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It goes without saying that a lot of businesses struggle with their bottom line every now and then. Companies are incredibly volatile these days, given the current financial climate. Staying on track can be intimidating at times for both employers and employees.
Most people who succeed in business ventures have a good sense of balancing both tangible and intangible resources when the need to tighten belts arises.
In the game of profiting, it’s a constant juggling act between driving more business to spur growth and maintaining business costs to a minimum. If you want to stay ahead, you need to be on top of all the components of your business—in terms of both assets and liabilities.
As your business gradually moves toward the growth path you’ve set, you can expect a lot of realignments and sacrifices along the way. The consequence of change is never easy, and at times, it can even be costly. But growing pains will become much harder if you turn away from them instead of addressing them head-on.
Communication and Collaborative Policies
The impact of sharing insights and listening in to your team should never be underestimated. At a time when connection is badly needed, you have to revisit your communication, and collaborative policies bring back that sense of working toward a shared purpose.
You need to help team members remember that the organization they are part of values their input, especially during a time of crisis. Coming up with company-initiated activities that will let everyone roll up their sleeves, talk about what’s essential, and come up with solutions together can reintroduce values that your company stands for—open communication and teamwork.
When receiving feedback, you must maintain professionalism and demonstrate genuine enthusiasm in hearing them. Give special attention to those who work on the front line as they are the best people to give you real-time feedback on your clients’ sentiments.
Transparency and warmth are essential in a trust-based working relationship. Face-to-face discussions are always ideal, but at times when it’s not possible for you to be physically present, you can always explore other means. Videoconferencing equipment is something you may want to invest in to save you from the extra cost that comes with the necessity of having to be in two places at once.
Celebrating Hard Work
Nothing trumps negativity like a tremendous amount of reinforcement and positivity does. Taking the time to celebrate milestones with your team can help them feel motivated and be inspired to go to work every day, knowing that what they do is valued.
Other than the feeling of being valued, being regularly recognized for a job done well propagates respect among peers, which will, in effect, give opportunities for your team to embrace the culture of appreciation.
Preemployment Policies
In relation to showing respect, an unrivaled form of regard is going to work at your best self.
Regardless of where your company is headed toward, policies that you’ve already set in place before employment should be non-negotiable. When it has something to do with a person’s frame of mind, you should take measures as much as you can, with the resources available to you, to get a good sense of whom you’re about to work with.
Setting expectations for conduct and performance at the onset will dictate the standard that your potential employee will thrive for. Abusive behavior toward substance or alcohol should be detected before employment.
You’d have to spend more in making sure that your potential candidates are at par with your company standards. To pass a drug test is as basic as you can get.
Not all policies are for employees. There are those that help you protect your interests and at the same time ensure the safety of your team while working with you. Alcohol or substance abuse should be detected as early as possible so as not to compromise other integral parts of your business, especially if the work requires a safety-critical environment.
In the long run, paying for tests before finalizing employment saves money in the sense that you will benefit from the knowledge and be able to come up with appropriate action plans.
Protecting Resources
When changes come, adjustments are inevitable. But there are also things that have to remain for longevity’s sake.
Tangible company resources should be deemed as assets that have to be maintained and cared for at all times. Though they are not equally as valuable as the others, like human resources, your business will not likely operate at a maximum level without the much-needed hardware. It pays to have policies that safeguard company-owned properties and save on maintaining costs.
Renewal of Promises through Policies
What you don’t want to happen is for people that you work with forget your company mission in response to a temporary change. When conflict escalates, as a direct consequence for unexpected company-resource readjustment, you need to do a quick inventory of things to prioritize and take a look back at your core values.
This is why company policies and procedures are crucial. What you commit to your employees in writing should have a substantial bearing or should carry with it more weight regardless of where your company may be heading. This especially holds true for a start-up businesses and small-business owners as they are more susceptible to minute adjustments.
You need to be able to communicate your policies effectively to your team and provide clarity through a renewal of commitments before you incur further loss caused by employee dissatisfaction.
There are specific policies that you also need to review to see if they still fit the current company culture given the changes that you have implemented or those that you intend to achieve sometime in the near future.
Regardless of what they may be, keep an eye out for policies that deal directly with your team’s welfare.