As a small business owner, you’ll know how difficult it can be to balance everything you need to do. From keeping your employees happy to staying ahead of the competition, it’s fair to say that business owners have a number of plates to spin at once. However, over the last 20 years, there has been a 63% increase in the number of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) here in the UK, so it’s clear that managing a business is still a worthy and profitable venture.
Now, in 2019, there is a myriad of popular practices that business owners are taking on in order to not only making running things smoother but to hopefully boost business too. Here are four SME practices that could make your business even more successful this year.
Remote working
The days of 8 hours cooped up in an office are slowly starting to dwindle, with many employers offering remote working as an option to their staff. Enabling workers to utilise and manage their own time to develop independence is one way to not only improve productivity but also boost employee satisfaction. The office environment can become suffocating, and having the option to work elsewhere every now and again offers a welcome break and hopefully, as a result, improved work rates.
Transparent employee communication
Whilst this may seem obvious, transparent communication between employees and management is still only a recent practice. The younger generation of workers wants to have a more holistic view of the business and understand why, how, and what they’re doing contributes to the big picture. Your team should feel ‘in the loop’ and be on the same communicative level as management through regular meetings, shared calendars and free-flowing socialisation between all of your teams.
Health and wellbeing
Over the last few years, there has been a big push towards making sure employees are happy at work, whether that’s through playful office design, more opportunities for socialisation or more pastoral care services. As well as happiness, it’s also your responsibility to ensure your staff are healthy too. This can be encouraged through team exercise classes, mindfulness training, workplace step-counting competitions and, at the very least, ergonomic and comfortable workspaces.
Social and environmental responsibility
As a business, you’re responsible for the people you manage and your customers, as well as the environment you work within and for this reason, recently there’s been an emphasis placed on the social and environmental responsibility of businesses. It’s vital that your company is inclusive, diverse and tolerant, and that you take steps to develop a social purpose too. For example, give back to your local community through your work.
A successful company will also do its bit for the environment by recycling as much as possible and introducing cycle to work schemes, for example. When you put social and environmental missions before profits, you’ll find that in turn, the reputation of your business will increase dramatically.
Here at Barron & Co, we offer accounting services to small business owners across Birmingham and help them to ensure their companies are performing at their best. If you’re looking to boost your business this year, it’s a good idea to work with a professional corporate accounting service, so that you can focus on what you do best. To find out more, get in touch with us today.