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5 Small Business HR Trends

11/8/2021

 
The Human Resources field is fast-changing. As a result, with more people competing for the same roles, it’s up to you to assess who fits your company. These 5 Small Business HR Trends will help you position your firm better to get the right people.
 
Knowing what works in human resources can give you the edge you need. Finding the right people for your company means knowing where to look, what to do, and the risks associated with the search.
 
Here are 5 small business HR trends you need to look out for. All these can promote your growth and give you the best talent pool that fits your needs.

1. Stronger Onboarding, Better Offboard

As you’re considering your onboarding and offboarding process, there are a few important elements that can make the entire process easier. From expanding internal talent mobility to longer onboarding journeys, the most valuable trend you will start seeing is the need for solid pre-start training and stronger offboarding.
 
For onboarding, pre-training is vital to accelerate your fresh hire’s productivity index. HR departments are looking to improve pre-start training, as well as helping their talents connect through more extended admin and team introduction. You can also expect the company to look towards more virtual meetings for their growing remote workforce.
 
As for offboarding, you want to make sure that the entire process of parting with employees is as sensitive and amicable as possible. If you’re a small business, you want your ex-employees to remember your team fondly, even in the face of separation. In addition, you want ex-staffers to help spread a good reputation, especially if you plan on headhunting.

2. Improve Agility with Freelancers and Proper Compensation

The pandemic has changed the way people look for a job. Human resources needs to keep up with this process. Your HR team needs to do whatever it can to ensure you’re never short-staffed for the productivity you need for a small business. With that said, there are a few changes to make now.
 
You would need to consider pulling in part-timers for starters, especially if you have seasonal peak business traffic. Even hiring freelancers can be helpful if you need a certain level of agility if the hiring cycle is taking too long. Freelancers are great for project-based tasks, as well as getting a quick infusion of expertise without outright hiring.
 
For small businesses, especially if you’re a financial organization, you need to remember that proper compensation drives headhunting efforts. You want to be different in a new normal where people understand their value and won’t take below the minimum. So, keeping a good balance of compensation and job security needs delicate focus.

3. Social Media Hiring Is Getting Bigger

Social media has become one of the most significant places to hire some gems in the rough willing to work for small companies. Further, social media hiring is on the rise. It can help smaller businesses build wider networks. The challenge to human resources is how to utilize this process while avoiding its legal and ethical issues.
 
The problem with hiring in social media is the potential bias that may come out from seeing the job searcher’s profile. Of course, your attitude can be anything taken from Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, but an implicit bias may form from seeing a potential employee’s online behavior.
 
As we know, lifestyle, age, gender, and race are among the protected classes by law. There’s also the potential to perform pre-employment background checks by accident, which can be an issue under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
 
At the same time, you want to be careful with the potential for negligent hiring. On the other hand, you want to make sure that the person you hire does not become a trouble for the business. This careful balance is a must if to have an impartial hiring process for finding suitable candidates.

4. HR Teams Need to Look Towards Holistic Well-being

Before the pandemic, one of the growing trends was testing for office setups that maximized productivity. Unfortunately, many of these were fads with no long-term value or events that only satisfied visuals and nothing more. Now, small businesses need to take good care of the health of their employees - both physical and mental.
 
Employees are experiencing more stress than ever. The pandemic increased people’s pressure, together with familial concerns, job security, and productivity expectations. These make people feel burnt out and, together with potential health issues, create a dip in their well-being.
 
Apart from building skills, human resources teams now need to commit to helping their employees’ holistic health. A holistic view includes improving their mental health and teaching them additional life skills that enhance their outlook. Whether it’s better teambuilding, financial planning, or promoting connectivity, helping employees feel engaged can improve overall retention.

5. Cloud Automation is the Future of HR

HR departments are going away from paper trails, printed documents, and physical folders. Instead, companies are pushing towards automating their systems via cloud, with automation towards workflow, recruitment, and leave management software. As a result, human resources are leaning more on technology, and it’s not changing any time soon.
 
Competing for the attention of valuable talent means faster processing and digitizing as much as possible. Moving to the cloud as soon as possible can help give you the level of agility your small business needs to compete. Small business HR needs efficiency, as well as better technological innovations.
 
Cloud-based automation can improve employee attrition while reducing costs for the business. It also helps with the general compliance requirements of the company, including management of legal requirements for hiring.
 
Privacy requirements and business regulations are ever-changing, and consistent compliance is possible with the right technology.

The Bottom Line

Now is the time for human resources teams to inspire their teams. You can push for better practices that will help towards better retention, brand reputation, and overall worker health. As you cultivate more meaningful relationships for your small business inside out, it is up to your HR to drive its recruitment to the next level. We are confident that these 5 Small Business HR Trends will help you position your firm better to get the right people.
 
Follow these trends and make the most out of the people you hire. In today’s world, it’s hard to get the right people to do the job. As companies recover, you want to be on top of things from onboarding to offboarding. Each extra mile you take pays dividends for brand growth down the line.
 
 
For more information, consider our article on A Financial Survival Guide for Small Business Entrepreneurs. See your HR software choices at K2’s CPE website Accountingsoftwareworld.com. Additionally, consider our CPE courses on Accounting Software.

9 Small Business Owner Tips for Overcoming Pandemic Challenges

11/8/2021

 
Managing a small business amid the coronavirus can be frustrating and feel nearly impossible. As a small business owner, you need tips for overcoming pandemic challenges. This article will provide 9 tips for overcoming pandemic challenges. Fortunately, there are a ton of great resources that can help you navigate every challenge that crops up. With these tips, you can steady and even grow your business regardless of the pandemic’s effects on the economy.

Know What Pandemic Challenges You Are Up Against

While many label the pandemic’s effects as a recession, it is unlike any other recession in history. And some sectors continue to grow despite the pandemic’s crippling impact.

  1. Learn the ins and outs of adapting to the COVID-19 era.
  2. Familiarize yourself with digital marketing to attract customers.
  3. Track sales trends—including customers’ e-commerce habits.

Tip-Try New Tools and Techniques

Adapting to the coronavirus era involves incorporating new tools and techniques to save your business time, money, and effort. Test out these programs and procedures to see if they are right for your business model.

  1. Incorporate automation to save staff hours and effort.
  2. Use technology to support accounting and other facets of the business.
  3. Add free tools to your business management arsenal.

Spend Time Tackling In-Store Projects During COVID-19​

If you have a physical retail location, using a prolonged closure to make store upgrades is a smart tip. Think about these upgrades during the COVID closure.

  1. Decide on a remodeling plan and act in stages.
  2. Make easy, impactful cosmetic upgrades like cheap carpeting and fresh paint.
  3. Know about retail restrictions and proper guidelines for reopening.

Summary

When it comes to running a business during the coronavirus, it helps to know what you are up against and to have a list of tips to fight the COVID-19 pandemic that works. As a small business owner, we hope you find these 9 tips for overcoming pandemic challenges helpful. Implementing new tools and techniques can help propel your business beyond expectations, even during the shutdown, and taking steps to improve your customers’ in-store experience is another smart way to pass the time during a closure. The best part is that all these tasks can help your business survive - and even thrive - despite the recession.

Cash Flow is Vital

4/5/2021

 
It is a rare company owner that has no concerns about money. Above all, management of cash flow is vital. Starting a business means you are responsible for your company’s success. After that, you are the person who ensures your employees can afford to put food on the table. In addition, you must prepare for the unexpected.

With money being of such vital importance, you must control the finances of your business. Cash flow management is how you do this. We have highlighted three ways you can manage cash flow.

Security: it is about protecting your business in its early stages

Cash flow management is perhaps the most critical aspect of business finances. In other words, it is all about ensuring your incoming cash and outgoing expenses are balanced. Similarly, your goal is to make sure your company is not spending more money than the business is making.

Get this wrong, and your business will not survive, no matter how good its products or services are. Claiming business survivability is not scaremongering. As this article explains, poor cash flow management is why 82% of small businesses fail within their first five years.

In addition, there are some other reasons companies fail before their sixth birthday:

  • 79%: not having enough money to start with
  • 77%: poor pricing (covers products but can also relate to salaries)
  • 73%: over-optimism when it comes to sales targets

As these numbers show, cash flow management is a matter of life or death for small businesses. The basic principle is making sure you have enough available cash to keep your company afloat. It would be best if you built a cash reserve. How much? Some experts recommend having three months of expenses. Others recommend six months. I would suggest speaking to your CPA or financial adviser to determine the correct amount for your business. The following two sections of the article explain how you can have cash in the long and short term.

Long-term: loans give you capital to invest in tangible assets

Nearly eight out of 10 startups fail because they do not have sufficient capital from the outset. There are many reasons for this, but there is no doubt a key reason is those founders do not want to start in debt. Similarly, they probably did not have cash sitting idle in their personal bank accounts.

This blog post states that 73% (just 9% lower than the number that fails within five years) of small businesses prefer to forgo growth than commit to borrowing. In addition, there is guidance like Profit First from Mike Michalowicz suggesting ways to manage your business while minimizing borrowing.

Let us make one thing clear: companies need to grow if they are going to survive. Growth is never more critical than at the early stages. Loans can help your business to grow because they free up capital to invest in tangible assets. Tangible assets mean getting an office if needed, purchasing office equipment, or securing vital machinery.

There are two primary types of business loans your company can get:

  • Government grants: the U.S. and Canadian governments have a range of finance programs for new businesses, with the interest rates often lower than private banks.
  • Bank loans: private financial institutions have a broad selection of loans available for startups, with the borrowing amount generally higher than state-run schemes.

Obtaining loans can be a sensible way of using cash flow management to grow your business at a vital stage in its existence, done sensibly. Therefore, review if a loan can take your company to the next level. After that, make a business case for getting a government grant or bank loan.

Short-term: business cards let you buy now and pay later

You have been on a cash flow journey in this article already. We highlighted that cash flow is the biggest reason companies do not last more than half a decade.  After that, we showed a correlation between cash flow and the number of businesses that do not borrow.

Similarly, we now expand your cash flow tools further. It would help if you used sensible lending to advance your company while it finds its feet. In other words, we highlight how to use the short-term borrowing of business cards to manage your cash flow.

Business cards give your startup immediate access to cash to purchase necessary items. Business cards can cover an enormous range of things. For example, you might use one to buy fuel to drive to a networking conference, pay for the hotel while you are there, and cover dinner with a prospective client. Incurring expenses in front of revenue is a norm for many startups, especially we are trying to secure new (perhaps their first) clients to grow the company.

Three types of business cards for cash flow management

There are three main types of business cards:

  • Credit cards: this review highlights APR, annual fees, and introduces the key things you should look for when deciding which card to get.
  • Fuel cards: this guide explains that supermarket fuel cards can be a good way for small businesses to cover their travel expenses. Grocery reward cards often provide everyday discounts for fuel and provide discounts if your business requires grocery supplies. This article rates the best fuel cards for business, as does this one. One supplier, Wex, provides more information on fleet cards.
  • Trade cards: this page covers the benefits construction companies can get from using a trade card to pay for their expenses.

Using business cards can be a rational method of managing cash flow to cover the day-to-day costs of running a company. Tracking expenses may be more manageable when you employ a buy now and pay at a more convenient date approach. However, this only works if you treat charges and payments with respect and diligence. You must pay for things you need and use the future income that you know is guaranteed on a timely (monthly?) basis. Therefore, assess if a business card can help you manage your costs.  Select the one(s) that best suit your needs. In conclusion, the management of cash flow is vital.

Cash flow provides vital security for the business

Security is the reason for using cash flow management, with business loans and business cards potentially a good way of achieving it.

We are not suggesting that you load your company up with debt. However, to get the cash you need, it can help to borrow sensibly, particularly when customer receipts trail the services delivered. Cash flow is vital at all times, good or bad. Instead of turning your nose up at loans or credit cards and seeing your business fail due to insufficient capital, think about how cash flow tools can provide room to focus on running the business rather than managing cash shortfalls.

Understand the latest in cash flow technologies in our CPD courses on accounting and customer support systems in small business accounting with add-ons or mid-market accounting, which includes cash flow systems.

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    Authors


    Ward Blatch
    Ward provides consulting and training services as the Managing Director of K2E Canada Inc. He joined K2E Canada in 2005 and is responsible for the Canadian operations of this international consulting group, which provides professional development technology education for accountants across Canada and the US. Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia and can be reached at ward@k2e.ca.

    Tommy Stephens
    Tommy is one of the shareholders in K2 Enterprises, affiliating with the Firm in 2003 and joining as a shareholder in 2017. At K2, Tommy focuses on creating and delivering content and is responsible for many of the Firm's management and marketing functions. Tommy resides in the metro Atlanta area. You may reach him at tommy@k2e.com.

    Randy Johnson
    Randy is a nationally recognized educator, consultant, and writer with over 40 years experience in Strategic Technology Planning, Accounting Software Selection, Paperless, Systems and Network Integration, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning, Business Development and Management, Process Engineering and outsourced managed services. Randy can be reached at randy@k2e.com


    Bernie Smith
    Bernie coaches businesses to develop meaningful KPIs and present their management information in the clearest possible way to support good decision making. As the owner of Made to Measure KPIs, he has worked with major organisations including HSBC, Airbus, UBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds and many more.

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