Content about Labor

It is hard to believe, but a quarter of the year is now history. Why are some businesses thriving and others not doing as well? 

The gap can be explained comparing and contrasting the best versus the rest.  

The best have strong business models. These organizations have clients and allies, not customers. They have ongoing revenue streams and strong relationships in the supply chain. 

The rest think, say and act “we hope customers do business with us.”

In the spirit of collaboration and partnership, several of Santa Clarita’s leading business organizations will host the SCV Leadership Awards on Thursday, Aug. 16, at the Hyatt Regency Valencia from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Family businesses often don’t reach the third generation, due to lack of passion or entrepreneurial skills by that point. But three Santa Clarita-based businesses – all with a national and global reach – have arrived at the third generation of family employees or are well on their way to doing so.

There are small businesses run by families, and then there are large, rapidly growing, double-family, family-run companies.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in September, AMS Fulfillment has grown to some 500 full and part-time employees and is, in part, responsible for the lack of industrial space available in the Santa Clarita Valley. In April, the company opens its 13th warehouse in the Valencia Industrial Center. And it has more than doubled the number of people it employs in the past year.

As small business owners breathe new life into our economy, a number of issues keep them up at night – namely, how to keep their operations secure and growing even in the face of the ever-changing pressures. Among their concerns are how best to:

When you purchase a red velvet cupcake at Kupcake Kitchen, know that owner Lisa Jurado’s entire family was involved in making it for you.

In 2010, when the public relations specialist turned her baking hobby into a full storefront business on Bouquet Canyon Road, Jurado enlisted her then-unemployed husband and her parents, in-laws and children to help with the bakery.

The Signal, being essentially a local paper, sometimes doesn’t cover all of the breaking national news.

Being an intrepid columnist for The Signal (the newspaper hasn’t quite recognized that yet, but it will after this), I wanted to get the scoop on legislation from Washington being signed into law today.

In any economic state, and even more so in an unhinged economy, new global competitors and challenges abound ranging from the uncertain successes of emerging markets, to the instability of the skills gap and quality of the workforce pool. The upswing in emerging markets has placed significant pressure on traditional industries to enhance competitive competencies; a strong workforce at the foundation.

Document, document, document… These words are a common mantra for employment attorneys and human resources professionals alike. “If it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen.” While documentation is essential to providing a solid defense in the event of employment-related claims, the documentation format and choice of wording are equally vital.

In other words, your documentation of the employment relationship can be the difference between winning and losing an employment lawsuit.

Starting up a restaurant is considered a riskier venture than most, and with good reason. Eating and drinking places have the highest failure rate of any retail business in the industry, with more than twice as many failures as furniture stores, car dealerships and apparel stores, a 2005 study by Cornell University found.

The true failure rate has been tough to determine, but the accepted statistic by the National Restaurant Association is that 30 percent of all restaurants fail within the first year of opening.

A law practice is built one case at a time. But a successful law business is built upon victories, reputation and referrals.

When the Santa Clarita-based law firm Owen, Patterson & Owen took on pharmaceutical giant Merck & Company Inc., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, it became a saga of David and Goliath proportions.

“We were the first in the nation to file suit against Merck July 21, 2001,” said partner Richard Patterson.

For those of us who did not go into the business of practicing law, we’ve grown up watching dramatic primetime television shows from “Perry Mason” to “L.A. Law.” But the riveting moment, in which a jury or judge pronounces the “Guilty” or “Innocent” verdict, is the culmination of a tremendous amount of time spent doing research, taking depositions and in discovery. And actual verdicts occur far less than imagined.