Inc. Magazine November 2017

1 — JOB CREATION AND HIRING Businesses that add as few as 10 positions— especially for groups such as veterans and ex-felons—may be eligible for job-creation tax credits or cash incentives. 2 — LOCATION AND CONSTRUCTION New construction or locating your office in a distressed or rural area may entitle you to state or local tax breaks. 3 — TRAINING Some local agencies give grants of up to 50 percent of training costs for developing and retaining current employees. 4 — SUSTAINABILITY INVESTMENTS Implementing green energy strategies can qualify your company for federal and state tax credits. “As you get to the next level in your career and your life, there are these moments when you become challenged, and your idea of yourself can get challenged, too.” —Piera Gelardi, co-founder and executive creative director of Refinery29 • inc.com/women-who-lead TOP…

ASAN EXPLANATION for entrepreneurial success, the vision thing has been taking its lumps lately. Great ideas are a dime a dozen, goes the argument; what’s scarce is people who can execute on them. While the importance of execution is indisputable, a string of conversations we’ve had recently at Inc. has reminded us all that greatness always, always starts with the idea—or, to be precise, an idea backed by ferocious belief. On the stage of Inc.’s Women’s Summit, we hosted the great Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx and the youngest self-made female billionaire in history. Spanx’s origin story is famous—Blakely cut the feet off pantyhose and improvised a slimming product that solved a problem for women everywhere. The idea was simple, effective, and brilliant, but it would have died in Blakely’s Atlanta…

The Jargonator Swatting the buzzwords of business STEVE JOBS-ING IT • / • verb. Plotting to return to a company that you’ve been kicked out of, as Jobs did with Apple. This is, reportedly, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s plan. Meanwhile, he’ll be circling Uber HQ disguised as a Toyota Prius. Source: Business Insider CYBERLOAFING / • verb. “Engaging in nonwork online activities while ‘on the clock.’ ” Of course, this is Inc., so reading the Jargonator at work counts as mission-critical research. Source: BBC AT LIFE IS GOOD, the Boston-based apparel company, asking candidates about their prior salaries was a crucial part of the hiring process, especially for senior positions. When the company hired a president about a year ago, “we relied on candidate salary expectations to educate us about the market, particularly…

SALESFORCE.COM In 2015, the San Francisco-based CRM company analyzed its payroll and then spent $3 million to close the pay gap it found. This year, it spent another $3 million topping up salaries when another audit showed that the gap had returned. “It’s a moving target,” wrote EVP Cindy Robbins at the time. “It must be consistently monitored and addressed.” BUFFER The social media management platform, based in San Francisco, posts a list of its salaries, as well as the formula it uses to determine them. The transparency has helped the company get closer to a near-zero wage gap for those in similar roles, says spokesperson Hailley Griffis, and company-wide, the gap between male and female employees is now $2,400 per year, down from the $9,500 found in the first salary…

RECENT RESEARCH SHOWS that if you don’t hire an employee early in your startup’s lifespan, you probably never will. Among startups that launch with no employees, “the bulk of hiring occurs in the first few years of existence,” says researcher Robert W. Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “After a few years, the hiring rate of these companies drops off very fast.” Fairlie and Javier Miranda of the U.S. Census Bureau analyzed 2,460 startups in the Kauffman Firm Survey that launched without employees. (The survey, which followed the same batch of companies over seven years, didn’t include company types that were likely never to hire, such as independent consultants.) According to these researchers, by three years after startup, 54 percent of firms had hired at least one employee;…

“We typically give out rewards in a private meeting as opposed to holding up one person in front of the entire company. The reward could be financial or recognition or a leadership position, but regardless, the individual setting works better than handing out an employee-of-the-month trophy.” — STACY ROBISON Co-founder and president, CommunicateHealth (health) NO. 3,319 2017 INC. 5000 RANK 96% 3-YEAR GROWTH $5.5M 2016 REVENUE “We have a fishbowl in the middle of our bullpen. Whenever someone does something above and beyond, someone else writes a comment about it and drops it into the bowl. At our monthly staff meeting, we read the comments aloud and everyone acknowledges their co-workers in a way that’s fun and collaborative. I keep track of the comments, and at the end of the year, the employee who received the…