Therefore, these motors require repeated acceleration and acceleration during the process of driving. Therefore, the working condition is more complex compared to the speed regulating system.

Transmission Systems

If you have a silicon-based device, your best choice is are switch made from silicon carbide. This is because this material has an extremely low resistance. Therefore, it is an ideal choice for applications where high frequency and temperature are involved.

The thing is that this material can reduce the loss of power by up to five hundred percent. Moreover, it is possible to reduce weight and size by over 40%. Therefore, it can help have a positive impact on the grid configuration and adjustment of energy strategy.

Solar Energy Field

If you are looking for advice that can be used in solar inverters, silicon carbide is an ideal choice. It comes with a small size, reduced costs, and much higher efficiency. Typically, the conversion efficiency of these inverters is around 96%. But if silicon carbide is used, it is possible to increase the efficiency to 97.5%. In other words, these devices can help produce power losses by 25%. Apart from this, these inverters can help boost conversion efficiency significantly.

LED Lighting

These days, the popularity of LED devices that use silicon carbide is on the rise. The thing is that these LEDs are much brighter and can reduce the cost by up to 50%. They are 200% brighter than other types of lights.

Similarly, they have 10 times more thermal conductivity. In routine life, you can apply this type of lighting for different types of environments, such as color display devices, information screens, indoor lighting, and signal lights. The thing is that they can help reduce pollution and cost.

Holistic Visual Branding Basics for Entrepreneurs and Small Business owners.As a small business owner or a start up entrepreneur, you’re driven to succeed in your business while facing many challenges along the way. You need to wear multiple hats and prioritize your spending as you are dealing with a limited budget.This article will cover 5 Practical Branding steps needed to differentiate your company from competition, position your business as a premium provider and instill trust and confidence in your clients.1. BRAND ESSENCEThink of your favorite brands. How do they make you feel? What do they represent to you? Do you have an emotional connection with them?As Scott Montgomery, Creative director for Bradley and Montgomery Advertising puts it, “A brand is exactly two things: it’s the promise your offering makes to people, and the clothes that promise is dressed in.”Branding is about what your customers feel with regards to services you provide or products that you sell. This includes their overall experience with your company from the very first contact to seeing your visual materials, using your product or service and staying in touch.You can influence what your target audience feels by carefully distilling answers to some of the following questions and delivering on your Brand promise every time a customer interacts with your company:What does your business stand for?
What are your company’s essence, deep conviction, long terms goal?
How unique are you from your competition?
What is your target audience?2. BUSINESS NAMEOnce you understand your business’s brand essence, it is time to come up with a name. The name needs to be meaningful, unique, memorable, and easy to pronounce.There are multiple brainstorming techniques you can use to come up with various words. Some could be metaphoric, based on company’s place of origin, descriptive, others consisting of two words combined into one or completely new sound combinations.Then compare your ideas and see which name:Sounds stronger
Feels right
Works internationally
Has a strong emotional appeal
Easy to read and pronounceOther important considerations also include the chosen word URL availability as well as Trademark availability.3. LOGOTYPE DESIGNLogotype is one of the most important steps in your business’s visual identity. It’s the face of your business and the main visual icon that signifies all of the business essence that you’ve discovered. Visual execution of a logotype design shouldn’t be taken lightly and needs to be based on all of the discovered information about your brand, competitors, and the target audience.Each industry has its own visual language, it is important for the designer you work with to:Explore the existing competitive landscape to make sure your logotype stands out
Brainstorm and use free association as those are valuable techniques that help to arrive at the unique combinations
Sketch multiple ideas to insure that your logotype will go beyond the common ideas
Skillfully design/draw the final logotypesFinal logotype selection should be based on how well the visual represents the brand essence. On a more practical note, you need to make sure that the logotype works well in smaller sizes as well as black and white for use in various applications.4. CORPORATE STYLEYou did a great job on discovering your business’s unique personality, came up with wonderful name and gave it an essence-filled face… You now need to discover its aura, its style and emotional/visual presence. This step is important as it works as a foundation for all of the visual materials to be based on.ImageryYour choice of imagery is important to consider when creating a style. Have you seen photos of people with fake smiles that just don’t look genuine? Or, perhaps, you’ve encountered clip art imagery that just doesn’t communicate professionalism?Your choice of visual language should be true to what your brand stands for. It needs to communicate your values and your true convictions.I find that it is always better to:Showcase real people with genuine emotions and a caring attitude
Carefully choose royalty-free illustrations and photography on the basis of professionalism and genuineness of the imageryTypographyTypography is another major component of the overall brand. Like brands, fonts have personalities – they could be serious, light-hearted, casual, and friendly. As with imagery, you need to practice caution when selecting fonts – some (Comic Sans) just don’t communicate professionalism and others (Arial) just lack in personality.Look through multiple font resources to purchase:Unique fonts that highlight your brand and have a great personality to them
The fonts are inexpensive and worth every pennyColor PaletteThe last Corporate Style consideration is the Color. Colors don’t just visually influence us, they make us feel and behave differently. Various colors are used in healing environments to help aid patient’s recovery or for pain management. Colors are also known to induce appetite (orange), relax (green) or excite (red-orange).See which color combinations work best with your brand’s essence:
Choose a couple of primary colors that would be used as main identifiers for your brand
Also pick some secondary ones for the background elements
Select accent colors that could be used in limited amounts to highlight important elementsOnce the overall style has been established, all of the findings should be entered into a Brand Guidelines document. It could be as basic or as elaborate as needed.The basic ones usually contain the above mentioned Corporate style elements and help in creation of consistent and professional looking visual materials.5. VISUAL MATERIALSDepending on your Sales and Marketing strategy choose various venues of customer communications.You need to consistently and creatively apply your established corporate style to:Social networks pages (Linked-in, FB, Twitter)
Website +Online communications (depth of information and credibility)
Stationery (business cars, letterhead and envelopes)
Print materials (brochures, handouts, ads)
Presentations (PowerPoint)
Business documents (Invoicing, Estimates and Forms)Following the above 5 steps will ensure that your business’s true essence successfully shines forth. You will have done a great job by putting your minds, hearts and souls together. You will have created a visual foundation for your business to succeed in differentiating your company from competition, positioning your business as a premium provider and instilling trust and confidence in your clients.