How can a small business survive and grow in the current climate
These are tough times for small businesses. Weak businesses are disappearing, whilst the stronger businesses survive and grow. So what can businesses do to ensure that they are amongst the winners?
These are tough times for small businesses. Weak businesses are disappearing, whilst the stronger businesses survive and grow. So what can businesses do to ensure that they are amongst the winners?
There are 3 key steps:
- Be clear about the Business priorities
- Make the most of your resources
- Grow a great workforce
STAGE 1
It is essential that a Business is clear about the things that are critical to make it successful. These things might include raising levels of income, improving customer service standards or reducing costs of running the Business. Discussions need to take place amongst the senior team to jointly agree what needs to be done, how it is to be achieved and on what timescales. When agreement and ownership has been achieved these key actions need to be encapsulated simply and published as the Business Goals.
These Business Goals then act as the focus when decisions need to be made in the Business. If proposed actions are not seen to aid achievement of the Business Goals, then questions need to be raised about whether resources should really be allocated to these tasks now or whether they should be shelved as not essential to the Businesses interests at this point of time.
STAGE 2
The next thing to do is to ensure that you are getting the most from your existing resources. Your staff are probably spending their time on performing tasks that were deemed important sometime in the past. They need to be aligning what they do each day with what the Business requires. If what they do is not adding value in some way, they need to change what they are doing.
Staff should be encouraged to agree with their supervisors tasks (Personal Objectives) that deliver the Business Goals. These Personal Objectives should have clear standards/targets that are required and dates to achieve these standards/targets by.
STAGE 3
Lastly you need to grow a ‘great workforce’. A Business lives or dies by the way the staff perform. People respond in different ways when asked to ‘step up to the plate’ in performing new tasks to a good standard. Some staff naturally respond well and do all they can to push the business forward. These people deserve good feedback when tasks have been completed well, and encouraged to grow themselves as the Business grows.
Others might struggle to perform to the levels the Business requires. These staff need to be given clear targets to aim for, and if they cannot reach these standards alternative work needs to be considered elsewhere in the Business, or, in extreme circumstances, removed from the Business using Disciplinary Procedures.
In conclusion, following the above guidelines should give small Businesses the best chance of surviving and growing, assuming that they have developed good products/services and have identified a place in the market for these products/services
MALCOLM JONES FCIPD
HR SERVICES DIRECTOR
IKDEVELOPMENTS Ltd.
01243 538835